Ready for Hokies Basketball in 2012?

Judging by the feelings from most of my Tech alumni friends, the rest of you Hokie fans are not terribly excited about Virginia Tech's prospects for having a noteworthy season.  Trust me, I completely understand the negativity.  We have a brand new coach in James Johnson (from here on known as "JJ") who has never been a head coach at the NCAA level, let alone in Division I.  We lost our most highly touted recruit for 2012, as Montrezl Harrell decided to take his talents to the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville.  We also lost our most highly touted recruit for 2011, as Dorian Finney-Smith's mother decided he was too big-time to be missing shots 2 feet from the rim at Virginia Tech and opted to move him to the University of Florida.  Okay, there might be some sour grapes there, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see DFS flourish under Billy Donovan, but if he thought he was too good for VT then good riddance.

So the Hokies will enter 2012 short-handed and will employ new offensive and defensive schemes.  We have 8 players currently on scholarship... one of them, 6'10" r-freshman C Joey Van Zegeren, was red-shirted last year and was considered a project when we recruited him.  Is he ready to contribute?  Another, 6'8" freshman stretch-PF Marshall Wood, probably would be red-shirted this year in a perfect world to give him time to add some beef.  Will he be able to bang down low with the big boys in the ACC?  Here are some of my thoughts on the 2012 Hokie roster in bullet-form, which is my passion and desire.

