Tristan Spurlock will always have the distinction of making his college choice before he knew where he would spend his senior year in high school.

Then, once he had spent the 2008-09 basketball season at Word of Life Academy in Springfield, Spurlock had to revisit his college choice.

Spurlock signed a letter-of-intent with Virginia in the fall but could have gotten a release from the Cavaliers after former coach Dave Leitao was replaced by Tony Bennett.

"When you're left in the middle of nowhere like that, anything can happen," said Spurlock, a 6-foot-8, 220-pounder. "I had a lot of people telling me to decommit, but I didn't want to make any hasty decisions. I wanted to know who the coach would be before I made any big change like that."

One day after he was introduced as Virginia coach April 1, Bennett travelled to Woodbridge to visit with Spurlock.

"That was huge for me," Spurlock said. "It meant a lot to my family and showed what a priority I was for the new staff."

Spurlock is The Roanoke Times' choice as Mr. Basketball in Virginia, a title for which he would not have been eligible one year earlier, when he played at Montrose Christian in Rockville, Md.

Spurlock ranks behind Oak Hill post player Keith "Tiny" Gallon on an accompanying list of the top prospects in Virginia, but Gallon does not qualify for Mr. Basketball because his family's home is in Houston.

Spurlock left Montrose so he could play closer. He wasn't eager to return to Woodbridge High School, where he had played as a freshman.

Time was running short before Spurlock settled on Word of Life, where the student body numbers 80.

"That was a blessing in disguise," he said. "It's probably been my best year of basketball, school and being close to my family. There was no drama. It was great. I loved it.

"There were no givens. Anything could have happened. Basketball-wise, I took a hit in terms of my rankings. People didn't know if I was scared of the competition or because me and [Montrose] coach [Stu] Vetter didn't get along or because I was uncoachable.

"I just wanted to be close to home. I made that drive -- an hour and 45 minutes, with traffic -- every morning and every night. After you get done with that, you're like, 'Man, I want something else.' "

Spurlock would rather be spending his time on the court. He works out from 5-7 a.m. almost daily and carefully monitors what he eats. His mother, Lenore, is a nutritionist. Father Rodney handles the workouts and was once an NFL agent, according to Tristan.

Bennett hasn't watched much film of Virginia's 11 returning scholarship players and even less of the newcomers, Spurlock and Jontel Evans, a point guard from Bethel High School in Hampton.

"We had our elite camp, and they both participated," Bennett said. "They didn't do everything. I used them to demonstrate some of the stuff. What I saw was what I had heard about Jontel being strong and explosive and taking pride in guarding the ball.

"Tristan can play multiple positions and certainly has some skills offensively. He scores in a variety of ways. I've seen him knock down shots and put them on the floor. Good size. Good athleticism. He's charismatic, too."

Bennett arrived with UVa already at the NCAA scholarship limit, provided he held onto Spurlock and Evans.

"When I got the job, I basically had to get to know them," Bennett said. "Introduce myself and say, 'This is who I am. This is what we're going to try and be about. I know you guys will have options.' I didn't want to twist their arms.

"Not saying that they couldn't have opened it up and had a bunch of options -- that always happens in the spring -- but they were already sold on the University of Virginia from a non-basketball standpoint. They just had to meet us."

With all of the slots filled for 2009-10, Bennett turned his attention to the 2010-11 class and last month he took a commitment from frontcourt player, 6-8 Will Regan from the Nichols School in Buffalo, N.Y.

"Whatever the situation is when you take over, that's what it is," Bennett said. "You try to make the best of it. Getting the job in April, there might have been an opportunity to add a player for 2009, but I think it was good to be able to say, 'Let's go attack the 2010s and get busy on that.'"