He’s all about developing his game and helping the team.”īliss is primarily a point guard, “but he has the ability to play off the ball, because he’s got good size,” Bennett said. I think it was really a good decision on his part. He’s a relentless worker, and you’re seeing that already. “We have a very connected group of guys, and he’s fit right in. “I think it’s great for him,” said Bennett, who’s in his 15 th year at UVA. The Wahoos’ coaching staff loved the idea. “When we saw the development program they have for me,” Bliss said, “we just thought it was the best thing if I came a year earlier and started to develop sooner, so that I can get my body and everything ready sooner rather than later.” After meeting with the coaching staff on his visit, they began thinking seriously about moving up the timetable for Bliss’ enrollment. At that time, Bliss was considered a 2024 recruit, but he and his family knew UVA had another scholarship available for 2023-24. From a selfish standpoint, I want to see him grow and get to the levels that he’s aspiring to get to, and I know this is the next step.”īliss, who turns 19 in December, committed to Virginia in late June after also considering Villanova, Miami (Fla.) and Xavier, where his former George School teammate Kachi Nzeh is a freshman center. I was always on the same page with him and really happy he did what he did, to be honest. Luber said Bliss knew that if “he had his dream school at his fingertips, would definitely be something I’d support. He’s never got a B in his life, straight-A student, distinguished honor roll, so it wasn’t going to be a function of coursework. “We talked about it from the day he stepped foot on campus, really. Returning to the Class of ’23 was always an option for Bliss, Luber said. It was definitely an adjustment, but it made the adjustment here a lot easier in terms of living on my own.” “It was my first time being away from home from that distance,” Bliss said. He enrolled as a boarding student and in 2021-22 repeated his sophomore year. He transferred to George School in Newtown, Pa., about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia. Bliss made the varsity as a ninth-grader, but the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the end of that season and all of the next one.Īfter a sophomore year in which his classes at Archbishop Molloy were online, Bliss was ready for a change. “I’m so glad that he’s here,” Virginia head coach Tony Bennett said, “and I think it’ll be invaluable for him to spend this time working with M.C., competing and getting used to this environment.”īliss, who’s from Queens, N.Y., spent his freshman and sophomore years in that borough at Archbishop Molloy High School, whose basketball alumni include Kenny Anderson, Kenny “the Jet” Smith and Brian Winters, all of whom went on to play in the NBA, and current University of Miami head coach Jim Larrañaga, a former UVA assistant. He’ll redshirt this season at UVA while honing his skills in practice and training with strength and conditioning coach Mike Curtis. He’s a different type of kid.”Ī 6-foot-4 guard, Bliss was named the top independent-school player in Pennsylvania in 2022-23 after averaging 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game for George School. Obviously, he and I had talked for a while about it, but he set up the Zoom link himself. “I thought that was really mature of him,” George School head coach Ben Luber said. So he set up a players-only Zoom call on which let his basketball teammates know he was reclassifying and planned to enroll at the University of Virginia this summer. When he decided not to return to George School for a third and final year, Christian Bliss wanted to make sure his fellow Cougars heard the news from him first.
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