| Hasan Hammad has filled a role for Mary Washington since transferring from conference rival Christopher Newport. Photo by Ryan Coleman, d3photography.com |
By Riley Zayas
for D3sports.com
Hasan Hammad made his way onto the University of Mary Washington campus on a late March day a year ago, considering what his life — and basketball career — might look like should he make the move he had been contemplating since re-connecting with UMW head coach Marcus Kahn a short time before.
It was a familiar setting for the 6-3 guard, the 234-acre campus situated only an hour from his hometown of Haymarket, Virginia. His first two seasons in college had included trips to Ron Rosner Arena, giving Hammad a first-hand look at the Eagles’ home court. Of course, that view was from the visitor’s bench.
Hammad had spent the first half of his career at longtime national power Christopher Newport, UMW’s primary rival in the Coast-to-Coast Conference. Now he found himself walking into the Eagles’ home gym pondering the possibility of a complete 180-degree turn, spending the second half of his career in Fredericksburg as an Eagle.
And it didn’t take long for that possibility to evolve into a reality.
“It was like middle school hangouts,” said Hammad, who is averaging 4.6 points per game for UMW heading into the April 5 national title game. “Everything was clicking.”
He meant that literally, having played with and against a handful of UMW’s current players as far back as middle school. Still, the immediate chemistry with the team remained an encouraging sign. After all, he had been on the opposite side of six matchups against the Eagles over the previous two years, including an intense C2C title game only a month before.
But the real decision-maker was in what came after the visit: He was able to sit down for dinner with his mom.
For the family-oriented Hammad, who is the oldest of five children, finding his way closer to home was the reason he began looking to leave CNU in the first place. On the court in Newport News, he played in 52 career games over two seasons and even earned a C2C Player of the Week honor on an occasion as a freshman.
But he was also a three-hour drive from home, separated from the region and the people who had poured into his basketball career most. He wanted to have his family at more games, to be able to commute between home and campus easily, and be more involved in the basketball pursuits of his two younger brothers, who are in high school and middle school.
UMW, at only 50 miles away from Haymarket, provided that. As for putting Hammad in a winning environment, Kahn’s program had that too, fresh off a C2C championship and a run to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
“I needed to be a little bit closer to family,” Hammad said before UMW’s eventual national semifinal win over Trinity (Conn.) last Saturday. “Being able to literally meet my dad on campus, have a meeting with Coach [Kahn], and 45 minutes later, I’m having dinner with my mom. It was a big deal for me.”
When Kahn heard from Hammad, informing UMW’s 12th-year head coach that he was in the transfer portal and looking to move closer to family, he was immediately interested. Having watched the strong guard lead Battlefield High School to a Virginia state runner-up finish in 2022 and gameplanned against Hammad for two consecutive years, Kahn knew the value he would be adding to an already-stacked roster led by All-American Kye Robinson if the CNU transfer joined the fold.
“We knew more about him than we would’ve with high school guys,” Kahn said earlier this week. “We saw him play in high school, we played against him for two years, and he was close with a couple guys on our team from middle school on that he played with or against. His ability to shoot the ball was something we felt we needed, and some depth behind [Jadon] Burgess at that spot. He’s given us just that.”
For Kahn, it also presented a second chance at bringing Hammad to UMW. With an approach to recruiting that in Kahn’s words, has been “very selective” over the last few seasons, the Eagles’ head coach had been forced to make a difficult decision in Hammad’s senior year of high school.
After the two met at a camp Kahn was running in the summer, Hammad followed up, expressing his interest in the program. But he heard nothing until March, and by then, he had been committed to CNU for well over five months. The email had reached Kahn just fine; the problem was that UMW already had two stellar newcomers committed in Jay Randall and Kaden Bates and there wasn’t really room to also add Hammad to the incoming class.
“Bringing all three of those guys in together didn’t make sense,” Kahn noted. “Somebody at that point is going to be unhappy. We already had the other two guys that we were really on. It just wasn’t the right timing for it.”
But a lot can change in two years. And by the time Hammad reached out last spring, it was a different situation for both sides. Hammad proved himself at CNU, and Kahn needed more quality depth on the roster.
Timing stood in the way the first time, but in the second go-around, the timing could not have been better.
Even still, Kahn was up front with Hammad about the reality of what his playing time would likely be at UMW, a team with an already established rotation that returned the bulk of its production from 2024-25. Kahn couldn’t guarantee he would play any more as a junior at UMW than the 8.0 minutes per game he averaged as a sophomore at CNU.
But Hammad wasn’t deterred, in part because the move was more about family and community than stats and time in the spotlight.
“I asked, ‘What happens if you come in and your role is no bigger than it was at CNU?,’” Kahn remembers saying, noting that a version of that question is posed to every recruit. “I try to gauge their response on that. He had the right one. He said, ‘I want to come in and be part of a good team, and a good culture.’ He was used to that at Christopher Newport and he certainly didn’t want to take a step backwards.
“It was just having that honest conversation up front, where he knew coming in, it’s going to be all about the team. He’s started a game or two when some guys have been hurt, but for the most part he’s been a really good addition to our depth for the year.”
The numbers certainly back up that assessment. Hammad is one of five players who has seen action in all 32 of UMW’s games this season, and is averaging the most minutes per game (17.4) amongst the Eagles’ primary bench contributors. Having made 33 3-pointers, he ranks fourth on the team in field goals from beyond the arc, and over the last three games of the historic NCAA Tournament run, has shot 6-of-14 from the field.
