Virginia’s Leon Bond III hits the transfer portal

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Virginia’s Leon Bond III entered the NCAA transfer portal on Saturday, posting on social media: “Thank you Virginia. You will have my heart forever.”

The personable redshirt freshman is a 6-foot-5, former 4-star recruit from Milwaukee, and will have three years of eligibility remaining. Bond was a top-70 prospect coming out of high school who could never find his niche at UVA.

With Bond leaving, Virginia has two available scholarships to fill via the portal, and has reached out to at least 20 players presently in the portal (see related stories on this site).

Bond redshirted his freshman year, and told this reporter he was fine with that decision because he didn’t feel that he was mentally and physically ready for ACC basketball his first year in Virginia’s program. However, many observers believed Bond would be a good frontcourt match with fellow Virginia forward Ryan Dunn this past season.

Even Tony Bennett agreed in the early season that Bond could be an “X-factor” for this Cavaliers team, but that never came to fruition.

Bond appeared in 24 games for UVA this past season and averaged 4.1 points, 2.8 rebounds and 0.6 assists. While he was impressive against some of the Cavaliers’ lightweight opponents, he could never replicate that production against Power Five foes.

The lack of a reliable jumpshot limited Bond’s playing time. According to Synergy Sports, the forward made only 24 percent of his jumpshots, going 8 for 33.

He scored in double figures in four nonconference early season games: 12 vs. Tarleton State, 16 vs. North Carolina A&T, 14 vs. North Carolina Central and 10 vs. Morgan State.

Bond couldn’t carry that success over against stronger opponents, scoring a combined 26 points (12 for 48; 25-percent shooting) against Power Five opponents as opposed to making 22 of 32 shots (69 percent) in the four games that he posted double digits.