The upcoming season will see the Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball team perform well. Ryan Odom and his staff have signed San Francisco guard Malik Thomas as a scoring guard who resets the backcourt’s potential for 2025–2026 after acquiring a ceiling-raiser in the frontcourt with Johann Gruenloh.
Since he only played 16 minutes in his freshman year, Thomas was granted a waiver for an extra year of eligibility, and he will now attend Charlottesville for his graduation season. He has a 4-star, 94.98 total rating and is listed as the 41st transfer overall by On3.
Although Thomas began his career at USC, it wasn’t until he moved down a level in 2023 that he saw the floor often. In 2024–25, the 6-foot-5, 205-pound guard really came into his own, averaging 19.9 points, 2.1 assists, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game—the most in the West Coast Conference. He had three-point shooting percentages of 39.4% (5.3 attempts per game), 85.1% from the charity line, and 44.4% from the field.
Last season, he started every one of the Dons’ 34 games, including their NIT victory over Loyola Chicago, in which he scored 36 points. He played all forty minutes, grabbed seven rebounds, had five assists, and shot 3-for-8 from outside the arc and 17-for-17 from the free-throw line.
Odom’s original roster now has five transfer guards, all of whom were proficient three-point shooters at their prior stop, and this is a big acquisition. This past season, Thomas was named to the First Team All-WCC and was a finalist for the Lou Henson National Player of the Year Award. He will be bringing all of his superstar skills to Charlottesville the following season.
In addition to having more guards than Shawshank, Azkaban, Guantanamo, and Fox River put together, Odom and his team have done a fantastic job of adding a few large guys to complete their roster. If the 2025–2025 season began today, the roster would look like this:
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Keep checking back since we anticipate adding one or two more people to this list before it is finished. Everything will be available at Streaking The Lawn.
