Well...
4⭐️ Virginia Tech commit AJ Swinton tells me he will be reopening his recruitment.Swinton committed to the Hokies in February and chose Virginia Tech over schools like Xavier, Ohio State and Texas amongst others.Will be running with @P_George_Elite this summer, he told me. pic.twitter.com/Gf9xzvzyqR— 24/7 High School Hoops (@247HSHoops) April 18, 2023
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This doesn't help my worries about the MBB program after last year and then losing Mike Jones
Yeah I have some very legitimate concerns about the direction of the MBB program right now. Not very positive.
Disappointing, but not surprising.
All we can do is watch to see how we fill the void.
He isn't gone yet, just decommitted. I am hoping the new NIL programs can match whatever offers are being floated at him.
"Opening up his commitment" = Going to Maryland
Unfortunately sitting here waiting for the Rice shoe to fall next
If/when Rice is gone on top of recruiting taking a downturn and the way last season played out with Mike Jones going to Maryland, (not necessarily in regards to why he went to UMd, but the loss that meant for us as well as how its going to make it even harder to recruit the DC area) how quickly does the seat under Mike Young start warming up?
Start? It hasn't already?
Mike Young....come on down
Another sub .500 ACC season and failure to make the tournament next season, and it might be time for some difficult conversations
Then we hire Mike Jones as a HC....Swinton and Rice come back and we go full circle.
Two years after an ACC title?
If we go .500 he's still gonna have the 3rd best record over the first 5 years of a VT coach career and 7th All-Time.
Exactly. His seat isn't even room temperature right now, much less hot. You don't get on the hot seat for having an assistant leave for a "better" job and having players follow him, you get on the hot seat for losing basketball games. And I have to think an ACC title buys a minimum of a couple mediocre seasons.
You think things can't get worse for VT basketball? For people who believe mediocrity is the floor for a VT revenue sport, ask critics of Frank Beamer his last couple of years how that's worked out.
I believe we are more concerned with mediocrity being the trend.
See the James Johnson hire after Greenberg. It can always be worse like that again. It is a tough area right now in our mens basketball and football programs. Coaches left, and it stinks. Can't complain about it, and hopefully these hires work out.
ExactIy, that sounds a little like the James Johnson saga all over again, and I don't think any of us want to relive those putrid seasons. Coaches and recruits will come and go, especially the latter in this NIL era where they are chasing the $$, and we're competing against the blue bloods of the Big10 and SEC.
Don't know what kind of coach Mike Jones is. All we know is that he may be a good recruiter in the DC area. I don't think all these guys are going to land at Maryland. If so, there will probably be some activity in their transfer portal, and like I've said, they weren't exactly recruiting poorly before Jones.
Everything will be ok. I still have more faith in the direction of our MBB program than our football program, and I think that's related to the stability and exceptional leadership he's provided our program. He's highly regarded as a basketball coach, which is why rising assistants want to coach under him.
I don't have much to add, as I'm not a huge bball buff but I think I share my thoughts in similar fashion. I did give a leg, as it is all I have to give.
Yes, it will be time for some difficult conversations (didn't say fire him after next year)...more like "you better have a vastly improved incoming class next year, and at a minimum finish above .500 in '24-'25, but preferably make the tournament".
Yeah we won the ACC tournament after a mediocre (.550) ACC season (if not for that improbable 4 game run, I'd say next year should be Young's put up or shut up year.) How many subpar seasons does that buy?
If we go .500ish next year ('23/'24), and don't see much improvement in recruiting or on court results in '24/'25...we either make a change, or decide that VT men's basketball is a middle of the road ACC team, and that is where we are perfectly happy being.
I really like Young, and I really want him to succeed, but if we're not getting better, we're just treading water
Worst case scenario for VT is if our trajectory mirror's GT under Pastner. ACC win, followed by two mediocre seasons, followed by the axe.
FWIW, Rice is still posting VT related material on his socials. This is from a couple of days ago
https://www.instagram.com/p/CrD-ovHMoon/?hl=en
Tech is a great school with good classes and people. If you want the city life you are in the wrong place, but other than that there is a reason it is a top rated school. He has been here a year, and hopefully fallen in love like I did with the area almost thirty years ago.
If Rice leaves just to follow Jones that decision making is kind of sus, ngl. What would he be following another grown man around for? They ain't married.
