Scattershooting: UVA hoops recruiting, Football goes to the beach & Hootie’s golden nuggets

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Scattershooting around the ACC, while wondering if top basketball recruit Nate Ament postponing his visit to Virginia over the weekend was a good, bad or ugly thing …

Ament, a 6-foot-9 forward from Warrenton, is ranked the No. 7 prospect in the nation (No. 3 by one recruiting service) and is a sure-fire future NBA player. At least one service ranked Virginia as the favorite to land the 5-star recruit, but all that is on hold.

Ament postponed his visit to UVA, just like he postponed his visit to Kentucky in late August, with speculation that he might not make a decision until spring rather than commit and sign somewhere in November.

Meanwhile, 4-star point guard Chance Mallory, who plays for St. Anne’s-Belfield in Charlottesville, did visit UVA. Mallory had already visited Virginia Tech last week and has more visits lined up to Clemson (Sept. 20), Villanova (Sept. 28), Tennessee (Oct. 11) and Miami (Oct. 25).

Virginia has hosted two other players for visits earlier this month: Cam Word last week and point guard Keyshaun Tillery the week before. Tillery announced Monday night that he’s down to three schools — UVA, Wake Forest and Cincinnati — with a decision coming soon.

The Wahoos won’t get 4-star London Jemison, who eliminated UVA, Syracuse and Vanderbilt from his final list on Monday. Jemison, a 6-7 forward (No. 38 in the nation), will choose between Alabama, Kansas and Louisville. Virginia was given only a 1-percent chance of landing Jemison, while ‘Bama is considered the favorite.

ESPN came out with its newest Top 100 recruits for ‘25 and here’s how UVA’s targets were rated in those rankings: Ament No. 4, JJ Mandaquit No. 47, Jemison No. 48, Derek Dixon No. 51, Ward No. 53, Mallory No. 85.

Wahoos vs Chanticleers

Virginia will travel to Conway, S.C. (suburbs of Myrtle Beach) this weekend to take on a new football opponent, Coastal Carolina.

The Chanticleers are unbeaten after three games, including last weekend’s win over Temple, but they’re presently a 3-point underdog to favored Virginia (2-1).

This may be the most-anticipated game in Coastal history, surpassing the excitement of BYU coming to the beach in 2020. The UVA game has been sold out for a couple of weeks.

“It’s awesome,” Coastal coach Tim Beck said on the Sun Belt Conference call Monday. “Our fanbase, Conway, is super excited. It’s going to be a great environment. Tickets are hard to come by, I can tell you that. It should be an electrifying event. At the end of the day, that’s what college football is all about.”

Virginia has been established as an early 3-point favorite, according to Vegas Insider.

ESPN’s metrics say that the Cavaliers’ best chance to win another game this season is this weekend, a 45-percent chance of beating Coastal. According to those same metrics, UVA had a 33-percent chance of beating Maryland. Other than Coastal, those metrics note that Virginia’s best percentages to win games on the remainder of its schedule is 37-percent against North Carolina, Pitt and SMU. UNC and SMU are home games.

F-ree S-hoes U-niversity

That’s what Steve Spurrier jokingly referred to as FSU, Florida State University, back when he coached at rival Florida.

FSU is the butt of college football jokes so far this season, going 0h-for-3 out of the gate, only the third time in school history the Seminoles have started 0-3 … the first time in 1976, which was Bobby Bowden’s first season, and the other two times under present coach Mike Norvell.

Wonder if the greedy fat cats that have pushed FSU to leave the ACC are having second thoughts on investing more than $84 million on Norvell’s eight-year contract extension in the offseason? If they fire him, they’ll owe him $65 million.

In last weekend’s home loss to Memphis, Norvell’s old school, FSU mustered only 235 yards of offense and averaged 1.5 yards per rushing attempt, converting 2 of 12 third downs. QB DJ Uiagalelei, playing for his third school, was only 16 of 30 passing for 201 yards.

Hootie’s Golden Nuggets 

• Former UVA tennis stars Danielle Collins and Emma Navarro are both ranked in the WTA’s Top 10 for the first time together. Collins is No. 10 and Navarro, coming off a semifinal appearance in the U.S. Open, is No. 8, but mysteriously ranked behind Coco Gauff (No. 6), whom Navarro spanked in the last two head-to-heads, at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
• Lars Tiffany has landed the top-ranked goalie in the recruiting class of 2026, gaining Hunter Mezzatesta from Yorktown, N.Y.
• Thai-Son Kwiatkowski has decided to hang up his sneakers at age 29. Kwiatkowski put on a gutsy and dramatic show in 2017, winning the NCAA singles championship in a memorable performance.
• Even though it was negated by a penalty, how about that 65-yard catch-and-run for a TD by Notre Dame transfer Chris Tyree early in UVA’s game against Maryland last Saturday night? Tyree made it clear that he is who we thought he was, and that if he catches the ball in the open field, you ain’t gonna catch him.
• Bumped into Kenny Stadlin at the Virginia Football Alumni Club tailgate last weekend and thought back to his record 56-yard field goal that helped the Wahoos beat the Hokies in Blacksburg in 1984, as the Cavaliers went on to win the Peach Bowl, beating Big Ten runner-up Purdue. Stadlin’s record was tied in ‘95 by Rafael Garcia in a close loss at Texas.
• Make sure you tune in to “The Jerry & Jerry Show” at 10:15 a.m. this morning on your favorite podcast venue or YouTube. It’s a LIVE show and we’ll talk UVA football and more. It’s an audience-fueled show, so send in your questions and comments. We’re seen by as many as 25,000 live viewers over 15 states and every corner of the Commonwealth.