In another bit of good news for the Men's Basketball program, the two recruits Buzz Williams had verbally committed signed their National Letter of Intent yesterday to officially become the next class of Hokies.
Nickeil, 6'5, 175 lbs is currently ranked #39 Overall and the #8 Shooting guard by 247Sports.
Wabissa 6'1, 180 lbs is currently ranked #71 Overall and the #16 Point guard by 247Sports.
Buzz should have at least one more scholarship available for this cycle so we will see what he chooses to do there.
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I should check this myself, but do we have any PF/C on the radar for this class? Seems to be a recurring need.
We just offered Donnie Tillman, a 6'7" pf a scholly last week.
http://247sports.com/player/donnie-tillman-92766
We dont have many offers out to players that are not committed for those two positions at this point. As the other comment mentioned, we offered Tillman, but Buzz is going to have to do some work to try to overcome the recruiting that Utah has done there. Other than Tillman, I would expect to see a new round of offers come out from Buzz and his staff as soon as the NLI's have been tallied and the landscape of who is left is more clear.
Also keep in mind that next year Seth Leday and Nick Fullard will also be ready to play for the Hokies as both are redshirting this season. Leday is 6'7, 200 lbs and Fullard 6'10, 235 lbs
and Blackshear should return to the lineup to help with the PF depth/first rotation.
Nickeil can shoot the lights out.
ESPN has him as a 5 star. Can't wait to see what his future holds.
NAW got bumped to a 5 star by ESPN. Would expect him to keep climbing on other sites in the near future.
To a six star? Kenny Omega confirmed.
I wonder how many will understand that reference on here.
That particular match is definitely worthy of all the praise it's received though.
Dude is a character. In and out of the ring a through and through performer.
it's really weird seeing this pop up because I went to high school with the guy banging the trash can behind him.
He's a big VT fan fwiw.
Maybe he can start a Japanese branch of TKP.
Have we ever had a 5-star basketball recruit commit/actually play minutes for us before transferring?
Finney Smith played all freshman year before transferring to Florida
Gotcha, I forgot he was, and I was also thinking Montrezl was a 5 star, but he wasn't.
Oh, what could have been
For as highly rated as DFS was, I never really saw that level of play on the court at both Tech and Florida. Don't get me wrong good player but IMO definitely not a 5* talent.
I always thought he played average at best but he's on the Mavericks now so I guess I was just wrong
according to wikipedia he led UF in scoring twice and in rebounding for 3 straight years, and for the most part those were tournament teams i believe
EDIT: NVM, they apparently weren't great but they made the NIT final last year, but you dont lead the team in both rebounding and scoring without being pretty good
Dorian Finney-Smith
random question.. why does 247 issue so few 5-star ratings for basketball?
They issue roughly the same as they do for football, usually somewhere between 25 and 35 total. If anything you would expect football to have dramatically more based on the number of players required. 13 spots versus 85 spots per team, although there are dramatically more basketball teams than football.
Yeah. A top 100 guy in basketball is like top 500 in football.
my understanding is there are 32 5 star football players to sort of represent 32 players most likely to be first round picks so i'd imagine basketball is somewhat similar, maybe 14 or so five stars to represent the most likely lottery picks
There are currently 24 5 stars.
Recommend watching 'Pig' Jackson's senior tape. Sitting out this year.
http://www.hudl.com/profile/4809182/tyrie-jackson
45%+ 3 shooter, thick, athletic. and threw down some monster dunks at 6-1. Looking forward to seeing him next year.
I love his first step quickness, definitely has some ankle breakers as well. He plays much like J-Rob and it seems like hes playing against some better competition in high school too
I am higher on Wabissa Bede, I think he will be the main backup PG behind JRob next season. IMO Jackson would be 3rd PG and only gets time when the other two in foul trouble or garbage time.
I like Bede as well... Coach BUZZ is definitely setting up an extremely dynamic backcourt quartet I am just not sure Bede will be ready to compete for big minutes next year. Buzz seems to very big on earning your minutes and not just giving someone minutes based on they're recruiting rankings.
It all depends on how well Tyrie plays defense. I have heard that he is just about unstoppable in practice, gets to the lane with ease. Nobody can D him up.
There's going to be plenty of playing time for two PG anyway though. Seth Allen handles those duties a lot, even with JRob in the game. He's graduating but that 2-point or even 3-point (Clarke = Point Forward) offense isn't going anywhere.
Agree. Also super impressed with Clarke's improvements in those areas (handle, passing) because if it continues his Point Forward role could keep growing and that would be an awesome sight...
You should check out Seth Leday's NW Miss JC highlights... he's a 6-7 athletic point forward in the mold of Clarke. Has a great handle. The stroke is only slightly more pretty than Zach's though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPZYuDLlo9s
Yes...just looking at his SR year highlights he is lightning fast and seems to be very strong with the dribble. I really hope Buzz is able to start Clarke at the 3 next year...because if so that starting 5 can be extremely athletic and be able make up for the significant inexperience in the low post after this year.
If Tyrie is playing in practice, why hasn't he gotten on the court at all this season? Academics? Is he taking a redshirt?
The chatter is that Pig took the scholarship with the understanding that he was going to redshirt his first year out. Take that for whatever it's worth. Also, you can never go wrong with five years in Blacksburg so I don't blame him.
Bede reminds me of Seth Allen. Yes please.
Will be interesting to see how it goes as more talent gets on the roster.