Virginia Basketball got another great bit of news this weekend with its fourth recruiting commitment for the 2022 class in the pledge of NY small forward Ryan Dunn. One of the biggest breakouts of the summer circuit, Dunn completes a banner recruiting cycle for Tony, giving him a quartet of four-star recruits arriving next year that looks, on paper at least, like his best recruiting class in many years.
The Recruitment
Ryan Dunn is the quintessential pandemic sleeper story. This is a kid that, due to a dead period that ran from March of 2020 to June of 2021, developed totally under the radar. Entering this spring, he had no Division 1 offers. None. Stony Brook would offer in May but he still entered the summer on few if any national radars.
That all changed starting in June, when his play for the NY Jayhawks on the Adidas 3SSB circuit seized the attention of college coaches able to see Dunn in person for the first time. The offers started to pour in.
Tony Bennett would join the fray, following double-digit D-1 peers with a formal offer in late July. Members of the Virginia staff had watched Dunn repeatedly over the month at live events and quickly prioritized the smooth wing. Ranked as a low/mid-3-star at the time, it was clear he was destined for a more high profile rating from the services, and now shows as a consensus 4-star from all three major recruiting services (247, Rivals, and ESPN).
BC, Minnesota, Virginia, Georgetown, Maryland, Oklahoma St, South Carolina, & Pittsburgh among the final 8 for @NYJayhawks & incoming @PerkBasketball wing Ryan Dunn @Almighty_ry3.
Another huge summer stock-riser (not sure he had a D1 offer last winter). pic.twitter.com/4LlAjkHwYj
— Adam Finkelstein (@AdamFinkelstein) August 19, 2021
Virginia made Dunn’s cut to 8 schools in mid August, whittled down from over 20 D-1 offers including solid rival programs like Maryland and Georgetown. We’d heard UVA was prioritizing the wing, but with Leon Bond’s commitment to UVA at the end of July and Tony clearly holding a spot open for Isaac Traudt, there was a little bit of question to how Dunn fit in to the recruiting math.
But that question was largely answered when Dunn announced he was coming to UVA for an official visit a week ago. Fresh off taking Traudt’s commitment at the end of August, UVA was clearly still excited about Dunn potentially being a member of the ’22 class.
Within a few days of the end of Dunn’s visit to Charlottesville, and with recent visits already concluded with Minnesota and Pitt, Dunn set an announcement date for this weekend. Crystal Ball predictions from recruiting gurus started appearing in favor of UVA, and the suspense was quickly ended with Dunn’s announcement:
The Player
Dunn checks in as a 6’6″ 190 lb small forward. Offensively he’s best described as a smooth, outside-in wing. He’s known for a competent shooting touch, going 46% from three on moderate volume (about three 3PA per game) over eight games on the Adidas 3SSB circuit this July. Most of his shooting looks to come off spot-up 3’s or maybe off a dribble, so we’ll have to see how he looks shooting coming off screens. He’s just as comfortable using that perimeter attention to play downhill as well, smooth and natural on the dribble-drive going to the rim with solid ups and finishing at the basket. He’s a bit more of a finesse player at this stage, and won’t power over bigger players on the blocks, but on those rare occasions we do get out in transition he should be a good contributor. His handle is adequate, though I don’t anticipate him playing down as a lead guard much, instead being the 3rd perimeter option who’s geared more towards scoring than facilitating.
On the other end of the floor he projects to be another versatile, switchable defender. Off the bat I’d say he’ll be best guarding opposing 2’s and 3’s. But with some reps and physical development, I can ultimately see him getting both quick enough to stay in front of many point guards as well as strong enough to switch down and hold ground against power forwards. We’ll have to see just how willing a rebounder he is; it’s always a hit-or-miss facet with these kinds of smooth perimeter guys, and it’s incredibly difficult to project for wings from HS or AAU play. He’s not an overly explosive athlete, no Justin Anderson-like hops, which is probably what’s keeping him ranked as a low 4-star (right around the fringe of the Top 100 per the recruiting services) instead of more of a Top 50 kind of guy.
From a fit perspective, he’ll comp to our usage of big 2/3’s like Joe Harris, Marial Shayok, or De’Andre Hunter. He’ll be a smooth multi-level score-first wing on the offensive end and a multi-positional defender on the other, with the long-term potential to play some small-ball 4 if we continue to trend to smaller, more perimeter-oriented strategy. Only time will tell if he develops to the NBA level like those three mentioned did, but most importantly it’s a role we don’t currently have on the roster with the bust of Jabri Abdur-Rahim’s UVA career, unless maybe Taine Murray proves a little longer and more fluid than we expect.
There isn’t a ton of tape from his AAU play this summer to share here, but all the same let’s check out a couple minutes of highlight clips to get a visual feel for Dunn’s game (with more down below).
