Virginia Tech added another commitment to their 2012 men's basketball team today. Marshall Wood is a 6'8" 210lb forward from Rustburg, VA, just south of Lynchburg. Seth Greenberg has four scholarships to work with for next year's recruiting class as Dorenzo Hudson, JT Thompson, and Victor Davila will all deplete their 4th year of eligibility this season, and Allan Chaney will not have a scholarship next season as he was not medically cleared to play basketball at Virginia Tech.
My first thought on this... Rustburg is a AA high school in a weak basketball area for the AA level, so Marshall has been playing against some awful opponents. He is often guarded by players at least 6 inches shorter than him. Marshall would have done himself a favor by going to a more competitive high school for his senior season to better prepare for the college level.
Now that we've got the negative stuff out of the way, here are the positives. Wood got scholarship offers from several solid basketball schools including Vanderbilt, Michigan, Clemson, ODU, Richmond, and VCU. He is young for his grade in school and is probably still growing... he might be 6'9" when all is said and done. He has a 7'2" wingspan, rivaling that of Dorian Finney-Smith. However, unlike Finney-Smith, he will probably not contribute much as a freshman. He has the skill set of a SF/PF hybrid with a great mid-range game... my guess is that he's more of a face-up PF because he's not really a post-up guy and he doesn't have the ball-handling skills to play on the perimeter too much. There's a small part of me that thinks that this guy might be a center for VT when all is said and done. He likes to block shots, he grabs offensive rebounds, and he's got good athleticism, so frankly I'm guessing that even Greenberg doesn't know what his position on the team will be until he shows up in Blacksburg next year.
The other commitment for VT's 2012 recruiting class is 6'7" 215lb PF Montrezl Harrell. Harrell is another big fish from a small pond as he went to high school in a small town in western NC. However, this season he will be playing for Hargrave Military Academy, as current Hokie freshmen Marquis Rankin, Robert Brown, and CJ Barksdale did last year. This is a good move for Harrell and will prepare him better for the next level.
The scoop on Harrell is that he has basically the same size and skill set as Jeff Allen when Allen joined Tech's team. He's a monster on the boards grabbing both offensive and defensive rebounds. He has good shooting range that probably doesn't extend out to the 3-point line, but just inside of it. He works hard and loves a big dunk. He probably doesn't have the quickness of hands or dribbling ability that Allen had, but he also doesn't come with the emotional baggage... sounds like a good trade-off to me.
Seth Greenberg and his staff continue to put us in a good position by grabbing solid recruits. I would love it if we were able to draft a true center once in a while, though. Hopefully we will grab one for the 2012 recruiting class when all is said and done. As for now... nice work VT coaches!
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