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VMI returns stars TJ Johnson and Rickey Bradley Jr., but must replace six departures with eight freshmen after a 6-26 season.
Written By
Written By
VMI went 6-26 last season and 1-17 in the Southern Conference. The Keydets were outscored by eight points a game and outrebounded by 7.2 a game. Opponents shot 46.4 percent against them. Andrew Wilson did not have to tear that roster down. Six players left on their own.
The league's coaches still see a reason to watch. They picked VMI ninth, ahead of only The Citadel and UNCG. They also voted Rickey Bradley Jr. preseason player of the year for the second straight year, and put him and TJ Johnson on the preseason all-conference team. That is two of the 10 spots for a team that won one league game.
Six players from last year's roster are gone. Together they scored 1,200 of VMI's 2,303 points, about 52 percent. They also had 269 of the team's 403 assists.
Tan Yildizoglu is the biggest loss. He started all 31 games he played at point guard and averaged career highs of 10.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.5 steals. He was third in the SoCon in both assists and steals. He scored a career-high 25 at Wofford on Feb. 18. He transferred to Siena.
Linus Holmström was the second-leading scorer. The 6-foot-3 guard from Stockholm averaged 11.4 points, started 29 games, and shot 39.4 percent from three. His 78 threes were second on the team behind Johnson. He scored 24 in the tournament loss to UNCG. He transferred to Youngstown State.
Mario Tatum Jr. was fourth on the team in scoring as a freshman. He averaged 8.5 points in 26.1 minutes over 31 games and opened the season with 23 against Johnson & Wales. He transferred to NJIT.
Kaden Stuckey was the closest thing VMI had to a rim protector. The 6-foot-8 forward averaged 4.4 points and 4.9 rebounds and led the team with 23 blocks. He had 12 points and 10 rebounds in the tournament game against UNCG. He transferred to Le Moyne.
Jaylen Pazon, a 6-foot-5 guard, averaged 6.7 points in 20 games. His best night was 20 points and 10 rebounds against Virginia University of Lynchburg. He is headed to Chicago State. Mason Hagedorn, a 6-foot-9 forward who came from Wake Forest, played seven games. He transferred to Loyola Maryland.
That is the point guard, the second-best shooter, a freshman who could get his own shot, and the best shot blocker. It is a lot to replace for a team that was already short on answers.
Johnson is the reason VMI has a floor. He made third-team All-SoCon after averaging 18.3 points and 7.2 rebounds. He took 310 threes, fourth most in the country, and made 110 of them. He scored 32 at Southern Indiana and 31 at Missouri in the same week in November. He had 14 games of at least 20 points. He entered the portal in the spring, then withdrew. He is back for his senior year as the league's top returning scorer.
Bradley is the reason VMI has a ceiling. He was the 2025-26 preseason player of the year and never played a game. A groin injury took the whole season. In 2024-25 he averaged 16.3 points and made the SoCon All-Tournament team. He did not enter the portal. He is a redshirt senior now, and the coaches voted for him again anyway.
Behind those two, the returners are role players. AJ Clark, a 6-foot-4 senior guard, started all 22 games he played. He averaged 6.6 points and 6.0 rebounds and blocked 18 shots. Cal Liston, a 6-foot-5 junior forward, started 24 games and averaged 5.3 points. Walker Andrews, a 6-foot-1 guard, averaged 5.9 points off the bench and made 33 threes. Alexander Daushvili, a 6-foot-8 sophomore from Tbilisi, Georgia, averaged 6.8 points and 4.2 rebounds but played only five games. Branford Edmonds III, Robert Peters, and Mason Lawson round out the group. Peters, a 6-foot-8 senior, did not play last season.
VMI added eight players. All eight are listed as freshmen. Two of them are the story.
Trap Johnson is TJ's younger brother. He is a 6-foot-6 guard from Belton, Texas. He redshirted at Montana State, then averaged 2.6 points in 9.2 minutes at UC San Diego. He is the only newcomer who has already been on a Division I roster.
Cazell Henderson-Bradley is Rickey's younger brother. He is a 6-foot guard from Milwaukee who played at PHHoenix Prep, the same prep school Rickey attended, and made first-team all-state in Arizona. VMI now has two sets of brothers on its roster.
The rest of the class is international and mostly tall. Dionysis Exarchopoulos is a 6-foot-10 forward from Greece who played for Kronos B.C. Joao Pedro Panzo is a 6-foot-9, 245-pound forward from Porto, Portugal, by way of Hillcrest Prep in Arizona. Paulius Narvilas is a 6-foot-7 forward from Klaipeda, Lithuania, who comes from Western Wyoming Community College. Zion Vaamonde is a 6-foot-7 forward from Stockholm who played at Southeastern Prep in Florida. Rodrigas Jucevicius is a 6-foot-4 guard from Stockholm. Rokas Zilys is a 6-foot-3 guard from Naperville, Illinois, who played at Marist and Vermont Academy.
The plan is simple. Johnson and Bradley take the big shots. The question is who gets them the ball. Yildizoglu did that for two seasons, and he is gone. Bradley and Henderson-Bradley are the obvious candidates, with Andrews and Edmonds as the experienced options. If Bradley has to run the offense and also be the second scorer, that is a lot to ask of a player coming off a full season away.
The frontcourt should look different. Stuckey and Hagedorn are gone. Daushvili and Peters are back, and Exarchopoulos, Panzo, Narvilas, and Vaamonde add four more players at 6-foot-7 or taller. Better size is the most direct fix for a team that got outrebounded by 7.2 a game. The catch is that all four new bigs are freshmen.
Johnson also needs better looks. He made 35.5 percent of his threes on 10 attempts a game, often with the defense keyed on him. A healthy Bradley should mean fewer hard shots late in the clock.
The first month gives VMI a chance to stack wins. The Keydets open Nov. 2 at home against Virginia University of Lynchburg, then play at SMU on Nov. 5 and at UTSA on Nov. 7. North Carolina Central and Mary Baldwin come to Cameron Hall next. VMI plays at Longwood on Nov. 18, hosts Gardner-Webb and Southern Indiana, and plays at Richmond on Nov. 28.
League play starts early. UNCG visits on Dec. 1, and ETSU comes in on Dec. 5. Christendom and Bluefield are home games after that. Counting VU Lynchburg and Mary Baldwin, four of the nonconference games are against teams outside Division I. VMI plays at Virginia Tech on Dec. 21, then hosts Furman on Dec. 30.
January opens with a three-game road trip: at Western Carolina on Jan. 2, at Tennessee Tech on Jan. 7, and at Chattanooga on Jan. 9. Later VMI plays at Samford on Jan. 18 and at Mercer two days later. February has the two games that will show the ceiling: at ETSU on Feb. 6 and at Furman on Feb. 18. The regular season ends at home against Western Carolina on Feb. 27.
VMI has two of the best players in the league and a lot of unknowns around them. Johnson's numbers are from last season. Bradley's are two years old. The six players who left took more than half the scoring with them, and eight freshmen have to fill that space.
Ninth is a fair spot for a roster with that many questions. It is also a low bar for a team with the preseason player of the year. If Bradley is the player he was in 2024-25, and if one guard can run the offense, VMI can climb out of the bottom three. If not, Johnson will put up big numbers on another losing team.