• James Johnson has a lot of passion for his job and that passion is infectious.  Schematically, JJ has indicated that he wants to get out and run more on offense this year.  Lots of coaches say this (Greenberg said it just about every year) because it's more fun for the players and appeals to recruits, but not a lot have the balls to do it.  So far the team has been practicing this way though.  The increase in tempo has the potential to result in more sloppy play and bad-shooting teams get burned by the fact that they are creating more possessions in the game, hence more chances to miss shots.  It also has the potential to break down and tire out our roster, which as I've said is not deep.  On paper, it seems like a bad idea for this year but it may inspire our players if they like it.
• At his roots, JJ is a defensive coach.  He's big on mixing up defenses... full court pressure, full-court trap, 3/4-court trap, 1/2-court trap, man-to-man defense, zone defense... you name it and I'm sure we'll see it at some point this year.  Primarily you're going to see full court pressure and man-to-man defense, but JJ has said he's open to playing more zone if foul trouble is an issue.
• PG Erick Green returns for his senior season as the undisputed leader of this team.  He had his best season as a Hokie last year, shooting well on 2s, 3s, and from the free throw line.  He will again be asked to be the scoring leader for the Hokies, and you can bet on him stepping up to that role.  Green considered going somewhere else for his senior season after Greenberg was fired, but immediately committed to coming back to VT when James Johnson was made the head coach.  The players really love him and I expect Erick Green to play hard for JJ.  Green will be in the running for first team All-ACC, especially if his assist totals increase a bit.
• If Green is the president of the Hokies, then r-junior C Cadarian Raines is the vice-president.  Raines' voice is respected on this team, and his hard work started paying dividends on the court in the second half of last year's schedule.  Raines has struggled with foot injuries throughout his college career and was truly healthy for the first time last season.  He brought a toughness on defense, on the glass, and defending the rim that was missing when Victor Davila was in the game.  These are traits that everyone knew a healthy Cadarian Raines would bring, but to our surprise he also showed a wonderful post game on offense.  Raines has been working on a variety of moves on the block, and I'm expecting he'll contribute around 10 points per game if not more.  He will need to improve on his rebounding numbers though.
• Junior SF Jarell Eddie had a bit of a breakout season last year showing a fantastic ability on catch-and-shoot jumpers.  He also proved to be our best free throw shooter.  He's supposedly been working in the offseason on shooting better off-the-dribble, and he has the potential to rival Erick Green as the scoring leader for our team.  Eddie is also a solid rebounder with great size for the SF position.  Last season, Greenberg was forced to play him out of position at PF because Finney-Smith wasn't big/strong enough to handle that role.  JJ has indicated Eddie will play exclusively on the perimeter as a small forward this year, which is his strength.  At the very least, Eddie is a solid 3-and-D player, but his ceiling is definitely higher than that.
• Sophomore SG Robert Brown is the most explosive player for the Hokies.  As a freshman, he displayed an array of offensive moves that few freshmen possess.  Brown can shoot it from deep, drive and finish at the rim, terrorize in transition, shoot the pull-up jumper, or use his push-shot that he can float over tall defenders in the paint.  I think he has incredible potential as both a scorer and defender, but I'll be a bit surprised if he can reach that potential this soon... he may be a year away still.  Sometimes when you have as many abilities as he does, you get caught trying to decide how to attack the basket.  Brown also struggled mightily from the free throw line last year in spite of having good form, so it seems like he may have some mental demons to master there.
• The final member of the starting five is sophomore PF C.J. Barksdale.  He's my pick as breakout player of the year for the Hokies, and a lot of that is because he has the opportunity for more minutes. Last year his per-minute numbers were better than Dorian Finney-Smith's, and everything I've heard indicates that he's looking like a beast in practices.  I think he will replace DFS as the rebounding leader on our team and should score about 10 points per game, showing a mid-range jumper that wasn't there last year and some scrappy play around the rim.
• First off the bench is sophomore PG Marquis Rankin.  Rankin did a nice job with limited minutes last year and showed to be our best on-ball defender as a frosh.  Coming out of high school he was noted to be a good finisher around the rim and a so-so outside shooter.  Well he showed the exact opposite last year, proving to be a threat from deep but not really succeeding in his forays into the paint.  I'm hoping to see some steady growth from him as he'll play almost as many minutes as the starters.  Rankin is our best player at pushing the ball forward on the break, and that fits in well with the style that JJ wants to play.
• Freshman PF Marshall Wood is an absolute gem of a find, in my opinion.  He has an inside-out game as a face-up PF who can shoot the 3-pointer.  He also rebounds very well, showing a toughness in the paint.  This season I expect him to get pushed around a little bit as he hasn't had much time to add muscle mass, but I'm predicting that he will be on NBA draft boards before leaving VT.  He also needs to improve his handle.  I think his game will ultimately remind you of former Duke Blue Devil Kyle Singler, except without the a-hole sneer on his face all of the time.
• The final scholarship player is r-freshman C Joey Van Zegeren.  Nobody really knows what to expect from JVZ, as he's been injured during a couple of practices that have been open to the public.  Being the optimistic guy that I am, I think that we're going to get some good minutes from him this year.  I've heard him get some comparisons to fellow Dutchman Robert Krabbendam stating that he will have a similar contribution when he's in the game, which I think is absolutely absurd.  Krabbendam was a stiff.  He was the kind of player who gets a scholarship because he's 7 feet tall.  JVZ, on the other hand, showed to be a very athletic player in high school with a good-looking jump shot and the ability to block shots at a consistent rate.  What do I expect from him this year?  I expect him to play 10-12 minutes per game, giving us a good defensive presence when he is in there.  I think he'll struggle a bit offensively, but I also don't expect him to take many shots.
• There are a number of walk-on players on our roster, and JJ may end up giving some quality minutes to one or two of them depending on how well they play in practice.  Odds are that one or two of the scholarship players will suffer a somewhat serious injury this year, so you may see Joey Racer, Will Johnston, and/or Christian Beyer a little more often than you would like.  I'm really hoping one of those guys can step up to the challenge.

So now that I've given you a sneak preview of this year's head coach and the players on the team, I'll give you my sad prediction for this season.  In the end, I just don't see our team being able to fend off injuries for an entire season and I think our schedule is too awful to put us in the running for a post-season tournament even if we finish with a good record.  Our best out-of-conference opponents are Iowa, OK State, WVU, and BYU.  Yuck... not much chance for a signature victory there.  You could potentially see the Hokies finish something like 11-2 in their out-of-conference play and still not get into either the NIT or the Big Dance.  Usually you can count on the Hokies playing in a tournament around Thanksgiving or Christmas with the chance to play one or two highly ranked opponents.  Not this year.  VT plays in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic as the only high-major team in the tournament.  The other teams include: Bradley, Colorado State, Portland, Georgia Southern, Mississippi Valley State, North Florida, and Cal State Bakersfield.  Again... yuck.  And then to top off the fun, we play a very weak ACC slate.  3 of the top 5 teams in the ACC figure to be NC State (#1), UNC (#3), and Florida State (#5)... we play each only once.

