Fresh off of landing their first transfer commitment of the offseason, Tony Bennett and the Cavaliers are looking to keep the momentum going as they host another transfer portal target on Grounds. San Diego State transfer forward Elijah Saunders arrived at Virginia on Sunday for an official visit.

Saunders visited Washington on Friday and Saturday and is scheduled to take a visit to Clemson on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A 6’8″, 225-pound forward from Phoenix, Arizona, Saunders was a late entrant into the transfer portal last week. He played in 53 games over the last two seasons at San Diego State, including 21 starts. This season, Saunders started 21 of 37 games and averaged 6.2 points and 3.6 rebounds in a little over 20 minutes per contest. He shot 32.2% from beyond the arc on 3.3 three-point attempts per game. His best game came in a win over Washington as he tallied 16 points and went 3/3 from beyond the arc. He also had eight points and a couple of threes in San Diego State’s win over Yale in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

With the addition of Florida State transfer guard Jalen Warley, who announced his commitment to Virginia on Saturday, the Cavaliers added depth and experience to their backcourt and gave themselves another ball-handler and playmaker on offense and a versatile defender who can guard multiple positions. Now, UVA looks to find its replacement for Ryan Dunn at power forward and is making that case to Elijah Saunders to fill that role over the next two days.

Saunders is in the transfer portal with two years of eligibility remaining. Virginia currently has three scholarship spots remaining for the 2024-2025 season.

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Virginia to Host Four-Star Point Guard Trent Perry for Official Visit

From the first whistle, Notre Dame jumped all over the Virginia Cavaliers. The Irish skyrocketed to a 4-0 lead by the 9:44 mark and won the first five face-offs and outshot the ‘Hoos 10-1 before Payton Cormier scored UVA’s first goal of the game. Virginia was never able to recover from the slow start as the Irish crushed the ‘Hoos 18-9. This marked Virginia’s first time losing four consecutive games since 2013.

“This is not what Virginia lacrosse is all about,” head coach Lars Tiffany said. “I feel like I need to apologize to the faithful of Virginia ‘cause they’ve put so much heart and emotion [into] following us and believing in us. This type of effort today is unacceptable.”

Within the first two minutes and 28 seconds, FOGO Anthony Ghobriel recorded two penalties, and the ‘Hoos finished the game with five penalties against Notre Dame’s No. 1 man-up offense (71%), as the Irish went 4-5 in their EMO.

Last week, in Virginia’s 11-9 loss to Notre Dame, the ‘Hoos were outgained in the ground ball battle 50-26, 14 ground balls lower than their average. In Friday’s loss, the ‘Hoos managed to thin the margin to 30-25, but Virginia struggled to register any quality possession time.

“Last game we got dominated on ground balls, and we failed a bunch of clears,” graduate midfielder Chase Yager said. “This game we failed one clear when we were way closer on ground balls. So, I think we recognize that there were a lot of things that don’t show up on the score sheet that we did a lot better.”

Junior goalie Matt Nunes failed to make a save in the second quarter as the Irish more than doubled UVA’s shots by halftime en route to a 10-3 lead. Nunes was later benched for sophomore Kyle Morris with 2:33 left in the third quarter and finished the game with a 32% save percentage. Tiffany said that he and his staff “talked about” benching him at halftime but ultimately decided to stick with Nunes until late in the quarter.

“Matt did not have a great day and we needed Matt to play bigger,” Tiffany said. “Unfortunately he had a mundane day and it gets exaggerated when the goalie in the far end is just remarkable. It was startling how well [Liam] Entenmann played.”

The midseason 2nd team All-American goalie finished the game with 18 saves, his highest save percentage (75) since he stopped 80% against Cleveland State in their season opener. Freshman defender Shawn Lyght, who Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan called the “most underrated defenseman in the league” also limited Connor Shellenberger to zero goals and kept him pointless until there was 8:24 left in the game.

“I don’t want to stand here and act like we solved the riddle to Virginia’s offense, but today was a good day for our defense and a great day for Liam,” Corrigan said.

Graduate attackman Payton Cormier led the ‘Hoos with three goals, his fourth consecutive hat trick, and is now the ACC’s all-time leading goal scorer with 214 career goals. Graduate midfielder Devon McLane led the game with four goals while freshman midfielder Jacob Faison, graduate attackman Pat Kavanaugh and sophomore attackman Chris Kavanaugh had three assists each.

Virginia now awaits to hear its name called at the NCAA tournament selection show, which will be at 9 p.m. on Sunday.

