BREAKING: All-ACC Honorable Mention C Grant Basile has left Virginia Tech and signed with one of Italy's top teams, Bertram Dethrona, as announced by the Italian team. Check out more on this significant departure for the #Hokies from @TimThomasTLP here:https://t.co/uONwDeeHJa— The Tech Lunch Pail (@TechLunchPailD) April 14, 2023
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WELP
really hope grant balls out overseas and sticks and makes a nice career for himself there
Shoot. Selfishly I wanted him back, but good for him. Start making that money, and good luck!
The one reply to the tweet says that the contract is for 2026, so I'm not sure what to make of that...do euro teams typically sign guys for 3 years down the road?
Edit, never mind...someone else google translated the italian article and says that the contract is through 2026
Until 2026. Three year deal
Good for him, we'll see how it plays out for us
Good luck Grant!
Well that opens a scholarship for a transfer player from the portal! Trying to think positively for both.
Not sure how that compares to the NIL deal he was getting, but hopefully getting paid in Euros is worth it.
Basile was ineffective for long stretches during the ACC schedule. He did improve his scoring towards the end, but I don't know if his overall gameplay was ACC-caliber. He was VT's most legitimate scoring threat down the stretch and there is no clear replacement for those points.
This VT team is in a weird place right now. They need starters and depth at the backend. And it's unclear how Young sets up his one through three with Catoor, Pedulla, Rice, and Collins.
With Jones' departure, I'm still not convinced we'll get Rice back
I mean is he just following Jones? He was receuited to Mike Young and Virginia Tech. There's at least a >50% chance he stays for this year. After this year who knows, players always evaluate in the offseason
Was he?
I mean he's playing here and for him so one would assume
What stretch was this? I remember him as being our only consistent offensive weapon for pretty much the entire ACC schedule portion of the season.
Late in OOC and early ACC play:
ESPN: Basile Game Log
He averaged 13.25 in the first 8 ACC games, VT goes 1-7. I mean, it's not terrible, but his whole game was scoring.
Yeah that rough stretch was when Catoor was out with his injury though, so I don't think that can really be pinned on Basile. It let other teams guards clamp down on Pedulla who shot terribly from 3 during that span because we didn't have any other three-point threats except when Maddox was having a decent day. We were so one-dimensional during that initial conference stretch lol
Yea. Basile didn't have enough of an all-around game to prevent VT from becoming 1-dimensional. And it says something if the big man can't score when the 2 guard is out. (Maddox having his issues and unable to take the next step also didn't help.)
He is a fine role player and scorer. And he can score when in the right situation, but when he didnt score, he wasn't much of an impact.
This opens up the last scholarship spot on the roster.
This opens up
the lastBronny's scholarship spot on the roster.Dude came in and gave us 28MPG, 52 FG%, and 558 points this year. Best of luck, Grant
Been working on this for awhile since he was looking at citizenship so I feel like VT had to know this was coming. Looking at some of the names in the Portal, I'm disappointed we haven't been pursuing more targets heavily. There's a few targets still out there, but there's been a lot more over the last couple of weeks that could have been nice options who have since gone elsewhere. If you know there's a chance he was leaving, which you did since he's been pursuing Italian citizenship, you should have been aggressively pursuing potential replacements.
Through 4 years, CMY & staff are probably the worst I've ever seen at Tech in terms of retaining players. I'd venture to guess that ~80% of the players we've gotten under this tenure have left early, either via the transfer portal or to go play in Italy, etc. We've had some really great moments the past several years, but geez at this point you just kind of have to assume that whenever we get a new commitment, he's going to play a year or two and then head out. Frustrating.
Honestly though, this is every school, every year now if you look around. Last year there were four ACC teams that got 80% or more of their starters from the portal. It's the reality of NIL/Portal transfer with no sit out. It's Free Agency for your entire roster and potential recruits every year.
Of course MY has a harder time retaining talent than Greenberg did. Same goes for every other current coach compared to coaches 15 years ago.
This is the case at every school right now and isn't unique to MY. Players have more freedom to move around and make different choices for themselves than ever before.
It is frustrating, but I'm pretty sure it is not unique to VT and Mike Young. It is just the nature of the game these days
jmgreen4: Through 4 years, CMY & staff are probably the worst I've ever seen at Tech in terms of retaining players.
Justin Fuente: Hold my beer.
Didn't Cattoor and Mutts play like 8 years here
...and Mutts still played at two other schools.
I swear Mutts was in college longer than grunge was around.
"was"?
There were 52 transfers out just in the ACC this season.
Louisville, Georgia Tech and UNC all essentially lost half their teams to the portal.
By these numbers, Young is doing a good job keeping it at 2.
Mike Young is behind the curve and not shaking up the roster enough! /s
Stop screwing up the message board narrative with facts!
Bill Foster never had these kinds of problems with kids transferring out via the portal. CMY sucks!!! /s
A successful overseas career can create such a comfortable life. Malcolm Delaney has made a killing playing overseas as well as many others. Living in Italy doesn't seem to bad either.
I can attest to that. Just got back from three months in Italy and it was nice.
So what's the plan? We have 2 totally low post options (Kidd and Poteat) and a young stretch 5 (Wessler) plus a bunch of shooters. Do we play 4 out style slash and shoot Buzz Ball with a big in the paint or sign another stretch 4 (who can hopefully defend)?
Assuming no other players leave, I would guess starters would be Pedulla-Rice-Cattoor-Long-Kidd with Nickel, Collins, Poteat and maybe Camden getting solid rotational minutes and Little Poppa Pump and Jayden Young getting supplemental minutes. We'd largely play the same way we have been throughout CMY's tenure. What troubles me the most is with Basile gone, we have zero proven interior offensive game. Kidd and Poteat have had some flashes but they aren't go to guys to get a bucket from like we did with Aluma and then Basile. Long doesn't strike me as that kind of guy either. So unless we see big leaps from Kidd, Poteat, and/or Wessler, we're gonna be heavily reliant on our perimeter, even moreseo than we have been in the past. I almost think it would be worth it to just go small with Pedulla-Rice-Cattoor-Nickel-Long, play a much faster pace and just try to blitz teams off the court to try and keep up. That line up is gonna get pounded on the boards and defensively, but I'm so skeptical of our interior play that its worth exploring.
Really I'd like to see us get a forward with some offensive fire power from the Portal, but its later in the process and plenty of good options are off the table. If this happened 3 weeks ago, we'd be in much better shape. But despite Basile never fully committing to coming back (Cattoor hasn't either fwiw) and exploring overseas options, the gist I get from reading info is we were caught off guard a bit that he left. That lines up if you've been paying attention to the kinds of players we've been going after in the Portal too. Make no mistake and be skeptical of anyone that tells you otherwise, losing Basile right now sucks.
I heard he dropped the E from his last name to win over the Italian fans.
Go get paid to workout and play the game you love in Italy! Lease a sports car. Travel the rest of the continent. Find a bellissima Italian that can cook. Ball out and parlay into another 3 yr contract. Bank earnings and circa 2030 be set to attempt whatever you like post basketball at the ripe old age of 29.
Not too shabby. If you're into that kinda thing..
What do you need a sports car for? Every Italian town is super walkable and you can travel the entire continent in high speed trains.
Because Italy makes some the most renown sports cars?
Buon viaggio. Arrivederci.
I see you speak the 2nd most Italian!