After a tumultuous first couple weeks of the offseason that saw 3 Virginia players hit the transfer portal outbound, Tony Bennett scored his first inbound transfer of the cycle in Indiana shooting guard Armaan Franklin. Let’s dive in to the news.

The Recruitment

Indiana fourth-year coach Archie Miller was fired on March 15th with an underwhelming 67-58 record in Bloomington after being one of the hottest young coaches in the game when he moved up from Dayton in 2017. Eight days later, on the 23rd, it was announced that sophomore Franklin was going to enter the transfer portal, though at the time he acknowledged this was simply to keep options open given the uncertainty over IU’s coaching future. As is the case with any coaching change, especially this year, the IU program had a ton of roster uncertainty along with Franklin, with promising young lead guard Kristian Lander and wing Jordan Geronimo entering the portal with him, and top big man Trayce Jackson-Davis a big risk to go pro.

Indiana eventually hired Mike Woodson as their head coach, a former Hoosiers star player and most recently an assistant coach for the Knicks, in a move that looks a lot like IU trying to capture some of the same magic that Michigan did in their similar hiring of Juwan Howard in 2019. In an interesting wrinkle, Woodson is bringing on former Ohio State head coach Thad Matta as a right hand man (again, smelling like Juwan Howard’s brilliant move to bring in Phil Martelli as his legend on the bench).

But by that point, Franklin had already attracted a ton of attention. Virginia was joined by high majors like Louisville, Notre Dame, Illinois, and many others (247sports at one point said close to 30 programs had made contact).

It was a relatively quiet recruitment, or at least felt that way with a lot of other headlines being made in recent weeks with the coaching carousel spinning, the NCAA Tournament still raging, and some higher profile transfers stealing headlines. But The Athletic still ranked Franklin as one of the top transfers available.

This week was big for the Hoosiers, as every other Indiana player contemplating a transfer or move pro ultimately pledged to return to Bloomington, and on top of that they received an inbound transfer pledge from former Pitt PG Xavier Johnson. All the positive feelings coming out of Assembly Hall made one wonder if Franklin would follow suit. But ultimately Armaan decided to follow his own path, and make no mistake Tony Bennett won a very heated battle for the star guard.

Excited about the next chapter in my hoops life. Still, have to say a big thanks to the IU community, fans and my teammates for all their support. Know that I appreciate you all so much! ⚔️??⚔️ @UVAMensHoops pic.twitter.com/NErzsdMDXL

— Armaan Franklin (@unkle44artty) April 8, 2021

The Player

Why was Franklin so sought after? Well, let’s start with the stat line.

54 games played with 29 starts over two years; 34 games with 14 starts in B1G Ten play. In this most recent season, he played 30.1 minutes a night, scored 11.4 ppg (2nd highest on the team), shot 42% on 3’s on nearly 4 attempts a game, 42% on 2’s on over 5 attempts a game. 4.1 rebounds a game, 2.1 assists a game, and 1.2 steals a game. His 3P% in league play was the 4th best in the B1G. His steal rate was 14th in the league.

Injuries did affect Franklin down the stretch last year. He injured his ankle in early January, knocking him out of the Maryland game after only 7 minutes and then missing two more contests. He returned to play the next 10 games for Indiana (starting 9 after coming off the bench in his first game back), but reinjured the ankle against Rutgers and missed three more games to end the regular season. He came off the bench for Indiana’s lone postseason game, a first round loss to Rutgers in the B1G Ten tournament.

Franklin topped 20 points three times last season against Power Conference opponents, scoring 20 in a win over Butler, 23 in a loss to Illinois, and 23 in a 2OT win over Northwestern.

He’s 6’4″ with a solid wingspan so good size to play the 2 and maybe even the 3. Good balance in his offensive game, shooting spot up, off curls, off the dribble, and going downhill to the rim. There’s some efficiency issues to work with, both in his finishing inside and with his handle (over two turnovers a game last year), so we’re going to need cleaner performance, but the shooting alone makes him a massive get on the wing after two straight years of subpar shooting out of the guards (counting Murphy as a forward) and the lone bright spot in Woldetensae graduating.

