On This Date: De’Andre Hunter Commits to Virginia

Hunter, a four-star recruit from Philadelphia, chose UVA over offers from Maryland, NC State, Notre Dame, and Miami and joined Ty Jerome, Kyle Guy, and Jay Huff in the recruiting class of 2016.

We all know what happened next but let’s recollect anyway shall we?

After redshirting his first season at UVA in 2016-2017, Hunter had a breakout season and was named the ACC Sixth Man of the Year and made the ACC All-Freshman Team in 2018. He led Virginia to a 31-2 record, an ACC Regular Season and Tournament Championship, and the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Then, Hunter got surgery to repair a broken wrist injury suffered during the ACC Tournament and missed UVA’s next game in which nothing of significance happened and the season came to an end…

Hunter had a legendary season in 2019.

The redshirt-sophomore was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year and NABC National Defensive Player of the Year, a Third-Team All-American, an All-ACC First-Team performer, and a finalist for the Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year in 2019. Hunter and the Cavaliers won another ACC Regular Season title and were a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament again. In the epic Elite Eight game against Carsen Edwards and Purdue, Hunter scored the game-winning layup in overtime to send Virginia to the Final Four. In the national championship game against Texas Tech, Hunter hit a three-pointer to tie the game with just 12 seconds left in regulation and dropped 27 points to lead Virginia to its first basketball national championship in school history.

TIE GAME!!!! @UVAMensHoops | #NationalChampionship pic.twitter.com/p1o0lxNYSa
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 9, 2019

A couple of months later, Hunter was selected with the 4th overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks and is considered one of the best young two-way players in the league.

It has been quite the six-year run for De’Andre Hunter since he committed to Virginia in 2015 and we can’t wait to see what comes next in his promising basketball career.