So I'm sorry to say Hokie fans, if your definition of success is making the NCAA tournament or at the very least making the NIT, then I think I have bad news for you.  It'd be an incredible story if VT were able to make that happen this year, but I just don't see it.  However, I'm still going to watch the team and root for our boys because I always keep hope for the most improbable things to happen to us.  Keep hope alive.  Go Hokies!

Greenberg Out, JJ In

Well, it finally happened.  For the past couple of years there have been offseason rumblings about the possibility of Seth Greenberg being fired at Virginia Tech.  It finally happened.  I think at this time everybody knows how it happened and why it happened.  Athletic Director Jim Weaver got a little PO'd about the fact that assistant coaches kept leaving Seth Greenberg's staff, and this time with 3 assistant coaches leaving for equivalent jobs and a director of basketball operations also bolting for a new home, Greenberg would have to replace his entire staff in one offseason.  Any traction that had been gained in recruiting was likely lost as the guys primarily responsible for doing the recruiting were no longer at VT.  Jim Weaver probably crapped a brick and after he was done doing that, he called a press conference together without informing Seth Greenberg of his firing.

Let's get something straight; you do not announce a press conference to the media and then put up a link to it on your website before you tell a guy that he's fired.  That's low class, and a poor decision by Jim Weaver and his staff.  Weaver gave some excuse about scheduling, but shoot... even a text would have been better than having reporters calling Greenberg to see if he was getting fired before he had any clue it was coming.  That was a really bad move and the national media got it right by calling out our athletic department on that one.

With that said, and it did need to be said, the local and national media also got the pulse of the situation right (except for ESPN who I think is grooming Greensberg for a full-time analyst position).  It was time.  It was not an ideal time, but it was time.  I've been hearing for a while from people in the know that Greenberg was a tough guy to work with and could be pretty abrasive.  We saw that with the way he treated the media.  After a win, he's talkative and enthusiastic and a really great interview.  After a loss, he's sullen and condescending and could snap at someone at a moment's notice.  That's his personality, for better or for worse, and this time it seemed the worse of it was too much for 4 staff members to be around.  I believe Jim Weaver when he said that 1 trip to the NCAA tournament in 9 years was not the reason that Seth Greenberg was let go.  VT football has had similar post-season failure, but Frank Beamer is not going anywhere as long as Weaver is AD.  For him, it's enough to be one of the best teams in the conference, and Beamer and Greenberg both certainly showed that Virginia Tech was and is one of the best team's in the ACC for both sports.

My opinion about Greenberg is a mixed bag, which I'm sure you find utterly shocking.  Sure, changing conferences from the A-10 to the Big East to the ACC gave Seth access to recruits that his crummy predecessor didn't have.  But as far as national scouting services were concerned, Greenberg was still working with less than his conference contemporaries.  Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon were two of the best players ever to wear the orange and maroon, and they weren't on the radars of a lot of power conference schools.  For a while, Greenberg was getting the most out of his players and it was showing in the ACC record.  The simple fact of the matter is that with Seth Greenberg's patented defense, the Hokies kept most games close and often finished in the top half of the ACC standings.  That's great... that's exactly what you want.

The negatives were also there, though.  Greenberg did not seem to be a guy who could develop players.  When I think of Malcolm Delaney, Jeff Allen, Dorenzo Hudson, and Victor Davila, I think of 4 guys who were promising as freshmen and were basically the same players when they graduated as seniors.  Sure, there were slight improvements... Davila improved defensively in his junior year and Delaney learned in his senior season that he couldn't drive into the lane, flail around, and expect to draw a foul anymore (the referees were on to his game during his sophomore season).  But these were pretty minor improvements.  The only guy I can think of who really burst onto the scene to surprise everyone is Erick Green.  Green showed some tremendous improvement.  But for the most part, it just wasn't there under Greenberg.

