UVA Basketball fans were waiting with bated breath to learn the decisions of Mamadi Diakite and Sam Hauser regarding their plans for next fall.
And then, one of the dominoes fell, in a good way, with the news that Hauser, a 6’9″ junior, is committing to UVA.
Still waiting, then, we are, for word on Diakite, a 6’9” redshirt junior, who entered his name into the NBA Draft portal last month after the ‘Hoos won the 2019 national championship, but left open the option of returning for his final year of eligibility.
In an earlier version of this analysis, posted about an hour before the Hauser commitment news, I asked the question: which is bigger?
The answer, still: short-term, obviously, Diakite, if only because he’s eligible to play in 2019-2020, and Hauser, as a transfer, we’d have to presume would not be.
Though … more on that in a minute.
First: Diakite
Diakite averaged 7.4 points and 4.4 rebounds in 21.8 minutes per game in 2018-2019 at Virginia, but stepped it up in the 2019 NCAA Tournament, averaging 10.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game during the Cavaliers’ title run.
And not that one little moment should matter, but Diakite also hit maybe the biggest shot in UVA basketball history, a buzzer-beater that sent the Elite Eight game against Purdue to overtime.
Diakite was one of four members of the NCAA championship team to declare early for the draft – alongside expected lottery pick De’Andre Hunter, projected late-first-round pick Ty Jerome, and Kyle Guy, whose draft stock is rising, with some mock drafts now having him going in the second round.
Diakite has not been getting that kind of love on the draft circuit. He did get an invite to the G League Elite Camp, but struggled there, averaging 4.0 points and 1.5 rebounds in 19 minutes per game, shooting 17.6 percent (3-of-17) from the floor and 0-of-3 from three-point range, in two camp scrimmages.
Ten players from the camp received invitations to the NBA Draft Combine, but Diakite was not among them.
Diakite worked out for the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings last week, and talked after the workout with the Kings about the process for deciding his next steps.
“It is a very crucial time for me. I only have a few days left before I have to make my decision. Somewhere tonight or tomorrow I will have feedback from this team and the team I played with yesterday. From there, we’ll see where it goes. It’s very important to get feedback,” Diakite said.
This year, college players like Diakite can return to school without penalty if they officially withdraw from the draft process by the May 29 deadline.
May 29 is, at this writing, tomorrow.
Diakite could obviously still ride the draft process to its conclusion and decide to go pro to play overseas or in the G League, a developmental league affiliated with the NBA.
His comments after this week’s camps seem to indicate that he’s thinking draft or return to college.
“You can look back at the time when people didn’t get to do this. If you were trying to test the waters, you were done. You had no way back to college. Now, we are fortunate to come to great facilities like these, meet Hall of Famers, and go back to school. With that experience, you know how much you got to work and what your weaknesses are,” Diakite said.
Next: Hauser
Hauser, as a 6’8” junior at Marquette, was a second-team All-Big East selection as a junior, averaging 14.9 points and 7.2 rebounds in 33.4 minutes per game, so, clearly, he can help, when he’s finally able to get on the court.
The Virginia program, you may remember, benefited from the services of Alabama transfer Braxton Key, who was granted a waiver that gave him immediate eligibility for the 2018-2019 season, in which Key was a spot starter and rotation guy on the way to the 2019 national title.
There’s no word on whether Hauser would want to seek or be eligible for such a waiver heading into next season, which would mean his immediate contribution would be serving as the anchor of the scout team, much as Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill beat up regularly on the rotation guys in 2012-2013, when Brogdon was redshirting after recovering from an injury, and Gill was sitting out his transfer year.
UVA Basketball: Down the road
Looking at the roster for 2019-2010, then, you’d have, in the backcourt, Kihei Clark, who started most of the season, and played 33 minutes per game in the NCAA Tournament, alongside JUCO All-American transfer Tomas Woldetensae, four-star recruit Casey Morsell, Key, a four-star recruit coming out of high school, and somebody from among rising sophomore Kody Stattman, Francesco Badocchi and incoming three-star freshman recruit Justin McKoy.
In the frontcourt, let’s assume Diakite returns, because I assume that, and then you have alongside him Jay Huff, finally out of a lot of guys’ shadows, Francisco Caffaro, a four-star recruit in the class of 2018 who redshirted this past season, and Kadin Shedrick, another four-star incoming freshman who we’re hearing may be redshirting next season.
If Diakite doesn’t return, I think you assume Shedrick doesn’t redshirt, and then you have Hauser part of that big-man mix alongside Shedrick, Huff and Caffaro in 2020-2021.
What this all comes down to is: Diakite returning gives you one more key veteran guy, alongside Key, Huff and Clark, to help set the tone for all the newcomers – Woldetensae, Hauser, Morsell, Shedrick, McKoy – to get them acclimated to what’s expected in the Pack-Line, the offensive sets, the rest.
An aside here, but I think the more you look at it, the more you have to realize, there’s a lot of talent in that locker room, even with all the guys leaving for the NBA.
Nobody’s minutes, really, are guaranteed. Practice and scrimmages should be fun.
Story by Chris Graham
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