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Virginia Forward Elijah Saunders Enters the Transfer Portal

Matt Newton

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Virginia junior forward Elijah Saunders has entered the transfer portal, as first reported by Sam Kayser of League Ready on Wednesday evening (April 2nd). A former San Diego State transfer, Saunders goes back into the portal with one year of eligibility remaining after starting 26 games in his first (and seemingly only) season at UVA.

While no player's entrance into the transfer portal can be that shocking in this day and age, especially in the midst of a coaching change, this move is at least a little surprising. Six Virginia players entered the transfer portal on the first day it opened and nine total Cavaliers had entered their names within the first four days of the transfer window. Then, nothing. UVA had gone the last five days without any other players entering the portal, which initially seemed to indicate that the two remaining scholarship players set to return - Elijah Saunders and Elijah Gertrude - were in fact going to stay in Charlottesville for the 2025-2026 season. For Saunders at least, something changed.

A 6'8", 240-pound forward from Phoenix, Arizona, Saunders started the first 20 games of the season before suffering a foot injury and missing three games. He came off the bench for the next three games after that before finding his way back into the starting lineup, but he never recaptured his best level of play from earlier in the season. Before his injury, Saunders scored in double-figures 12 times in those 20 games and was shooting above 40% from beyond the arc. After his injury, he scored in double figures just once and shot 26.3% from three in those final nine games, culminating in an 0/7 shooting day from three-point range in Virginia's loss to Georgia Tech in the second round of the ACC Tournament.

Despite the injury derailing the end of his season, Saunders still had a productive year for the Cavaliers, starting in 26 of 29 games and averaging 10.4 points and 5.0 rebounds per game and shooting 42.0% from the floor and 34.7% from three, all-career best marks for the third-year forward. With him not joining the initial exodus of Cavaliers entering the transfer portal, it appeared that he was going to be one of the two holdovers from last season's roster entering the new era of Virginia basketball under Ryan Odom.

Instead, Saunders becomes the 10th Virginia player to enter the transfer portal this offseason, joining junior guard Isaac McKneely, junior guard Andrew Rohde, sophomore guard Dai Dai Ames, freshman forward Jacob Cofie, redshirt freshman center Anthony Robinson, sophomore center Blake Buchanan, freshman guard Ishan Sharma, sophomore forward TJ Power, and redshirt freshman guard Christian Bliss.

Elijah Gertrude is now the lone scholarship player expected to return for Virginia next season. There is some help on the way as the Cavaliers now have two of the top five high school players in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the class of 2025 coming to Grounds next season in Chance Mallory and Silas Barksdale, but Ryan Odom and his staff will certainly need to bring in a haul of transfers in order to construct a competitive roster for the 2025-2026 season and beyond.

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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Matt Newton
MATT NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.