Another negative was the lack of offense.  Look, I get that he was a defensive coach who preached protecting the ball and quality possessions.  But for all of Greenberg's offensive plans to score more in transition and "get out and run", the Hokies failed to ever actually do that.  Year after year we suffered through offenses with low scoring (and worse than that, poor efficiency numbers), but Greenberg refused to bring in an offensively-minded assistant to take over this role.  Personally, I think he just has too much of an ego to ever do that.  Last year VT had one of the top 15 freshman classes in the country, a feat never before achieved at my alma mater.  I'm kind of relieved that they won't have to sit through 3 more years of a Seth Greenberg offense.  If this group of guys doesn't get to the NCAA tournament at some point, it will be a massive failure in the new coaching staff.

And that leads us to the hiring of James Johnson, the prodigal assistant.  Without throwing Seth Greenberg under the bus, what we know from JJ is that he liked his chances of becoming a head coach more by being at Clemson and that was the primary reason for his move.  But the unsaid connotation is that he was also unhappy with his position at Tech and didn't think he could become a head coach in that position.  I have no qualms with Weaver going out and grabbing the guy who recently spurned VT for Clemson.  I would have done the same if I was JJ and I would have looked at hiring him if I was Weaver.  There was no conspiracy here... JJ was not Weaver's first choice.  He kicked the tires on Shaka Smart, Jay Wright, and Bobby Lutz for sure, but for all three guys I am told that there was a money problem.  They wanted too much of it and they weren't going to get it.  With those guys and others at their level out of the mix, JJ was a fantastic hire.

Why do I like the JJ hire?  For one, he is going to keep all of our current players on the roster and will probably end up keeping both of our promising young recruits, Marshall Wood and Montrezl Harrell.  Harrell is less certain, but he hasn't asked out of his letter of intent yet.  Wood re-upped with Tech as soon as he heard JJ was the hire.  Why?  Because players love JJ.  No one has a bad thing to say about him... he is beloved by players, colleagues, media members, recruits... he's a great guy who loves basketball and never says a negative word about anybody. 

So this is where we are... we have a first-time head coach who preaches defense and claims that his defense will remind you a lot of Seth Greenberg's defense.  Like Greenberg promised so many times, JJ wants to "get out and run".  Personally, I think coaches just say this because their players want to hear it.  What player doesn't want an open up and down game where they can show off their monster dunks and drop wide open transition 3-pointers?  These are the plays that get the crowd fired up and thus get the players fired up.  But you know what?  Someone has to have a real game plan that will lead to this happening.  The players have to learn when to jump passes and get better at deflecting passes in order to create the turnovers needed for fastbreaks.  Players need to learn to outlet the ball quickly after rebounds and made baskets and push the tempo the right way with guys at different levels on the court.  You don't just "get out and run" by running.  I'm hoping that JJ realizes this, and if he is in the same vein as Greenberg and doesn't have a knack for game-planning an offense, I really hope he is not too proud to bring in an offensively-minded assistant coach to help him.  I've heard that College of Charleston assitant Mark Byington is almost a done deal, and he would be an absolutely amazing hire.  Great X's and O's coach who is a solid recruiter, is well-respected by his peers, and is originally from Salem, VA.  I hope he comes home.  Former Dusquesne coach Ron Everhart is also being talked about, and he would be a guy with head-coaching experience who could really help JJ in this transitional time.  I've heard other names from Ace Custis (supposedly contact JJ about his interest), Dell Curry (sounds like BS to me), and Jerry Wainwright (would bring same kind of credentials and experience as Everhart).  I like what I'm hearing if these guys are indeed interested.

It's a new era in Virginia Tech basketball.  Seth Greenberg had 9 good years with a lot of positives for all of us VT basketball fans, and we should take some time to remember that and thank him for it.  Basketball wasn't very fun in Blacksburg before he arrived.  Now we have a brand new head coach who could take us back to the dark ages or bring us further into the light, and I can't even venture a guess as to which of the two will happen.  I want to see our guys play hard for JJ.  I want to see our players develop and improve from year to year and hopefully even month-to-month.  We know James Johnson can recruit.  What is he going to do with those guys once they walk through the doors of Cassell Coliseum?  I'm excited to find out.

