Virginia basketball player profile: Favour Ibe has a blueprint to follow

Favour Ibe picked Virginia because of what it did for Ugonna Onyenso.

When the 7-foot-1 center committed on May 9, days after his official visit to Charlottesville, he chose the Cavaliers over Tennessee, Alabama and Villanova. Tennessee, as Virginia fans are painfully aware, is the same program that ended Virginia’s season in March. Ibe told 247Sports that Onyenso’s growth under Ryan Odom and his staff showed him what the program could do for a big man.

“The coaches believed in me from the start, and I could really see myself growing there,” Ibe said.

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When Ibe committed, I called Onyenso’s role the blueprint. Onyenso came off the bench, protected the rim, ran the floor and changed games without needing the ball. He led the ACC in blocks, made the All-ACC Defensive Team and turned a dominant ACC Tournament into a spot in the NBA Draft.

Ibe is not Onyenso yet. He is a raw, 20-year-old freshman who has been playing basketball for only about five years, and the exhibitions showed it. But he has the physical profile to be a true difference maker. He is also the only player on Virginia’s bench built to do what Onyenso did.

I am not expecting Ibe to come close to replicating Onyenso’s stats or impact on the court. That would be setting him up for failure. However, if he can grow toward taking on the same role by March, he may be the player who decides how high this team can go.

This is the 10th installment of Streaking the Lawn’s preseason profile series. Our profiles of Chance Mallory, Christian Harmon, Jurian Dixon, Kalu Anya, Sam Lewis, Elijah Gertrude, Martin Carrere, Johann Grünloh and Thijs De Ridder can be found here.

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Ibe did not grow up planning to play basketball.

“I actually started off playing soccer, and then I switched to basketball because I started getting taller, and taller, and taller,” he told VirginiaSports.com this month. “I was 15 when I realized it was something I could stick with.”

From there, the climb was fast. Ibe left his family in…

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Publish date : 2026-10-28 13:00:00

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