Virginia Center Anthony Robinson Enters Transfer Portal

Virginia center Anthony Robinson has entered the transfer portal, as first reported by Travis Branham of 247 Sports on Monday evening (March 24). Coming off of a promising redshirt freshman campaign, the 6’10” Georgia native enters the portal with three years of eligibility remaining.

Robinson came into Virginia branded as a long-term project. He didn’t have many offers coming out of high school; in fact, UVA was the only major conference program to extend him a scholarship offer and he was a late addition to the Cavaliers’ 2023 recruiting class. Unsurprisingly, Robinson redshirted his first year at Virginia and then played sparingly through the first couple of months of this season, as Blake Buchanan, Jacob Cofie, Elijah Saunders, and even TJ Power initially occupied spots above him on the front court depth chart.

Then, Robinson started to get some opportunities as Virginia’s bigs continued to find themselves at a disadvantage – and often in foul trouble – against the larger and more physical centers of their ACC opponents. When Elijah Saunders went down with an injury in late January, Anthony Robinson took advantage and asserted a role for himself in UVA’s rotation. Robinson played double-digit minutes in 11 of Virginia’s final 13 games and had his best game on February 15th, recording 15 points, seven rebounds, and two blocks to lead the Cavaliers to a big road win at Virginia Tech.

With Robinson gaining momentum in the second half of the season, his quickly became a name in the “keep” column as fans and pundits began to speculate and forecast who from this year’s Virginia roster might be retained as a new coach, VCU’s Ryan Odom, ushered in a new era of UVA basketball. We certainly had him in the “try to retain” category in our roster turnover projection article last week.

Now, it must be noted that entering the transfer portal doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the player will end up leaving; it is possible that Anthony Robinson or any of the other five Cavaliers who have entered the portal thus far could withdraw and return to Virginia. But their names being in the portal does mean that Odom and company will have to fend off other programs looking to make bids for these players.

Anthony Robinson is the sixth Virginia player to enter the transfer portal this offseason, joining junior guard Isaac McKneely, junior guard Andrew Rohde, sophomore guard Dai Dai Ames, sophomore center Blake Buchanan, and sophomore forward TJ Power. All six of those players entered the portal on the first day it was open on Monday, March 24th. We’ll see if Odom and company will try to convince any of those players to withdraw from the portal and return to Virginia.

Stay up to date on all the latest Virginia basketball transfer portal activity, including outbound transfers from the current roster and UVA’s effort to pursue players in the portal, here: Virginia Basketball Transfer Portal: Latest News and Updates