The Doe-Doe Show

I'm not sure how many people watched the VT basketball game this afternoon... it was on ESPN3.com instead of TV.  VT won 64-53 over East Tennessee State.  They're supposed to rival Belmont for the Atlantic Sun title this year... the same Belmont who almost beat Duke last night so ETSU is a pretty good team.  My thoughts:

• Dorian Finney-Smith was just what was advertised.  He's not a dominant scorer (yet), but he seemed like he was everything else.  Put up a double-double with 10 points and 16 rebounds (yeah. 16!).  Blocked 4 shots.  Racked up 5 assists.  Only turned the ball over twice despite helping to bring it up the floor against the full-court press.  Wow... I'm a fan.  That's how you replace Jeff Allen, and then some.
• Victor Davila is what we thought he is.  For people who thought he was going to step in and be the team's dominant rebounder and a consistent double-figure scorer, that was never going to happen.  He seemingly reached his max potential last season, but that's still a good player to have.  He had 7 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks today... a standard game from Vic with very good post defense.
• I think ETSU's 2-3 zone kept Zo Hudson from really getting off today.  He finished with a quiet 9 points, but he did a nice job defensively and even played some point guard to give Ty Garland a breather.  I think he's typically going to score more than today.
• No Erick Green today... he is still nursing a sore achilles tendon.  With Marquis Rankin still recovering from a knee injury he suffered about a month ago, that left Ty Garland running the point.  Garland had a really sloppy game, particularly early on when he was trying to shake some jitters.  He did a nice job of cutting through the 2-3 zone, but too many times he would finish his drive with a low pass at the feet of a post player, and you just can't expect Davila, Raines, or Barksdale to catch a pass like that.  Heck, I don't really think anyone could have caught those passes.  They were just too ambitious.  7 turnovers and some bad shot choices will not help Garland to keep a spot in the rotation when Green and Rankin are back.  Two positives from Garland... he was aggressive at times defensively and was able to get some steals that way.  He also did a nice job of finishing on his shots in the lane.
• CJ Barksdale = a taller JT Thompson.  He brought some fantastic energy off the bench and pulled down 7 rebounds.  Like Thompson, he doesn't seem to be a shooter at this point in his career and will need to work on that, but he had some nice moves closer to the basket.
• You're going to love Robert Brown.  He makes good decisions with the ball, he plays some tenacious defense, and he can SHOOT IT.  He shot 7 times in the game, all three-pointers.  The first 3 in the first half were bricks, then he made his next 3 in the second half after calming down.  He's got a really nice stroke and supposedly can finish on the break as well, although we didn't get to see that today.  I see him leading the team in scoring next season after Hudson moves on, or at least giving Erick Green a run for his money.
• Jarell Eddie had a solid game starting at the 4.  For those who were worried about VT's 3-point shooting now that Delaney is gone, I think that the answer will be Eddie + Brown.  Eddie was only 1-3 in the game from the arc, but his two misses both rattled around inside the rim before jumping out.  Make no mistake, this kid can shoot.
• Cadarian Raines gave our team some much needed protection around the rim.  He only had 1 block in the game, but he altered a bunch of shots with his interior presence.  He also managed to grab 3 steals, leading the team today.  I think he's a guy who you will see improve a lot over the course of the season.  Because of two seasons of foot injuries, he doesn't have a lot of game experience and so he looked lost in the offense, but I can definitely see him improving there.  He's going to be a valuable player for VT.
• We even got to see 2 minutes of Joey Van Zegeren today.  He came in and did a nice job, in my opinion. He bodied up ETSU's best player, PF Isiah Brown, and played him tough forcing a missed shot.  Brown managed to get the ball back kind of through a bit of luck rather than anything JVZ did, and then he fell for a double pump and fouled Brown, but it was nice to see that he's no pushover.

Overall, I am really encouraged by this game.  The Hokies got down by as much as 7 points with about 8 minutes left in the first half, but I am going to attribute most of that to early season jitters while shooting the ball and also to Garland's early turnovers.  It looks like things are back to normal this season with Greenberg's patented, suffocating, man-to-man defense and that should be a constant throughout the season.  It was also great to see the Hokies battle back to take the lead before the end of the half and then to keep ETSU from taking the lead again at any point in the second half.  ETSU made a late run to get back into the game, but the Hokies stomped it out.  This is what good teams do... they squash runs.  I am definitely excited about this season and I think that an NCAA tournament bid is more likely this year than it was last year.  Remember that.