He committed to Vt and Coach Young and he's played here for a season, set to start next year. I don't see any reason we he would have to move schools for an assistant coach
Well, that would be grown man thinking there. Who knows what goes through a younger mans mind. I hope he stays. Just the nature of the beast with the way the it goes nowadays. I personally don't like it, but is what it is.
Just bc you keep repeating this doesn't make it true. It's possible Rice wants to be at VT. I hope it is. It's also possible that he entrusted his high school coach with his development. Recruiting is all about relationships -- Rice's relationship with Mike Jones is longer and ostensibly deeper than with Mike Young, even if they're not married.
It's falling now
Is "(add if applicable) /s" applicable?
I don't think so. Didn't want to make a new thread until it was official but some strong connections to the program are hinting at it. Lots of smoke but still some doubt idk why it would make sense for him to leave, I think he'd have to sit another year if he did at this point
Why in the world would he do this now? makes zero sense. Unless its academics, which in case VT should ignore it and let him play- like every other big school would do.
making a new thread is way better than reviving one from six months ago tbh
He should have passed on the Mike Jones impending door revolver. If he knew the guy would only be here a couple years, and said so to an extent from what I recall in a press conference after the hire, why would HCMY think the recruiting success would be sustained in this environment (commitments are meaningless, NIL, etc.) and those players who sign b/c of MJ would even stay. Seems very very short sighted. It is like holding a gun, shaking it at your foot for an hour with your hand on the trigger, and then being surprised it went off and your foot was shot.
Because you hope a coach like that makes an impact that elevates the program floor. Impossible to tell the future on what was going to open up for him. There's 0 reason you have the opportunity to hire a coach like Jones and pass on it.
Also welcome to the world of competitive coaching hires.
Also because you hope a coach like that stays another year or two and then leaves for a HC job, not for a lateral-on-paper move as an assistant to a regional P5 rival.
That is a fair assessment
Knew this one was coming
credit to Joe Rogers on the tweeter for the meme
Well now we'll never get Bronny James
This just makes more room for him.
Maybe I'm ignorant but why all the doom and gloom? I get that Jones being gone hurts for now, and we didn't have a great season, but have we completely lost faith in Young? Dude seems to make something out of nothing more times than not
I don't get it either. CMY will probably land another recruit or transfer and people on here will be jumping for joy. Too many fans live day by day.
MY's system got exposed hard this year and lack of athleticism was captured by opponents. Not saying the book is out but we've got to fix those two, Jones (Rice/Swinton) were half of the equation. Losing two bigs with eh replacements, possibly losing Cattoor, etc etc it's just not trending in the right direction.
But end of the day VT basketball has always been average with hints of excellence so we're likely regressing to the norm versus imploding a program.
Exactly. We should not be comfortable with regressing to our mediocre norm. I really like CMY but we need better results.
I would say it was more a lack of quality depth than lack of athleticism. Most of our losses were by 2-3 baskets - that's tired legs not able to deliver in crunch time.
I wouldn't, but neither was a strength.
Nevertheless, the lack of athleticism made VT very easy team to defend. And that was the biggest reason for the lack of success in the conference schedule, IMO.
We also had no true iso scorer, no one that could create their own basket. That's my athleticism gripe, when the system was busted we couldn't buy a bucket
FYI Cattoor is bak
Huge. Alleviates some worries of the pretty abysmal offense we could be looking at
There are certain areas that I think he is too rigid to change and puts us at a disadvantage against a number of ACC schools. His defensive priority of man-to-man makes it pretty simple for teams to game plan offensively unfortunately. We struggle to defend the paint (allowed 30 or more in 14/21 ACC games) and are an extremely poor rebounding team (279th in OR/306th in DR). Our production off the bench is abysmal (15 or less in 16/21 ACC games.) We were 4-7 in ACC games we allowed more than 8 offensive rebounds. We were 7-11 in ACC games where our bench was outscored. Surprisingly we were only outscored in the paint in 9 ACC games but we went 3-6 in those games.
Our team doesn't do much defensively to make other teams uncomfortable (little to no press, no switch to zone.)
I really like Young as a person and that embodiment of what we think of as the Hokie way but he has to find a way to improve defensively and do better at game planning. He also and probably most importantly needs to better identify players that can compete athletically against the ACC. Hopefully Byers brings some VCU defensive impact with his hire and can recruit for the Hokies similar to how he did at VCU. You don't need every guy to be a home run but consistently finding one top guy each year goes a long way to being at the top of the ACC.