Defensively he’ll be solid (the steal rate is great), though he’ll need to improve his closeouts. Indiana played a version of the Pack Line so it’s not as if he’s been hiding in a zone the last two years. But this will obviously be a focus for Bennett in getting him up to speed, but at the same time the defensive metrics and roster stats for the Hoosiers still showed him as one of their better defenders.

If you want to see him in action, here’s the condensed game against Northwestern where Franklin goes for 23 points, 5 boards, 3 assists, and 4 steals:

Roster Impacts

Obviously, given the tumult of the last week or two, this fills a big need. The losses of Morsell and Abdur-Rahim to transfer, coupled with Woldetensae’s graduation, leaves a massive void of experience and talent on the wings. McCorkle has potential but didn’t log a competitive minute in ACC play last year so maybe is better served working in off the bench next season. That goes double for international true freshman Taine Murray (4-star or not). Neither Reece nor Kihei are particularly suited to play off ball (don’t get me started on the decision to start them together) with neither a proven shooter. This fills a massive need.

At the moment, we’ll slot him in as a pure SG, though you could make an argument he’s a 2/3 G/F type. Semantics in a lot of ways. Either way he steps into a big vacancy and likely starts right away. How exactly he pieces in depends on three giant questions that we’re not prepared to even guess at right now:

1) Does Tony try and start Kihei and Reece together again next year, or move one of them to an off-the-bench role?

2) Does Murphy defer his NBA opportunity for one more year, and if so, does he move down into the stretch 4 role vacated by Hauser’s graduation and McKoy’s transfer?

3) Are we done recruiting guards in the transfer portal?

On number 1, that gets me into a long argument about next season’s roster and scheme that’s better saved for another day. On number 2, ESPN now has Murphy projected as a mid-2nd-rounder in this year’s draft, though NBADraft.net still has him in the 2022 draft.

For number 3, the answer is really, “no, not yet.” The big decision coming is Charleston Southern 5th year star Phlandrous Fleming announcing Sunday afternoon with UVA and NC State the most talked about destinations. He’s another pure off-ball scoring guard like Franklin (though he’s far more of a downhill player whereas Franklin likes to shoot) and was his conference’s Defensive POY. But does the Franklin commitment make UVA less attractive a destination for him? That may depend on Murphy’s decision, as a Murphy departure leaves a ton of minutes available on the wing for both players. UVA’s been linked to other transfer guards, but none yet super hot and heavy (though it’s transfer season, so of course that changes in an instant). We’ll continue to monitor.

What this means for the next move in UVA recruiting is finding some front court help, with ECU star PF Jayden Gardner the #1 name on the board. He could annouce any day now, having released a Top 6 that includes UVA and having conducted his “final” round of Zoom interviews this week.

UVA will also be looking at high school players, with late-riser 2021s and some older class-of-2022s who could reclassify both being looked at.

Bottom line, with 4 vacant scholarships as of today, and the potential for that to become 5 if Murphy goes pro, there’s need to bring in at least 2 or 3 more players for next season, whether transfers or rising freshmen.

Summary

Virginia basketball needed good news after saying farewell to so many big names from its roster the last two weeks. Armaan Franklin’s commitment is huge good news indeed. He appears to be a Day 1 starter with great upside, a proven 3-point stroke, starting experience in a top high-major conference, and up to 3 years of eligibility remaining.

His commitment will also hopefully change UVA’s momentum in the recruiting world, as Franklin could be the type of guard other talented players want to come play with. We’ll still be on pins and needles to see how the Gardner and Fleming announcements go in the coming days, and excited to see how next year’s roster continues to unfold.

For now, let’s just say Wahoowa! And Welcome Armaan, we’re thrilled to have you in JPJ!

As always, let’s close with some more highlights: