ACC Basketball: Breakout candidates from each team for 2020-21 season

ACC Basketball breakout candidate – Sam Hauser (Virginia)

Few teams seem better equipped for next year than the Cavaliers, and as a key tool likely helping them even emerge as ACC favorites months before tipoff, Sam Hauser brings some always appreciated offensive firepower, especially for an already exceptional team at the defensive end like Virginia. But as a newcomer to the ACC, very few college hoops fans outside Charlottesville know about him.

Although he excelled at Marquette two years ago before transferring and consequently sitting last year out, Hauser indeed enters the ACC as a question mark, but also as one with the potential to turn into an emphatic exclamation point. The 6’8 forward averaged 14.9 PPG, 7.2 RPG, and 2.4 APG during his final season with Golden Eagles, so the star-level talent certainly exists.

Hauser’s efficiency even further separated him from his former teammates, as he shot 45.9% from the field, 40.2% from three, and 92.4% from the line. That leaves Hauser less than five percentage points away from achieving a 50/40/90 season, the type we praise Steph Curry for accomplishing seemingly every year.

Despite all this though, a role as only a reserve player likely awaits Hauser at least for Virginia’s first few games, as his inability to playing during last year’s entire season handicaps him a bit. But regardless, Hauser’s skills make him an asset to the team impossible to ignore, and if he successfully bridges his production from Marquette over to Virginia, expect him to earn a starting spot and the conference’s attention sooner rather than later.