The Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball team is going to be good next season. After getting a ceiling-raiser in the frontcourt with Johann Gruenloh, Ryan Odom and staff have now added San Francisco guard Malik Thomas as a scoring guard who resets the backcourt’s potential for 2025-26.
Thomas will come to Charlottesville for his graduate season after receiving a waiver for an additional year of eligibility since he played just 16 minutes his freshman year. According to On3, he is the No. 41 overall ranked transfer and has a 4-star, 94.98 overall rating.
Thomas started his career at USC, but did not see the court consistently until he transferred down a level in 2023. The 6-foot-5, 205-pound guard fully broke out in 2024-25, averaging a West Coast Conference-leading 19.9 points, 2.1 assists, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game. He shot 44.4% from the field, 39.4% from three-point range (5.3 attempts per game), and 85.1% from the charity stripe.
He started all 34 games for the Dons last season, the last of which was a 36-point effort against Loyola Chicago in the NIT. He shot 17-for-17 from the free-throw line and 3-for-8 from behind the arc, grabbed seven boards, dished out five assists, and played all 40 minutes.
This is a significant addition to Odom’s first roster, which now consists of five transfer guards, all of whom were quality three-point shooters at their previous stop. Thomas earned First-Team All-WCC and was a finalist for the Lou Henson National Player of the Year Award this past season, and will be carrying over all his superstar ability to Charlottesville next season.
Odom and his staff now have more guards than Shawshank, Azkaban, Guantanamo, and Fox River combined, and have done a tremendous job rounding out their roster with the addition of a couple of big men as well. Below is what the 2025-2025 roster would look like if the season started today:
We expect one or two more additions to this roster before it is finalized, so stay tuned. We will have it all here at Streaking The Lawn.