Virginia Athletics Notes: Blake Buchanan Gets U19 Team USA Camp Invite

Virginia
Incoming Virginia freshman Blake Buchanan picked up a Team USA U19 Camp Invite. ~ Photo courtesy of Blake Buchanan/Twitter

Incoming Virginia men’s basketball recruit Blake Buchanan will be wearing the orange and blue soon, but first he’ll get a chance to wear a different color combination. Buchanan will don the red, white, and blue for USA Basketball at the 2023 USA U19 Men’s National Team Training Camp in June.

A total of 35 athletes are expected to take part in the camp, which begins on Sunday, June 11 in Colorado. A 12-member team will be selected from the camp to participate in the 2023 FIBA U19 Men’s World Cup Championship in Hungary. That is scheduled for June 24-July 2.

For Buchanan, this is another chance to gain experience against elite players nationally. Nearly half of the athletes have prior USA Basketball experience and 10 won a gold medal with a USA Basketball junior national team.

Others on the invite list include Kel’el Ware, who played 15.8 minutes per game last year at Oregon, Tobe Awaka, who played 10.3 minutes per game last season at Tennessee, and Ven-Allen Lubin, who played 17.5 minutes per game at Notre Dame last season. Other class of 2023 recruits include Omaha Bielew, a five-star headed to Iowa State, Trentyn Flowers, a four-star headed to Louisville, DeShawn Harris-Smith, a four-star headed to Maryland, and Cody Williams, a five-star headed to Colorado.

Buchanan previously competed at the Nike Hoop Summit in Oregon where he helped Team USA to a 90-84 win against a U19 international team. In that game, he had 8 points, 8 rebounds, and 1 steal. During his high school season, Buchanan averaged 15.2 points, 9.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 1.9 steals, and 1.9 blocks per game for Lake City as the team marched to the Idaho 5A State Championship with a 26-0 record. He was named Mr. Basketball and the Gatorade Player of the Year for the state.

More UVA To USA News

Buchanan isn’t the only Cavalier connection getting a chance to wear red, white, and blue this summer. Virginia shortstop Griff O’Ferrall, who is preparing with his team for the NCAA Tournament opener on Friday at noon against Army, received a USA Baseball Collegiate National Team training camp invite this past weekend. He joined classmate Jay Woolfolk as a camp invitee.

O’Ferrall has started all 115 games at shortstop the past two seasons. This season as a sophomore he has posted 92 hits (tied for 3rd most at UVA in a single season), 69 runs scored (2nd most at UVA in a single season), 36 RBI, and 16 steals. His .393 batting average ranks No. 2 in the ACC. That effort earned first-team All-ACC honors this season after he made the All-ACC Freshman team a year ago.

The USA Baseball Collegiate National Team training camp is scheduled for June 25-29 when a five-game Stars vs. Stripes instrasquad series will be held in Cary, North Carolina. It features 56 non-draft eligible college players. After that, Team USA will pick a 26-man roster to represent the country in friendship series against Chinese Taipei and Japan from June 30-July 12.

Virginia Teams Complete Seasons In Top 10

A pair of spring sports teams wrapped up their seasons with finishes in the top 10 at their respective NCAA Championships.

The UVA women’s rowing team claimed 10th place at the NCAA Rowing Championships on Sunday in New Jersey. That secured the program’s fifth straight top 10 finish at the national meet. The Varsity Four (Coxswain: Nora Grabcheski, Stroke: Sophia Coppola, 2: Meagan Goldsmith, 2: Kate McGee; Bow: Kelsey Gems) boat led the way with a fifth-place finish, while the Second Varsity Eight (Coxswain: Janet Conklin, Stroke: Lauren Jochims, 7: Paige Loh, 6: Catherine Williams, 5: Lauren Orr, 4: Riley Richardson, 3: Sarah Bradford, 2: Cillian Mullen, Bow: Sky Dahl) and the Varsity Eight (Coxswain: ViVi Van Ingen, Stroke: Kate Kelly, 7: Eva Frohnhofer, 6: Lauren Benedict, 5: Leia Till, 4: Jenna Hajji, 3: Larkin Brown, 2: Lily Jarrett, Bow: Elsa Hartman) were 10th and 11th, respectively.

“This was the fastest NCAA championship field ever,” Virginia coach Kevin Sauer said in this news release. “We were racing for a higher team finish than 10th but did not achieve our goal, even though every boat fought hard. We are very young, losing only three rowers and two coxswains from this NCAA squad. The future is bright but will take a commitment to training well over the summer.”

The Virginia men’s golf team, meanwhile, completed its best ever finish at the NCAA Championships by qualifying for the 8-team match play portion of the event. The previous best finish came in 2017 when the Hoos placed 10th.

As the seven seed, the Cavaliers took on No. 2 seed Florida in match play. The Gators prevailed, 3-2, in in a tight contest that was not decided until the final match on the 18th hole. The two points for Virginia came from Bryan Lee, who topped NCAA individual Champion Fred Biondi 6&5, and Deven Patel, who grabbed a 1Up win against Matthew Kress. Florida went on to win the National Championship. UVA expects to lose just one member of the roster heading into next season.

“I thought we played really well except for maybe one day in stroke play,” Virginia coach Bowen Sargent said in this news release. “From top to bottom, every day, we were pretty consistent. To make it to the second-to-last day of the college golf season, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

More Virginia Notes

  • Freshman golfer Ben James was named winner of the 2023 NCAA Division I Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman Award by the Golf Coaches Association of America, becoming the second Cavalier to receive the recognition. James posted 11 top six finishes in 13 tournaments and set a school record stroke average of 69.0 for 40 rounds of play.
  • With assistant coach Scott Brown taking the head coach job at Vanderbilt (his alma mater), Virginia director of tennis Andres Pedroso needed to fill the spot on his staff. He turned to a familiar face in Brian Rasmussen, who was a volunteer assistant coach or mentor for the Cavaliers from 2019-2022.