Watching the women's team switch to zone in the tournament was a beautiful thing - and worked quite well.
It's not a surprise the defense took a step back.. we had a lineup featuring multiple players who were in their first year in CMY's system, whether they be freshmen (Collins, Rice) or transfers (Basile, Poteat), and a lineup reliant on young players in key roles for much of the year. And with Rice's injury and Maddox's off-court situation expected development over the season was severely impacted.
By the end of the year, our starters and bench were basically half as experienced in CMY's system as the ACC title team roster.
format:
Name / # of years xp in CMY system / (# of years xp at VT) / [# of years out of HS]
2022-23
1. Pedulla 1 (1) [2]
2. Cattoor 3 (3) [4]
3. Maddox 2 (2) [3] / Collins 0 (0) [1]
4. Mutts 2 (2) [5]
5. Basile 0 (0) [5]
starters avg: 1.6 (1.6) [3.8]end of year avg: 1.2 (1.2) {3.4}
6. Kidd 1 (1) [3]
7. Poteat 0 (0) [3]
8. Camden 0 (0) [2] / Rice 0 (0)* [1]
bench avg: 0.33 (0.33) [2.5]end of year avg: 0.33 (0.33) [2.33]
.
.
.
Now check out the experience #'s for our ACC Title, NCCAT. Note - no injuries or other lineup disruptions happened during that season. That team was basically twice as experienced as the 22-23 team.
2021-22
1. Murphy - 4 (0) [5]
2. Alleyne - 2 (2) [3]
3. Cattoor - 2 (2) [3]
4. Mutts - 1 (1) [4]
5. Aluma - 4 (2) [5]
starters avg: 2.6 (1.4) [4.0]
6. Pedulla - 0 (0) 1
7. Maddox - 1 (1) 2
8. N'Guessan - 1 (1) 2
bench avg: 0.67 (0.67) [1.67]
.
.
.
Next year experience looks to rebound back up closer to the ACC Title team, even with the loss of Mutts and Basile. But talent level in the front court is a question mark. If Basile had returned we'd be in very good shape.
projecting for 2023-24
1. Rice 1 (1) [2]
2. Pedulla 2 (2) [3]
3. Cattoor 4 (4) [5]
4. ?Long? 0 (0) [5]
5. ?Kidd? 2 (2) [4]
starters avg: 1.8 (1.8) [3.8]
6. Poteat 1 (1) [4]
7. Collins 1 (1) [2]
8. Nickel 0 (0) [2]
bench avg: 0.67 (0.67) [2.67]
It's unfortunate but not catastrophic. Very few freshmen come to college and have a significant immediate impact. And if he was coming for Jones and Jones was going to leave sooner rather than later then it was only a matter of time. Glad he made his decision already and didn't string along the process. On to the next!
Let's not completely discount the toll that injuries and unexpected absences took on this year's team. If we're going to criticize depth and athleticism, we have to at least acknowledge that Hunter, Rice, and Maddox missed something like 50 games.
Absolutely so expecting an equal performance to having two starters out is not realistic but the roster also wasn't built with much to cover injuries guard/wings wise either. The Camden experiment was a nonfactor, they didn't take the Redshirt off Buchanan and beyond those two the roster only has walk ons in the guard/wing spots in Ward/Johnson. This led to extended minutes/fatigue for all the others. There are ways to protect an injured roster but we didn't see much of that from the coaching staff.
Knowing this and knowing how much more physically taxing playing man-to-man defense is was another reason I was surprised we didn't see more zone defense. Too many times we saw the team wilt in the last few minutes, which led to at least half or more of their ACC losses by those two to three baskets.
It also shows you can't plan to have 20% of your scholarship players planned to sit out or at least should revisit that when injuries occur. Rice was a known injury when the season started. Redshirt probably should have come off Buchanan with that.
If they did plan to Redshirt Buchanan and Wessler then they likely should have been pursuing a guard/wings rather than taking in Poteat. I like the toughness Poteat brings but allocating 7 scholarships to your two forward spots doesn't make sense when you play three guard/wings to two forwards.
You honestly could argue they only had five guards out of thirteen scholarships. Pedulla, Cattoor, Rice, Collins and Maddox. Penciling in three of those to start and having only two real reserves is a glaring hole perfectly displayed with how this season played out.
