The Virginia men’s basketball team pulled in its first transfer portal commitment for 2024 on Saturday. Florida State’s Jalen Warley chose the Cavaliers shortly after completing a visit to UVA.
Warley made the announcement on social media via Tipton Edits
Warley entered the transfer portal on April 19 and made a visit to Virginia late this week. After wrapping up that visit Friday, the announcement followed. UVA recruited Warley and offered him as a high school recruit in 2020. That makes this another example of someone the Hoos recruit initially coming back around to the program as a transfer with Braxton Key and Sam Hauser being recent examples. He likely hopes to follow a similar path to an NBA opportunity with his final year of eligibility in orange and blue.
As a high school recruit back in 2020, Warley carried a 4-star rating from 247 Sports and was ranked No. 34 nationally in the class. 247 listed him as the No. 3 combo guard in those rankings. He had offers from FSU and Virginia, obviously, but also Louisville, Miami, Michigan, Marquette, and Creighton.
With the Seminoles, Warley appeared in 96 games with 58 starts. That included 32 games this season as a regular starter (all but one game). For his career, he averaged 6.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.3 turnovers. He shot 42.2% overall with 29.4% from 3-point range and 69.9% from the free throw line. For those percentages, it broke down to 4.3 2-point attempts, 0.7 3-point attempts, and 2.4 free throw attempts per game.
This season as a regular starter, Warley averaged 7.5 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.1 turnovers in 24.1 minutes per game. That came on 42.4% shooting (only 7 3-point attempts) overall and 72.5% at the free throw line (74-102). Those 102 free throw attempts would have ranked second on UVA’s team as Reece Beekman led that category with 126 attempts at the line last season (95-126, 75.4%).
The Cavaliers needed to fill four scholarship slots with Dante Harris and Leon Bond III entering the transfer portal, while Beekman and Ryan Dunn declared for the NBA Draft. With Warley, Virginia adds a slashing style of offense to the roster with a player that can play with the ball in his hands or as a secondary playmaker off the ball. He also can defend multiple positions and could be used in a four-guard type of small ball lineup at 6’7” and 205 pounds.
Highlights for Warley can be found in YouTube videos here and here.
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