“I absolutely think we deserve to keep playing and I think given an opportunity I fully believe we will win this tournament,” Yager said. “And I don’t think there’s any doubt about that on our team and among our guys.”

Behind closed doors, top strategists for Donald Trump’s campaign told donors that they believe they can flip the Democratic strongholds Minnesota and Virginia red.

Trump’s team presented their plan to the former president’s financial backers at a Republican National Committee retreat on Saturday.

Availing themselves of internal surveys, pollster Tony Fabrizio – one of Trump’s favorites – and senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles made their pitch to the donors.

According to two witnesses who were present at the meeting, which took place at the Four Seasons resort in Palm Beach, the presentation was centered around finances, messaging, and the political map.

Using internal polls, Trump’s strategists demonstrated how tight the election is in the two states

The upshot of Fabrizio’s polls showed Trump eking out narrow victories in critical swing states from 2020, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

But the politician’s top strategists didn’t stop there. They also discussed an ambitious plan to make further inroads into Democratic territory.

Trump’s team argued that the former president could defeat Biden in the Democratic strongholds of Minnesota and Virginia. 

Meanwhile, President Biden’s strategists harbor similar hopes, aspiring to flip North Carolina, where Republicans have won for the past three presidential elections.

Biden’s team also hopes to prevail in Florida, where Republicans have emerged victorious in the previous two presidential elections.

In 2020, Biden nabbed the presidency by a margin of 74 electoral votes. Wins in critical states like Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia helped propel him to victory.

‘I think that the Biden campaign is deliberately playing a faux game by talking about [how] they’re going to expand the map in Florida and North Carolina,’ Trump adviser Chris LaCivita told NBC. 

‘But we have a real, real opportunity in expanding the map in Virginia and Minnesota.’

‘We have a real, real opportunity in expanding the map in Virginia and Minnesota,’ said Chris LaCivita (pictured0, a senior adviser for Trump

In a head-to-head matchup in Minnesota, Trump’s team found that the former president would win with 49 percent to Biden’s 46 percent

The internal polling conducted by Trump’s team is fairly consistent with the few public surveys that depict Biden with a narrow lead in Virginia.

However, the strategists’ polling that evinces a Trump win in Minnesota is at variance with the limited surveys that have been completed in that state.

But both the state polls and the polls conducted by Trump’s campaign fall within their margins of error.

This means one thing: A tight race in Minnesota and Virginia.

LaCivita explained that they tested Trump’s success in three different scenarios: in a head-to-head matchup with Biden, and in four-way and six-way races.

In a six-way competition in Minnesota, the strategists found that Trump and Biden were locked at 40 percent each, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on the Independent ticket, scored 9 percent.

When the parameters were narrowed, and it became a race between four candidates, Trump beat Biden 46 percent to 41 percent.

In a head-to-head election, Trump still defeated Biden 49 percent to 46 percent.

In 2020, Biden won the presidency with the help of key victories in critical states like Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia 

Biden’s team is also eyeing Republican territory, hoping to flip GOP bastions like North Carolina and Florida in November

In 2020, Biden prevailed in Minnesota by about seven percentage points. The state has not gone to Republicans since Richard Nixon trounced George McGovern in 1972.

In Virginia, Trump’s top officials found that Biden pipped out a narrow victory over Trump in a six-way competition- Biden finished with 40 percent, Trump with 37 percent, and Kennedy with 8 percent.

In a four-candidate race, that margin narrowed even further, with Biden at 42 percent and Trump at 41 percent.

In a head-to-head matchup, Trump fared worse, finishing with 44 percent, while Biden scooped up 48 percent.

Trump’s strategists have not yet made their full surveys, as well as their methodology, available to the public.

Campaigns traditionally make sweeping promises to donors- including winning in enemy territory- as an inducement for contributing larger sums of money.

Biden’s team issued a scathing statement in response to the meeting conducted by Trump’s pollster and top advisers.

In Virginia, Trump’s advisers found that Trump would currently finish with 44 percent to Biden’s 48 percent- a gap that they hope to narrow before November 

‘Trump’s team has so little campaign or infrastructure to speak of they’re resorting to leaking memos that say ”the polls we paid for show us winning, don’t ask us to show you the whole poll though,”’ Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said.

‘While we have 150 offices open with hundreds of staff across key battlegrounds, the RNC is closing offices and hemorrhaging money on legal fees,’ Hitt continued.

‘Joe Biden has hit every battleground at least once, while Trump’s in the courtroom or on the golf course.’

‘We’ll see how that translates in November.’