ACC Predictions

With Virginia Tech's men's college basketball season starting up 2 weeks from tomorrow, I thought I would take a look all 12 ACC teams and rank them, since that's the hip thing to do.  So let's get right to it.

1. UNC - Obviously.  Everyone in the media has the Tar Heels as the #1 team in the ACC if not the #1 team in the nation, and I am no different.  When North Carolina benched Larry Drew II last season in favor of Kendall Marshall at point guard, the whole team benefited.  Marshall shows real leadership and play-making abilities.  Add an emerging Harrison Barnes at SF, a defensive terror in PF John Henson, an all-around excellent C in Tyler Zeller, as well as a deep bench, and you have a team destined for greatness.  They are as close to a lock as there is for the Final Four.
2. Duke - There is some room for argument having Duke as the #2 team in the ACC... but not much.  They just continue to add big-time recruits year after year.  Losing your top three scorers in Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Kyrie Irving is tough, but the cupboard just got restocked.  Duke landed the #1 recruit in the nation in G Austin Rivers, as well as a third Plumlee brother (Marshall Plumlee, supposedly the most talented of the 3 massive Plumlees), PG Quinn Cook, and SF Michael Gbinije.  Miles Plumlee is the only senior on the team, but he's not a team leader.  The youth and inexperience of this team could be a problem, but the talent certainly is not.
3. UVA - Yep, that's right... I'm not picking Florida State here.  Blasphemous, I know.  I'll explain why I'm down on FSU in their section, but I'll explain here why I'm high on UVA.  For one, I truly believe Tony Bennett is an excellent coach and his defensive tactics will make UVA one of the best defensive teams in the ACC.  UVA's star player, PF Mike Scott, only played ten games last season before being shut down with an injury.  They were also missing starting PG Sammy Zeglinski for the first 7 games of the season, and it really showed.  This team didn't lose much to graduation (underwhelming backup forward Will Sherrill, and streaky shooter Mustapha Farrakhan at guard), but they're adding two 4-star recruits in SG Malcolm Brogdon and SF Paul Jesperson.  Look for KT Harrell and Joe Harris to build on last year's success as freshmen.  If they can stay clear of injuries at their most talented positions, they can easily finish 3rd in the ACC.
4. Virginia Tech - I know everyone is going to hate me putting UVA ahead of VT, but I am just going with my gut.  Erick Green is going to have a great year at PG.  Victor Davila will probably improve a touch this year, but for the most part he's a known factor.  The loss of Jeff Allen's rebounding does scare me... he was awesome on the boards.  However, I think Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen will be replaced by a committee of players including the returning Dorenzo Hudson and JT Thompson, as well as finally-healthy Cadarian Raines.  VT's squad is deeper than it has ever been, and you're going to see the absence of Delaney's negativity have a positive effect on certain members of the team.  Also, this is the best recruiting class that Coach Greenberg has ever had, and "Doe Doe" Finney-Smith is the best recruit Greenberg has ever landed.  Optimism abounds.
5. Florida State - Yes, they are absolutely loaded in the frontcourt, and that's before adding ESPN top 100 SF Antwan Space into the mix.  They have solid shooting guards in Michael Snaer and Ian Miller.  But they don't have the most important piece of the pie... a good point guard.  It is very rare to see a team succeed in the ACC without a good point guard.  The loss of NBA-bound Chris Singleton is big, but FSU has players that can mostly replace what he brought to the table (by committee of course).  You can't say that about the loss of Derwin Kitchen at PG.  Luke Loucks was terrible as the backup PG last year and Arkansas transfer Jeff Peterson doesn't look to be any better.  Besides Kitchen, no player on FSU had an assist-to-turnover ratio over 1.375 last season.  That is lousy... this team is going to turn the ball over a lot, and that's going to lead to easy baskets in transition.
6. Miami - I have no idea what to expect from the 'Canes.  They have two fantastic guards in Durand Scott and Malcolm Grant.  They have one of the best centers in the ACC in Reggie Johnson.  Miami didn't lose much from last season, just F Adrian Thomas.  They have solid wing players in Garrius Adams and DeQuan Jones.  However, they have a new coach in Jim Larranaga and only one recruit, 3-star SG Bishop Daniels.  Also Jones could be in big trouble for supposedly accepting a $10,000 bribe to play at Miami... just depends on how long the NCAA takes with this crazy Nevin Shapiro case.  The backcourt alone makes you want to put this team higher than 6th place though... I guess we'll see.
