Tomas Woldetensae has decided to forgo his additional year of eligibility, joining teammates Hauser and Jay Huff. During the 2020-2021 season, the Italy-native Senior played in 22 games and started in 5, averaging 4.4 points per game and 1.3 rebounds per game. Woldetensae joined the Cavaliers as the pandemic hit in the 2019-2020 season, before which he played for Indian Hills Community College.
Woldetensae joins the growing list of UVA players who will not return in 2021-2022, including sophomore forward Justin McKoy, sophomore guard Casey Morsell, and freshman guard Jabri Abdur-Rahim.
One of the most memorable moments of Tomas’s UVA career was when he scored a game-winning three-pointer against UNC-Chapel Hill in the 2019-2020 regular season. With a one-point UNC lead at 10 seconds left, Tomas “pump-faked, took a dribble, and let it fly.”
WHAT A FINISH IN CHAPEL HILL ?@UVAMensHoops with its first two-game regular season sweep of the Tar Heels since 2001-02 ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/zOUCd1JTIE
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) February 16, 2020
While at UVA, Tomas has stayed with a host family: Todd, the chief operating officer of the Virginia Athletics Foundation, his wife Cindy, and their two children. This May, he plans to graduate with a B.A. in Design and Applied Arts. Previously, he indicated a career interest in interior design.
A single child, Tomas has shared a powerful relationship with his mother Zaid, whom he called every day during the quarantine. When Tomas started playing at Virginia, he said, “I’m doing this for her as well, where my goal would be to come back home and tell her to stop working, stop scrambling around.” After he completes his studies, hopefully he will be able travel back home to Italy to make this goal come true.