??2022 6’7 New York stock riser Ryan Dunn (@Almighty_ry3) highlights at Jersey Shore Jam Fest #HGJamFest
? @2eztvN x @_whodatt pic.twitter.com/f7QN7OD6lf
— Hoop Group (@TheHoopGroup) July 25, 2021
?BREAKING NEWS?
Ryan Dunn is a Top-50 prospect in 2022…BELIEVE THAT‼️
6’7” wing from @NYJayhawks/@PerkBasketball continues to sharpen every aspect of his skillset and STILL has a ridiculous upside to reach-&-unleash in the future. @Almighty_ry3 is the REAL MF’in DEAL??⬇️ pic.twitter.com/PnKEi4vG5e
— The Hustle (@TheHoopHustle) July 25, 2021
Roster Impacts
First things first, the current expectation is that Dunn will actually graduate early this winter and arrive at UVA in December or January, then spend the spring semester redshirting. As such, he really doesn’t factor into this upcoming 2021-22 season’s roster math, so instead we’ll jump ahead to next season when he’ll be dressed to play.
Let’s plug Ryan Dunn into the projected 2022-23 and 2023-24 rosters. I’m slotting him as a pure SF, alongside Leon Bond who I’ve shifted to a G/F position, though of course it’s mostly semantics as they’re both “versatile wings”. There’s a strong argument I could flip flop them given that Dunn is more of a perimeter-oriented player while Bond should be better going downhill, but for the moment I’m not getting hung up on it.
Projected 2022-23 Roster
So let’s address the elephant in the room. Right now we project as many as 14 players on the roster for the 2022-23 season. That’s eyebrow raising because of course the NCAA limits teams to 13 scholarship players in a given season, and there’s been no indication that there will be any waivers/exceptions for super-seniors.
There’s been talk that Dunn could pay his own way as a freshman if this comes to pass. There’s actually precedence for this; Luke Maye walked on at UNC as a true freshman due to scholarship numbers, and we saw how that turned out.
With that said, let’s be honest. Of the 10 players on today’s roster, all of whom are eligible to return next season due to COVID eligibility relief, odds say someone will move on. I refuse to speculate whom, but pure history and statistics say at least one of those ten will either go pro, transfer out, be a medical retiree, or even just graduate and move on from college basketball (which we saw Tomas Woldetensae do this past offseason). It’s a pretty safe bet that come next year when Dunn matriculates, there will be a scholarship available for him.
So with that out of the way, it’s pretty obvious we’re done for the 2022 cycle at this point. That Tony is even willing to recruit Dunn with the tiny possibility we’re “over” on scholarships for his class by even just one is new ground for this coach. He’s not going two over.
Could a lot of attrition come April change things? Of course! And maybe we look at transfers at that point. But from a high school recruiting perspective, it’s time to turn attention to 2023 recruiting.
We mentioned in the Isaac Traudt commitment article last week that Tony wrapping his 2022 class this early is a huge advantage. Most other ACC programs are still frantically recruiting HS seniors; two ACC schools have yet to get a ’22 commit (NC State and GT), while eight other schools have only one. UVA now has four, and can fully turn their attention to the 2023 class.
Projected 2023-24 Roster
Technically we’re now recruiting with two open spots for the 2023 class but as we know that will likely change by next spring. All that said, expect two big focuses going forward in recruiting, whether it’s 2023 high schoolers or transfers: point guards and athletic rim protectors. The 2-4 positions have been heavily addressed over the ’21 and ’22 classes with Murray, McKneeley, Bond, Dunn, Milicic, and Traudt. But we haven’t taken either a 1 or a 5 in a couple classes.
Kihei will likely take his 5th year but then graduate meaning Reece Beekman will need a backup, and TBD if any of the 2-guards on the roster can play down as even a backup PG. And in the post, while Milicic and Traudt will bring solid size, neither is an athletic post defender that we’ve enjoyed with guys like Mamadi or Atkins, and hopefully will get with a healthy Kadin, and it’s really hard to bet on Papi sticking around for a sixth year. Of course Tony will continue to look to elite wings as well when they emerge, but for the time being I expect 1s and 5s to be the heavy focus for early 2023 recruiting this fall.
Summary
Ryan Dunn is the cherry on the top of this ’22 class, arguably the best in the ACC at the moment and one of the best recruiting classes in the country. There’s versatility and talent and depth all being added here. Definitely the most impressive recruiting class at UVA since the 2016 class which would eventually carry us to a national title.
Tony went out and got most every player he really wanted in this class, and there’s no reason to think any of these players won’t be stars in a few years.
Let’s take yet another moment to be grateful for the program that Bennett is running, and be excited for the future of Ryan Dunn wearing a UVA uniform.
Now time for some more highlights: