UVa Lands New Zealand Center Jack Salt

Jack Salt

Virginia head coach Tony Bennett played and coached in the country of New Zealand, and his connections there likely helped him land his most recent recruit, 6’10”, 230-pound center Jack Salt. Multiple outlets are reporting and TheSabre.com has confirmed that UVa has accepted a verbal commitment from Salt, a senior out of Westlake Boys High School in Auckland, New Zealand.

Salt becomes the third member of the high school class of 2014 to verbally commit to the Hoos, joining Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, VA) shooting guard BJ Stith and Greater Atlanta Christian Academy (Atlanta, GA) forward Isaiah Wilkins .

While we are working on gathering more information on Virginia’s newest commitment, in this article published on September 9, New Zealand news organization Stuff.com writes that Salt “is considered a potential star of the Kiwi game.”

Whitelaw Reid of the Daily Progress reports that Pitt, Boise State, and St. Mary’s were also interested in the New Zealand standout.

Salt appears to be the “mystery” big man recruit discussed on TheSabre.com message board in recent weeks, following UVa’s cancelling of St. Maria Goretti (Hagerstown, MD) senior center Martin Geben ‘s official visit that was scheduled for the weekend of September 6-8. Geben’s coach told TheSabre.com at the time that the UVa staff informed his talented prospect that there were no more low-post scholarships available in Virginia’s 2014 class.

Overall, UVa has one scholarship left to use in the class of 2014. Bennett and company are hoping to close out the class this Friday, when 4-star senior combo guard Robert Johnson makes his college pick. Johnson, a product of Benedictine (Richmond, VA), has Virginia in his final four along with Florida State, Indiana, and UNC.