7. Clemson - I could see this team being better than I'm predicting, but also worse so this spot seems about right.  The diminutive point guard Andre Young is an excellent shooter and ball-handler.  The frontcourt is imposing with Devin Booker, Milton Jennings, Bryan Narcisse, and 4-star recruit Bernard Sullivan.  G/F Tanner Smith is also a nice starting player.  The depth at guard and small forward is a real concern though.  Coach Brad Brownell brought in a bunch of 3-star recruits in a year where he has some serious minutes to dish out to freshmen... I can definitely see that being a problem if Young or Smith goes down with an injury.
8. NC State - Sidney Lowe is finally gone, which is great for Wolfpack fans, but the coaching change also resulted in talented PG Ryan Harrow moving on to a new home in Kentucky, so this team is left without a lot of options at the point.  NC State has talented wing players in CJ Leslie, Scott Wood, Lorenzo Brown, and CJ Williams.  They have a decent frontcourt with Richard Howell, DeShawn Painter, and 4-star PF recruit Tyler Harris.  But the lack of overall depth and the severe questions at PG will probably doom this team.  Strange move by Harrow... he will go from a situation where he was possibly going to be the star of a decent team to a situation where he has to sit out a year and likely won't be the starting point guard when he comes back.  I wouldn't trust John Calipari not to bring in a big-time recruit at PG for 2012, and personally, I don't think it's a given that Marquis Teague will be good enough or have the body to go straight to the NBA after 1 year.
9. Georgia Tech - Can I really put this team above Maryland?  You'll see why in their section.  As for Georgia Tech, this team lost a lot of their best contributors from last year.  Star point guard Iman Shumpert is gone to the NBA, backup point guard Mo Miller is also gone, and so is sharp-shooter Brian Oliver.  Backup forward Lance Storrs is gone too.  Coming in is only one recruit, but he's a good one in ESPN top 100 power forward Julian Royal.  Also, any coach other than Paul Hewitt can only be a good thing for this team.  They return a capable PG in Mfon Udofia, a blossoming G/F in Glen Rice Jr, and sophomore 2nd-year starters Daniel Miller and Kammeon Holsey in the post.  I imagine Jason Morris will round out the starting group, and he got good experience last year.  There isn't much depth to this team, but the starters are capable.
10. Maryland - Another coaching change... this one was due to Gary Williams' retirement though.  Maryland boasts talented freshman SG Nick Faust and their star player is likely to be PG Terrell Stoglin who really came onto the scene strong in his first season.  Guard Pe'Shon Howard is also talented, but he's going to miss at least the first 2 months of the season with a broken foot.  Guard Adrian Bowie gave big minutes last year, but is now gone.  They still have senior G/F Sean Mosley (man, he seems like he's been around forever), who never seems to take that next step towards stardom.  The frontcourt is a bit of a mess with beastly center Jordan Williams leaving early for the NBA.  Also, forwards Dino Gregory and Cliff Tucker are gone.  James Padgett looks like he can handle the pressure, but who else will rebound the ball and guard the hoop?  This team is going through transition and might finish lower than 10th, but almost certainly no higher than 9th.
11. Wake Forest - This team should be a good bit better than last season, but that's not saying much... they were one of the all-time worst ACC teams in the history of the conference last year, at least according to RPI.  Forward Travis McKie will be awesome this year, and Guard CJ Harris should perform very well, but the loss of guard JT Terrell (he was arrested and cut loose) and only a couple of 3-star recruits coming in basically spells doom for this team.  I can't imagine them beating too many teams in the ACC, but they should win a few more out-of-conference games.
12. Boston College - A massive exodus of talent has left this team in shambles.  Electric guard Reggie Jackson is gone, as are PF Joe Trapani, SF Corey Raji, G Biko Paris, and C Josh Southern.  In other words, all five starters from last year are gone.  Hokie killer Dallas Elmore has also flown the coop.  Role players John Cahill and Cortney Dunn... also gone.  It's a major overhaul this season and Steve Donahue will be asking a LOT of two sophomores, G Gabriel Moton and G/F Danny Rubin, as well as 4-star freshman PF Ryan Anderson.  The rest of the team will be a bunch of 3-star and 2-star freshman recruits along with some less-than-notable transfer players.  This team could end up rivaling the terribleness of least year's Wake Forest team.  Syracuse and Pittsburgh, hurry up and give our conference some credibility again!

