It was reported earlier this week that Elijah Saunders was still “seriously considering” a return to Virginia. With UVA in desperate need of front court pieces, and particularly experienced forwards, that seemed to present an opportunity for Ryan Odom to reconstruct his roster for next season with a returning contributor from the previous Virginia team.
Instead, Saunders took a visit to Maryland starting on Friday and saw what needed to see in order to make his commitment to new head coach Buzz Williams and the Terrapins. Saunders announced his commitment to play his final season of college basketball in College Park in a social media post on Saturday (April 12).
In what ended up being his lone season at Virginia, Saunders appeared in 29 games with 26 starts and averaged 10.4 points and 5.0 rebounds per game and shot 34.7% from beyond the arc and 42.0% from the field, all career-best marks. Those numbers could very well have been quite a bit better had it not been for a foot injury Saunders suffered two-thirds of the way into the season. Before his injury, Saunders shot better than 40% from three and scored in double figures 12 times in 20 games. After his injury, he reached double figures only once and shot 26.3% from three the rest of the season. Saunders was the last Cavalier to enter the transfer portal and will now finish his career at Maryland.
Another Virginia portal entry also announced his decision on Saturday, as TJ Power announced his commitment to Penn. That will be three schools in as many years for Power, who was a five-star prospect coming out high school and played limited minutes as a freshman at Duke before transferring to Virginia, the school that finished as the runner-up in his high school recruiting process. Power began the year as a starter, but quickly lost his spot in the rotation and spent the majority of ACC play on the bench. The former blue chip recruit will look to recapture his confidence and get a fresh start with Fran McCaffery and the Quakers.
Virginia transfer TJ Power —- a former Top-25 recruit —- has committed to Penn, according to his agency @PrioritySports.
A seismic get for Fran McCaffery.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) April 12, 2025
Of the 10 Cavaliers who entered the transfer portal, eight have now announced their commitments to other schools. Two are remaining in the Atlantic Coast Conference, as Dai Dai Ames is headed to California and Isaac McKneely, who led the league in three-point shooting a season ago, will play his final year of college basketball at Louisville, which also means that Virginia will have to face him twice next season. Andrew Rohde (Wisconsin), Jacob Cofie (USC), and Elijah Saunders (Maryland) are headed to Big Ten schools, while Anthony Robinson (Xavier) is headed to the Big East and Blake Buchanan (Iowa State) is Big 12 bound. TJ Power (Penn) is the only one not headed to a major conference program so far.
The two Cavaliers who have yet to make their commitments are redshirt freshman guard Christian Bliss, who did not play a single game in two seasons at UVA, and freshman guard Ishan Sharma, who played in 29 games as a true freshman and averaged 3.4 points in 12.8 minutes per game.
Keep track of all of the players Virginia has contacted in the transfer portal here: Virginia Basketball: Transfer Portal Contact Live Tracker
Stay up to date on all the latest Virginia basketball transfer portal activity, including outbound transfers from the current roster and UVA’s effort to pursue players in the portal, here: Virginia Basketball Transfer Portal: Latest News and Updates
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