Cavaliers pick up first transfer of offseason in Indiana's Armaan Franklin

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The Virginia basketball team has had three players transfer out of the program since its offseason began, but reinforcement is on the way.

The 'Hoos began to reload the roster Thursday night with the addition of transfer shooting guard Armaan Franklin from Indiana. Illinois, Louisville, and Notre Dame were among his other suitors. The 6-foot-4, 195-pound sophomore will have three years of eligibility remaining, thanks to the NCAA's ruling that 2020-21 did not count against eligibility, and he will be able to play immediately for the Cavaliers.
Franklin, who is from Indianapolis like 2019 NCAA tournament most outstanding player Kyle Guy, played in 22 games for the Hoosiers this season, starting 20. He missed five games with ankle and foot injuries. He averaged 11.4 points, 4.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists, and 1.2 steals in 30.1 minutes per game. He shot 43.2% on 2-pointers, 42.4% on 3-pointers, and 74.1% from the free throw line. He did have 2.2 turnovers per game, a little high for a shooting guard, so it would be nice if he could clean that up.
Those numbers were a big improvement over his freshman year. That season, Franklin played in all 32 games and got nine starts, averaging 3.7 points, 1.6 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 0.3 steals in 13.8 minutes per game. He shot 45.8% on 2-pointers but just 26.6% beyond the arc and 61.5% at the stripe.

That jump is really nice to see. Frankly, that's what UVa fans were hoping to see out of Casey Morsell this year -- a nice jump in his performance as a second-year. But it just did not happen. For reference, in his sophomore season, Morsell scored 4.4 ppg and shot 47.1% on 2s, 26.3% on 3s, and 63.6% at the line.

Franklin does have a bit of an attacking-the-rim game in addition to being a quality shooter. Also, he is known not only as a good defender, but Indiana ran the Pack-Line defense (admittedly not as well as UVa), so that means he is familiar with its principles, which should help him acclimate to the team more quickly than some players new to the Wahoos. Sam Hauser and Trey Murphy, though they came to Virginia as great offensive players, struggled on the defensive side of the court -- especially early on -- as transfers this past season.


At UVa, with the transfer of Morsell and the graduation of Tomas Woldetensae, Franklin should be able to immediately compete for big minutes at the shooting guard (or "2" spot), and he has a good chance to start a lot of games. His main competition for playing time, as of now, is rising sophomore Carson McCorkle and incoming freshman Taine Murray. Also, with Tony Bennett unable to fully trust Morsell or Woldetensae at the 2, hopefully an improved option in Franklin will decrease the number of times we see the Reece Beekman-Kihei Clark combo at the 1 and 2 spots. The addition of Franklin makes me wonder even more now if Bennett is considering starting either Beekman or Clark and benching the other next season. It will be interesting to see how that situation develops.

Franklin's improvement from his first year to his second at Indiana is encouraging, and I hope and think it is reasonable to expect him to come in and score close to 10 points per game, if not more. I know sometimes players do not score as much once they get to UVa because of the Cavaliers' slow pace, but the Hoosiers were not blazing up and down the court either, ranking 289th out of 357 teams in tempo (yes, UVa was last). Plus, Hauser scored a lot at Marquette, but in his one year at Virginia, he recorded the most points per game of his career, and he had his best 2-point shooting percentage and overall shooting percentage in 2020-21.

Indiana went 12-15 this past season and fired coach Archie Miller. Six Hoosiers entered the transfer portal, but many have returned after the hiring of Indiana alumnus and former NBA coach Mike Woodson. But Franklin is not one of them and is heading to Charlottesville. And I think Virginia will be better because of it.

Bennett is likely not done adding players. Virginia is hot on the trail of East Carolina power forward Jayden Gardner, a junior who has two years of eligibility remaining. He has UVa on his final list and said that he will announce his next school Monday. So let's hope for good news on him, too. And there could be another transfer or incoming freshman Bennett snags, so let's see what develops.

McKoy makes it three

I mentioned Morsell's and Jabri Abdur-Rahim's departures in my season-ending awards post. But a day later, forward Justin McKoy also announced he was leaving after two years at UVa.

McKoy averaged 3.5 points and 3.3 rebounds in 11.3 minutes per game this past season. He started the first four games of the season but none after that and saw his minutes drop off significantly -- until the end of the year. McKoy saw an uptick in his time on the court in four of the season's final five games, when he played double-figure minutes in the four games he entered. He missed the Ohio loss with COVID.

I appreciated his energy, hustle, and rebounding ability. I feel like, especially late in the year, he made the most of his playing time. Most notably, he had 8 points and six rebounds at home versus Miami, virtually all in the first half. I thought he had a real chance to continue his late-season momentum into 2021-22 and become a key piece, but I guess he did not see it that way.

I wish McKoy the best, unless he faces Virginia, which is possible with North Carolina now recruiting him. UNC was interested in McKoy out of high school, but he chose the 'Hoos. Roy Williams retired as coach of the Tar Heels on April 1, and assistant coach and former Tar Heels star Hubert Davis was hired a few days later. One of his first orders of business was to reach out to McKoy.

Also, UVa will face Morsell at least once a year over the next couple seasons, because he chose N.C. State as his destination Friday. That will be weird. I wish him all the best as well, but not against the Wahoos.

Photo credits: Michael Hickey/Getty Images; Andrew Shurtleff/The Daily Progress

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