Overall impact of Duke Basketball landing five-star guard Trevor Keels

Virginia Cavaliers

The Cavaliers were hoping to land a five-star recruit for the first time to capitalize on this current great run the program is having. It also has to hurt to lose a local prospect to an ACC rival as well, as they’ll have to face Keels at least for the next season.

And out of all four rosters, Virginia arguably could’ve used Keels the most. One of the biggest problems for them this season was a lack of perimeter production, relying on starting forwards Sam Hauser and Jay Huff, along with Rice wing transfer Trey Murphy, for most of the scoring. The players who player mostly at the shooting guard positions (Casey Morsell, Thomas Woldetensae, and Reece Beekman) had their fair share of inconsistencies.

The roster for next season is going to look very different. Both Huff and Hauser have graduated and moved on, while Morsell and former top-50 guard prospect Jabri Abdur-Rahim have transferred out. That leaves Murphy and starting point guard Kihei Clark as the key returning pieces, while some of the bench players from this year will have to have bigger roles unless incoming transfers come in.

There’s also going to be a lot of pressure on incoming four-star shooting guard prospect Taine Murray to have a decent impact out the gate as a freshman. The Cavaliers don’t need too much scoring due to how they play ball but the difference between being a solid team and one that can repeat for a national title is having a proven scoring guard. Keels could’ve been that for Virginia but they’ll have to look elsewhere.