UVA Basketball: Thijs de Ridder, finally, is on board, completing 2025-2026 roster

Thijs de Ridder is a reality for UVA Basketball, finally – and an intriguing prospect, as an incoming college freshman at the ripe old age of 22.

A grown-ass man at 6’8”, 216, the only question that I have is, why is de Ridder going the college route now, at 22.

The numbers that he’s put up in his five seasons of club ball in Europe suggest that he’ll be a dude in the ACC – playing in Liga ACB in Spain last year, against the likes of Real Madrid, Valencia Basket and Barcelona, de Ridder averaged 10.1 points and 5.0 rebounds in 21.9 minutes per game, shooting 53.3 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from three.

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ICYMI

• UVA Basketball: Trump visa issues impacting international recruiting?
• UVA Basketball Notebook: Nonconference scheduling, Thijs de Ridder

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We’ve all read about de Ridder having given consideration to putting his name in the NBA Draft pool the past couple of years, and just based on the numbers, I can see it.

It’s probably the case that he (and his agents/advisers) see the value of him getting a year against college kids in the U.S. in terms of enhancing his draft prospects.

To get that chance at UVA under first-year coach Ryan Odom, de Ridder will have to earn playing time at the four spot in a battle with fifth-year senior transfer Devin Tillis, a rugged 6’6”, 215-pounder who averaged 13.7 points and 7.8 rebounds per game at UC-Irvine this past season.

Tillis can also put the ball in the hole – he shot 53.5 percent from the field and 39.5 percent from three last season.

I’d love to get a look at them going against each other in practices and scrimmages this summer and fall.

Seems like an iron-sharpening-iron kind of thing would be going on there.

The other frontcourt spot has 7’0”, 235-pound Johann Grünloh, who averaged 8.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.6 blocked shots in 23.0 minutes per game, and shot 47.2 percent from the floor and 35.7 percent from three, as a 19-year-old in the German BBL, and Ugonna Onyenso, a big (7’0”, 247) center, who was a four-star, Top 50 recruit out of high school, but hasn’t done much in his three seasons at the college level, averaging 3.0 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.6 blocked shots in 12.9 minutes per game in 64 games across his three seasons at Kentucky and Kansas State.