More Wood

A couple of videos for 2012 b-ball recruit Mashall Wood... the first is his highlight video and the second is an interview with him after the Pitt Hoop Group event.  Why did I include the second video?  This guy seems like a bright kid.  He says at the end that he is trying to model his game after former Dukie Kyle Singler, which is a great idea.  As much as I hated Singler for his a-hole attitude, he plays the game the right way and you'd love to have a guy who plays that way on your team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48CFxIOvp_Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7pBRYDkdZM

VT's 2012 B-ball Recruits

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!

David Wilson for Heisman?

It's been a long time since Virginia Tech has had a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate.  The person I'm referencing here is obviously Michael Vick.  Ryan Williams did very well 2 seasons ago, but by the end of the season he wasn't anywhere close to the front-runners.  The truth is David Wilson has been every bit as impressive as fellow Heisman candidate Trent Richardson of Alabama, but there are two reasons why people are talking about Richardson and nobody is talking about Wilson.

The first reason is the most obvious... Richardson is sporting a robust 18 touchdowns at this point in the season.  Alabama has only played 8 games, so for you non-math types, that's over 2 touchdowns per game for Richardson.  David Wilson has only 8 touchdowns on the season at a rate of 1 per game.  VT had weak opponents in their first 4 games of the season, but with Logan Thomas needing until opponent #6 for his QB light to go on, Wilson probably missed a bunch of TD opportunities as the QB and offensive line both struggled.

The second reason why nobody is talking about David Wilson for Heisman... he is playing for Virginia Tech.  Now, I don't mean that comment in a way like, "The media hates Virginia Tech and nobody pays any attention to us."  That's not the least bit true in my opinion, the Hokies get plenty of coverage and love from ESPN.  However, VT is currently sitting at 12th in the BCS standings and doesn't really have a legit shot at the national title.  The media prefers their Heisman candidates to come from teams who are vying for the #1 spot, so they're not really looking at a player who is out of the running.  Sometimes there are guys like Robert Griffin III putting up astronomical numbers on a bad team that is supposedly in the running for the Heisman, but trust me... RGIII has zero chance to win the trophy.

I guess this post is more to inform than anything else.  Although David Wilson can do some sweet things like plant his head on the ground, spin around on it, and continue to run while the rest of his body never touches the ground, he hasn't really had the type of season that requires nationwide attention.  Not yet, at least.  Wilson is probably not going to come anywhere close to the TD totals that Richardson is producing, so he needs for two things to happen, one which is in his control and another outside of his control.  The thing that is within his control: Wilson needs to put up bigger yardage totals.  He needs a couple of games where he runs for over 200 yards while making defenders look silly.  The only way a Heisman committee can compare Wilson to Richardson is if his yardage totals are much more impressive than T-Rich and can counterbalance the lopsided TD numbers.  The thing outside of his control: Wilson needs the teams ranked above VT to lose, and lose more than just one game.  One loss for LSU or Alabama or even OK State probably won't drop them close enough to the Hokies to matter.

Although the Heisman trophy means nothing once a player jumps to the NFL, I'd still love to see a Hokie take one home one day.  Since David Wilson will probably take his talents to the NFL after this year, maybe that guy for VT can be Logan Thomas.  Thomas has made huge strides in his last 3 games and is starting to look like a real talent.  Will he continue on that path and eventually become elite?  The answer is obviously "Yes."  Next topic for discussion, please.