All this said, I believe the 23-24 roster is much more balanced and plays to Coach Young's style much better. They did a better job getting portal players that fill holes and give them better flexibility in the event of injuries. See below from David Cunningham.
They also still have one more spot they can fill.
Or...we still have room for Maddox to come back
or room for a stretch 4 like Robbie Beran..
Need a good big. We can be fine playing Nickel or Long at the 4, need the guards to improve and pick up a solid 5 to be a tourney team. Then should probably dump Poteat for a proven wing.
We're set at 1-2 between Pedulla, Rice, Rechsteiner and Cattoor. Got Nickel and Long covering the 3-4 but we don't even know if either will be starting quality. Bring in another wing or stretch 4 and we could be solid, but having a game changing 5 takes precedence
Feels like 8/9 guys who will get regular play in Pedulla, Rice, Catoor, Collins, Long, Nickel, Kidd and Poteat (with Camden being the potential ninth.) If someone like Wessler can get his way on the court that makes some things interesting. Should give us a rotation that keeps guys more fresh. That being said, if either Pedulla or Rice goes down then suddenly that guard rotation is looking pretty darn thin again.
must have wanted to play at a B1G school (ducks!)
I wonder if Mekhi White would be a take at Florida State?
Depends on their WR room/Schollys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk
Edit: May apply more to the fast white man Beck, Cole more than this new topic. But feel like it can be applied to many topics.
Beoheim and K left. This Dinosaur needs to leave too. Cant stand how annoying FSU hoops is.
I respect the hell out of Leonard Hamilton - he's not a whiner like Boeheim, and he's won consistently there for a long time. That's a place that's going to realize how good they had it when he's gone (similar to GT Football post Paul Johnson)
2024 does have the opportunity to be a good year for Hokies BBall recruiting, if we can win a few head to heads, and we have 5 scholarships available
To borrow a football analogy, we're in the red zone at like the 5 yard line with a few guys right now. One would be solid but all of them would be fantastic (a possibility). But it's also possible we miss on all of them. We have got to close.
Lmao they suck Leonard has lost the magic. Also shows all the people who guaranteed him and Rodney Rice would be going to Maryland were 100% talking out of their ass
This is a discussion board on the internet tho. Aren't most if not all of us talking that same way?
Need to land Sir Mohammad. That would be the momentum recruit
Plus he has a top tier name.
I also want the two part package from Paul VI.
Phrasing?
Well Sundra got a CB for Norte dame not too long ago on 247 and On3 so that one is looking unlikely
Not related to that recruit per say, but can anyone enlighten on me the merit of On3's prediction metrics?
247 CBs are generally pretty accurate, but the percentages on On3 remind me more of "Noisemeter" at a game that sort of just goes up and down without much clear correlation to anything.
I mean the person who put in the prediction on one is Jamie Shaw and I remember he was a national basketball recruiting analyst for 247 not to long ago so if he's on on3 now and he put in a prediction that's not good news
Wasn't asking with regards to that particular recruit. I get predictions are predictions and they come from insiders.
What I should've asked was: "Does anyone know how On3's Recruiting Prediction Machine, that claims to use AI to predict college decisions, works?"
And mainly asking that because I saw this
While I know next to nothing about him or his recruitment, 99% seems pretty high for player of his caliber. Just seems like if he was a sure thing for us, there would've been more buzz about him. So while I can see that Jamie Shaw put a prediction in for the Hokies (with a confidence of 60), the cynic in me was wondering why the RPM says 99% and if it's a real 99% or if he goes on a visit to Creighton next week, is it going to swing 90% in their direction.
No it base most of its predictions from all the other recruiting sites predictions plus fan forums and threads
How real is that possibility? He would be our #2 highest rated recruit ever, if his current composite holds.
High
And is apparently Nazr Mohammad's kid? I need to lie down...
This doesn't pertain to any recruit but since this is the most active basketball discussion currently, any details on the team's Italy trip? Which teams are they playing specifically and how the players are performing
There is an exhibition on the 9th and 10th.
Sightseeing and goodwill stuff for the rest of the tour.
But here's Basile, getting a double double for Italy against Spain.
Any Intel on who we're playing over there? Would love to see some content from the exhibition games
Very interesting, thanks for the share. I had no idea he was on a national team or that he was an Italian citizen.
Bigger bag was offered. Oh well. Most fans wanted pro basketball in college