Shaniya Jones, 5'6 PG gave her verbal commitment to Coach Brooks on January 23rd. She is the first commit to the Hokies for the Class of 2018. She is the 18th ranked guard in the class currently with a 90 ranking from ESPNW which puts her just outside their current ranking of the Top 60. She is from High Point, NC and plays for Wesleyan Christian Academy.
I thank god ..... pic.twitter.com/ARIeR37ciE— Shaniya Jones (@shedathooper) January 23, 2017
This was an evaluation of her play on her ESPN profile:
Apache Paschal Memorial Showcase-July 2016: Smooth lead-guard handles, passes with purpose in transition; confident with court awareness, mid-range game creator extends to the arc; disruptive defender with explosive quicks, hesitation creator. (Olson)
Coach Brooks also received a commitment from Tayanna Jones, 6'2, Small Forward from Selma, NC and plays for North Johnston. I have not been able to locate a profile on her as of yet.
Here is Shaniya tweeting to Tayanna on being excited to be teammates:
Congrats future teamie can't wait to be a hokie with you. you already that damage @Taymonet21 https://t.co/rjkgrtBeqv— Shaniya Jones (@shedathooper) January 25, 2017
In other events, the Lady Hokies face LOLUVA at Charlottesville this evening.
GAME INFORMATION
Date/Time: January 26, 2017 / 7 p.m.
Opponent: Virginia
Site: Charlottesville, Va. (JPJ Arena)
Radio: 100.7 FM WNMX / HokiesXtra
Talent: Andrew Allegretta, play-by-play
TV: N/A
Live Stats: VirginiaSports.com
Live Video: ACCNetwork Extra
Game Notes: Virginia Tech | Virginia
Comments
Let's get all the Jones. Welcome to HokieNation Joneses !
Need to put some weight on Ms. Jones. Nice picks.
Male athlete needs to put on weight, upvote. Female athlete needs to add weight, downvote. Got it.
Note to everyone. Never discuss females and weight.
They can if they want. We can't.
Does anybody ever think about the kind of stop-gap coaching hires Weaver made towards the end? Was he just taking cheap options to fill in for a few years with knowledge that the next AD could and would leave their own mark. No huge buyouts for either coach when Whit did can them. Towards the end of his reign, I was so desperate for him to retire. Looking back on it all, Jim did good by us, even at the end.
Firing Seth was probably the best thing he did. To speculate, with a winning record and considerable tenure, Whit might not have been able to dump him so easily after inheriting him. JJ on the other hand was an easy fire.
I think Weaver fired the women's coach in 2010-2011, before bringing in Wolff who had been an assistant to Greenberg on the the men's team. Wolff had never coached women's bball previously. He fired Seth Greenberg very late in the hiring/firing season, under the guise of culture issues, only to bring back Seth's former assistant James Johnson who had just moved to Clemson for the same position he had at tech. We all know how those few seasons went.. I felt at the time, that the JJ hire was almost solely to keep Erick Green on the team.
At many other schools, Wolff would still be the coach of the women's team. They had improved each season and posted an overall winning record last season.
But no, Whit fires him, hires the guy who has had tremendous success for over a decade just a few hours up 81. In less than a year, Brooks has made them a ranked team who's only 3 losses are to ranked teams in conference.
Brooks, Buzz, Fuente have all been homerun hires that have given VT athletics a completely fresh face. I am very excited about the VT Athletics, and apparently so are the recruits.
This is getting pretty far off-topic from the thread subject, but I don't understand your logic of why it would've been harder for Whit to fire Seth than it was for him to fire JJ. We fired Seth with 3 years left on his contract, and then fired JJ after 2 seasons, so in Buzz's first season we were paying 3 different guys to be our HC. If Weaver hadn't fired Seth, when Whit came in, Seth would've only had 1 year left on his contract, so it would've been relatively easy to dump him at that point (if there was reason), and if there wasn't reason to fire him, let him coach that last season and decide whether to extend or let him walk. Weaver did a lot of positives for Tech, but firing Seth and replacing him with JJ was probably the worst move he made in his tenure. Greenberg took Tech from perennial doormat to become a competitive program, and while we would've liked to be in the tourney more than once, at least we were at least right there every season. Weaver then replaced Greenberg with a guy who had no HC experience and promptly drove the program back into the ground within 2 seasons. If Weaver was intent on letting Greenberg go, rather than hiring an inexpensive assistant with no HC experience, Buzz was exactly the type of hire that Weaver should've made at that point. Someone that could've built on Greenberg's success, taken the baton, and got us to that next rung in the ladder (i.e. a consistent tourney team). As it was, Buzz came in with the program back at square 1, exactly where it was when Greenberg came in 11 years earlier.
Honestly, when Weaver hired JJ I thought it was because he was a cheap option and that he could hold on to some recruits.
Oh yeah, way off topic. The success of the ladies team just provoked my hindsight thought train and I started rambling.
My logic on firing Seth was that he had the potential to get another extension, or at least put out a winning team in the last year of his deal. One good season through that stretch and he may still be our coach, locked into a more significant contract. I just can't really imagine the AD changing hands while the mens bball coach has a 1 year deal, especially if he was successful of late. Coaches in all sports rarely seem to get fired or extended, but rarely sit pretty with 1 year left.
As for Weaver hiring Buzz. I think there was 0% chance of this. That move is not in Weaver's repertoire. I think a younger, more energetic, and smooth-talking AD with a vision named Whit Babcock is the only reason Buzz Williams is here.
Basically, I think Weaver knew Greenberg had hit his proverbial ceiling at a mid-tier power 5 school and that we were treading water. Weaver knew he was going to retire soon, so he got out from Seth coming off a poorer than usual season and took the cheapest option around that would keep the team relatively the same until a new AD had the opportunity to put his spin on the program.
If Weaver had hired a hot coaching name for big $$$, who didnt pan out, or given Seth a long term extension, Whit would have inherited considerably more debt than with JJ. Think he got like 700k a year to coach the men's team. Thats C-USA kind of money.
Speaking of the game, our ladies are getting it handed to them by LOLUVa. Can't get any penetration and the wahoos have a center that could back down Zach Leday...
Talk about going off the rails. Brooks has got to figure something out. They are done in the rankings after this loss, but they have got to find a way to be competitive. 41-16 right now and its going the other way. Girls are shooting 11% from outside and about 20% total.
Hill, Panousis and Brooks a combined 0-13 from behind the arc. Those are your top outside shooters on this team.
Honestly thought ESPN had a typo until I saw the gameflow graph.
Tech finished the game shooting 2 of 29 from outside, 7% shooting. 49 point loss
And to the 'Hoos, no less. It's tough, but it's still a great day to be a Hokie.