Updating Virginia's Scholarship Chart With Christian Bliss Reclassifying

At the end of March, the idea that Virginia could eventually fill out its scholarship allotment for the 2023-2024 season was a far-fetched fantasy. In the two weeks prior, the Cavaliers had lost Kihei Clark, Jayden Gardner, and Ben Vander Plas to graduation, Isaac Traudt, Kadin Shedrick, and Francisco Caffaro to the transfer portal, and Armaan Franklin and Reece Beekman to the NBA Draft.

Even with UVA's incoming freshmen class - which at the time was a two-player group consisting of Blake Buchanan and Elijah Gertrude - and the addition of mid-year transfer Dante Harris, Virginia was only slated to use seven of its 13 scholarships for next season as only four players remained from the 2022-2023 roster.

Since then, however, the Cavaliers managed to bring in five more players in an impressive roster reconstruction effort by Tony Bennett and the UVA coaching staff. In the month of April, Virginia secured commitments from Merrimack transfer forward Jordan Minor, St. Thomas transfer guard Andrew Rohde, Oklahoma transfer forward Jake Groves, and three-star forward Anthony Robinson out of the high school recruiting class of 2023.

Add in the decision of Reece Beekman on May 31st to withdraw from the NBA Draft and return to Virginia for his senior season and the Cavaliers were back up at 12 scholarship players for their 2023-2024 roster. With one vacant scholarship spot remaining, there was no guarantee that UVA would do anything with it, as Tony Bennett often leaves one open scholarship and then uses it to reward a deserving walk-on.

As the summer wore on, that outcome seemed more and more likely as it appeared that the Cavaliers were done recruiting the transfer portal and the high school class of 2023. Instead, four-star point guard Christian Bliss, a 2024 recruit who had verbally committed to Virginia back on June 30th, decided to reclassify to the class of 2023. Bliss officially signed with Virginia on August 2nd and will enroll at UVA this fall, but plans to redshirt the 2023-2024 season.

Rather than spending the next year dominating at the high school level, Bliss will get an immensely valuable opportunity to learn the ropes within Virginia's program, work out alongside veteran guards like Reece Beekman and Dante Harris, and get acclimated to college basketball and college life in general.

“We are excited and fortunate to add Christian to our basketball program,” said Virginia head coach Tony Bennett. “Christian is a talented and competitive guard who plays with great feel. His redshirt season will allow him to focus on his strength and conditioning with coach (Mike) Curtis as well as his overall skill development. Christian comes from an outstanding family who values a degree from the University of Virginia.”

With Bliss reclassifying to 2023, the Cavaliers are now bringing in a four-player 2023 signing class and, more importantly, Virginia has now filled the last of its 13 scholarships for the 2023-2024 season, a prospect that seemed impossible a few short months ago.

Here's a snapshot of Virginia's scholarship picture for the next four seasons:

Note: the 2020-2021 season continues to be a "freebie" season that does not count against a player's eligibility. The graphic below shows Virginia's scholarship picture with the assumption that every player utilizes the extent of his eligibility. For UVA's roster, that applies to Reece Beekman, Dante Harris, Jordan Minor, and Jake Groves.

2023-2024	2024-2025	2025-2026	2026-2027
Reece Beekman (Sr.)	Reece Beekman (5th)	Dante Harris (5th)	Leon Bond III (RS-Sr.)
Jordan Minor (5th)	Taine Murray (Sr.)	Isaac McKneely (Sr.)	Blake Buchanan (Sr.)
Jake Groves (5th)	Dante Harris (RS-Sr.)	Ryan Dunn (Sr.)	Elijah Gertrude (Sr.)
Taine Murray (Jr.)	Isaac McKneely (Jr.)	Andrew Rohde (Sr.)	Anthony Robinson (Sr.)
Dante Harris (RS-Jr.)	Ryan Dunn (Jr.)	Leon Bond III (RS-Jr.)	Christian Bliss (RS-Jr.)
Isaac McKneely (So.)	Andrew Rohde (Jr.)	Blake Buchanan (Jr.)	-
Ryan Dunn (So.)	Leon Bond III (RS-So.)	Elijah Gertrude (Jr.)	-
Andrew Rohde (So.)	Blake Buchanan (So.)	Anthony Robinson (Jr.)	-
Leon Bond III (RS-Fr.)	Elijah Gertrude (So.)	Christian Bliss (RS-So.)	-
Blake Buchanan (Fr.)	Anthony Robinson (So.)	-	-
Elijah Gertrude (Fr.)	Christian Bliss (RS-Fr.)	-	-
Anthony Robinson (Fr.)	-	-	-
Christian Bliss (RS)	-	-	-

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