He might be in his first season at UMW, but heading to Indianapolis for the national title game, Hammad is preparing to take the floor for his 12th NCAA Tournament game. His level of experience, especially in the postseason, has paid dividends for the Eagles over the last three weeks.
“It’s been a blessing to play in those big moments,” Hammad said. “I’ve been able to play in the tournament and then play a tournament schedule all year long, with the non-conference games we have and obviously playing Christopher Newport three times this year. It goes back to a sense of preparation. Every practice for us feels like a tournament game. Every film session feels like a tournament film session. Even down to the way we fuel our bodies in dining halls and the way we lift in the weight room, it’s all in preparation for these moments.”
One of those such moments came a week ago, with the clock winding down in the second half of UMW’s national semifinal against Trinity (Conn.). From his view on the bench — UMW trailing the Bantams, 61-60 — Hammad watched Randall come up with a steal on the defensive end, then find Bates for an emphatic go-ahead 3-pointer that ultimately sent the Eagles to Indy.
Hammad wasn’t surprised. Perhaps nobody else in the coliseum had seen Randall and Bates develop from as early an age as Hammad, their teammate at Marsteller Middle School in Bristow, Virginia. The trio shared the floor as young players then, with unpolished skill sets but a genuine passion for the game.
As they grew older, Randall and Bates ended up at Patriot High School while Hammad played at Battlefield High, two programs that shared the same league and were often 1-2 in the standings. It was then that they went from teammates to rivals, a dynamic that continued into the first half of their respective college careers at UMW and CNU.
But in a full circle moment for Hammad, they have reunited wearing the same uniform again this season. Sentimentally, to see Randall and Bates team up for the biggest play for UMW’s monumental win in Fort Wayne, meant a lot to Hammad as well.
“We were barely able to get up three-pointers at that point,” Hammad remembers of their middle school playing days. “To now, having spent roughly six years playing against them, and now we’re on the same team and complementing one another. If you would have told our middle school selves we would be playing for a national championship and playing big roles in that game, I would’ve thought you were foolish.”
That unique storyline is an extension of the “family” that brought Hammad back to his home part of the state last spring. There has been something special about the chance to live out the team’s national title dream alongside friends he has been playing with and against for the better part of his basketball career.
The same is certainly true when it comes to his dad, Raed, who still serves as the director of operations for the Battlefield High School program. It was Raed who put a basketball in his hands for the first time, and who coached his first team, eventually climbing all the way up the ladder through AAU, the college recruiting process, and a memorable high school career.
Hammad remembers how much they bonded over the sport in the early years. For it to now have culminated in a trip to the biggest stage in college basketball? There’s not nearly enough words to capture what that father-son relationship has meant.
“For me, playing basketball was a sense of building that connection with him,” Hammad said. “From there, it grew into something that I loved, and something that he and I would always bond over.”
It’s a joke in the family, Hammad adds, that his dad doesn’t typically like to show a lot of emotion. But after UMW clinched its spot in the title game, a photo was snapped of the celebration. In it, Raed had a broad smile on his face, watching his son take in the moment amongst his teammates.
“It was a big moment to be able to have everybody there,” Hammad said. “I’m the oldest of five kids, so we’ve always got a lot going on in our household. To get everybody there in that moment for the first game all of them were able to be at this year, really meant a lot to me.”
Among those family members in attendance were his two younger brothers. With the move closer to home at UMW, he has had more opportunities to see them grow in their passion for the sport on his frequent trips home. Sometimes that means putting up shots with them on an outdoor hoop in the driveway. On other occasions, they go to an indoor gym for basketball-focused workouts. It has been those little moments along the way, paired with some of the bigger moments on the court, that reaffirm Hammad made the right decision in taking a leap of faith and transferring to UMW.
“Being as family-oriented as I am, knowing that I’ve got my two younger brothers and my other siblings that look up to me [means a lot],” Hammad said. “Walking out of that gym and them seeing the towels that are on our necks and asking, ‘Hey can you grab us one of those?’ Things like that make me realize they’re getting something out of it too. It’s not just about me. It’s about them as well and representing my last name.”
He will have another opportunity to represent that last name in front of his younger siblings in the national championship showdown with fellow Region 6 powerhouse Emory in a week’s time. His excitement is already very evident. It’s not often a team gets the chance to play in a game of this magnitude, much less in a venue like Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
In a unique twist of fate, it was Emory who ended Mary Washington’s Cinderella tournament run in 2025, an 80-78 nailbiter in the third round. While Hammad wasn’t in the gym for that matchup, he is equally familiar with that group of Eagles, twice facing Emory in the regular season with CNU. His first experience matching up with Emory? A start that saw him play 36 minutes as a true freshman in 2023-24. Last season, he played fewer minutes against Emory but hit one of the most decisive shots of an 83-76 CNU win, draining a jumper with 1:18 left that put his team up three.
Those experiences are building his confidence heading into yet another, much higher-stakes contest against the UAA regular season champion. And he is ready for it, this time wearing “UMW” across his chest.
“You learn their tendencies and the way they play,” Hammad said of UMW’s upcoming foe. “Those guys have had an incredible year up to this point. I think it’ll be a great game. Our guys love playing in those big moments. ‘Excited’ doesn’t even put into correct terms how we’re feeling about this matchup.”