Former UVA Basketball player and fan favorite Ben Vander Plas grew up in Ripon, a town of about 8,000 people in southeastern Wisconsin.
It was an adjustment when he arrived in Charlottesville to play one season for the Cavaliers in 2022-2023.
“That was one of my favorite years of playing basketball, for a lot of reasons,” he said, noting that his parents lived in Charlottesville that season and saw most of his home games.
These days Charlottesville must look like Mayberry to Vander Plas, 27, whose professional career has taken him to Warsaw – home to about 1.8 million people. He plays for Dziki, one of two men’s clubs in the Polish capital that plays in the top pro circuit.
“This is probably the biggest city I will ever live in. I have never been around anything that big before,” said the 6-foot-8 Vander Plas, sitting in a coffee shop in Warsaw one recent morning.
Some refer to Warsaw as the New York City of Eastern Europe – which may be a stretch, though there is plenty of culture and certainly some horrific history from World War II told in several modern museums.
Vander Plas, after starring at Ohio for four seasons, averaged 24.8 minutes, 7.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per contest in regular-season play in 2022-2023 as Virginia was co-champions of the ACC. He broke his hand in practice prior to an ACC Tournament game against North Carolina and missed the rest of the season, which saw the Cavaliers reach the ACC Tournament final, falling to Duke, then get upset by Furman in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Wisconsin native was part of another Virginia upset before that.
While with Ohio, he helped the Bobcats defeat the No. 4 seed Cavaliers in the NCAA Tournament in 2021.
“That was a fun time in basketball career,” Vander Plas said of that big win with Ohio. “Some of my friends to this day were on that team. Getting to that game and being able to come out with a win was really fun for us and the fans of Ohio and the students who were back on campus at that time. It was really cool.”
That victory came against the backdrop of a long-time relationship between the Vander Plas family and Tony Bennett, the former head coach of the Cavaliers. The pro player’s father, Dean, was a teammate with Tony Bennett in college and named his oldest son to honor the connection.
Vander Plas played high school ball with his father as the coach, as did his younger brother Sam – a former assistant coach in college. Their sister, Taylor, played Division III basketball at Cedarville in Ohio. Their father is in the Hall of Fame at Wisconsin-Green Bay, as is Bennett.
Vander Plas ended his college career playing for Bennett after he obtained three degrees, including two masters’ degrees, at Ohio. He was an Academic All-American in college.
“The fans took a liking to me and my mustache,” he says, with a smile, of his season in Charlottesville. “I tried to get out to the community as much as possible to get to know people,” as he attended Cavalier games in football, baseball, soccer, and women’s basketball.
Was he surprised Bennett stepped down before the 2024-2025 season? “The timing of it … the thought there was college basketball without Tony was kind of a surprise,” Vander Plas said. “You see a lot of bigger name coaches the last few years stepping down. It is weird seeing college basketball without Tony.”
His father keeps in touch with the former Virginia head coach, who played and coached in New Zealand after his NBA career.
Now Vander Plas is forging his own overseas career; he went with the Cavaliers on a tour of Italy prior to the season he played in Virginia.
He returned to Europe to begin his pro career in Germany in 2023, and he is represented by Octagon, with one of his agents in Indiana with Czech roots and another one in Poland. After finishing his college career, Vander Plas could not work out for NBA teams due to his broken hand.
“In Germany, it was really, really good basketball. I was the youngest guy on the team and was just not getting on the court,” he said. “I decided to move to Lithuania, which was an unbelievable, cool basketball experience. They love basketball there. The games are really fun. The next year I went to Sweden. Basketball is not as big in that country, but our games were fun. Our gym was packed. I lived in a smaller town there and got to know a lot of the people. Being here is a complete switch from last year. Our friendly games were really fun. We got to meet the fans. I am excited for this year.”
Vander Plas had had to adjust to hoops in Europe and a few different rules.
“You hear about the physicality,” he said of basketball in Europe. “The bigs push each other around and get real physical without calling fouls. That was something I had to get used to, for sure. I have a pretty good feel for it. It has been fun to show my basketball IQ.”
“I started thinking about playing professional pretty early. There were some guys at Ohio before me that ended up playing overseas,” he added. “I always thought that was something I wanted to do.”
But not forever – for now he will take advantage of the opportunities to see the world.
Besides the clubs he has played for in Europe, he has also been to Greece, France, Latvia, Belgium and England.
“I definitely don’t want to play forever,” said the player with Dutch roots. “I love playing basketball, but it is a job now, which makes it different. I want to be able to get away from it before I have bad feelings toward it. I don’t have a super specific age in mind (for how long to play). I am comfortable to say I don’t want to play forever.”
Notes
Other former Virginia men playing overseas this season, according to eurobasket.com, include (not a complete list)
- Armaan Franklin (France)
- Jacob Groves (Czech Republic)
- Devon Hall (Turkey)
- Sylven Landesberg (Austria)
- Taine Murray (Australia)
- Kody Stattman (Australia)
- Mike Tobey (Spain)
- Tomas Woldetensae (Italy)
Former Elon and UVA hoopster Emily Maupin played for a pro team in Poland for part of the 2024-2025 season. She transferred to Liberty from Elon but never played for the Flames. She scored 2,256 points during her career at The Covenant School in Charlottesville.
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David Driver
