Just thought I would take a moment to put together a list of the top ten prospects in the Mid Atlantic Region for Men's basketball for the 2015 class so that folks have an idea of the talent that is coming out of this area. As much as I would like to say that at least one of these prospects will consider coming to Tech, unless things change significantly I do not think that's the case. Just shows how much farther we actually have to go in basketball compared to the football program.
The order I will put them up in is based on their 247 Sports rankings, although I will include their profiles with ESPN and Rivals as well. One thing to keep in mind is that this list will include kids that are at Prep Schools, so their affiliation with this area may be loose at best. As you will see from this Top Ten, six of them have received offers from Virginia Tech, although none currently have Tech leading or in contention to receive a commitment. Take into account that all ten of these players are in the top 113 Nationally according to 247, and with almost 360 NCAA programs at Division I for basketball, the competition is a bit tougher when compared to football. I put this together mainly to show how difficult it is to compete for local talent as we currently sit.
My next write up will likely cover Virginia Tech's Top 10 Targets from this class so for those of you looking for that, stay tuned.
1.) Montaque Gill-Caesar No offer from Virginia Tech
Ranked 18th overall in the nation by 247, Montaque is a 6'5" 200 lbs shooting guard out of Huntington Prep in Huntington, WV as the top player from WV. He is originally from Ontario, Canada and is leaning towards attending Michigan State as a result. He has averaged 17.2 PPG this season along with 6 rebounds. Huntington Prep is currently 20-4 this season with Montaque leading the way. He is shooting 56% from the field, 41% from behind the arc, and 72% from the FTL.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
2.) Brandon Ingram Has an offer from Virginia Tech per Rivals
Brandon is a 6'7" 170 lbs Small Forward from Kinston, NC. He is currently ranked 26th Nationally, the 6th best Small Forward and the top prospect from the state of North Carolina. He is leaning towards signing with UNC. So far this season, Brandon has averaged 20.3 ppg with 9.2 rpg while leading Kinston High to a 16-4 overall record. He is currently shooting 51% from the field, 32% from behind the arc, and 76% from the FTL.
3.) Allonzo Trier No offer from Virginia Tech
Allonzo is a 6'4" 180 lbs Point Guard from Montrose Christian School in Rockville, MD. He is considered a lean to Georgetown right now. He is currently ranked 40th Nationally, 10th at his position and the top overall prospect from the state of Maryland. So far this season, Allonzo has led Montrose to a 13-4 record thus far but I was unable to find statistics on his individual performance thus far.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
4.) Trevor Manuel/Manual No offer from Virginia Tech
Trevor is a 6'9" 200 lbs Power Forward from Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, VA. He is currently ranked 47th overall, the 11th Power Forward, and the top prospect in the state of Virginia. He is about evenly split on being predicted to go to either Michigan State or N.C. State right now. He has led Oak Hill to a 29-3 record so far this season. No stats were available for individual players for Oak Hill this year.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
5.) Marcus Derrickson Has an offer from Virginia Tech
Marcus is a 6'7" 225 lbs Power Forward out of Paul VI in Fairfax, VA. He is currently ranked 50th overall, the 13th Power Forward, and the number 2 recruit from Virginia. He is verbally committed to play at Georgetown as of Oct 2013. He has led Paul VI to a 20-5 record this season. He is averaging 12.2 PPG while shooting 78.7% from the FTL. He has surprisingly made 20 three point attempts this season.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
6.) Bryant Crawford Has an offer from Virginia Tech per Rivals
Bryant is a 6'2" 170 lbs Point Guard at Gonzaga in Washington DC. He is currently ranked 62nd Nationally, the 15th Point Guard, and is the top prospect coming out of the District. He is considered a Indiana lean at the moment. Gonzaga has a 10-16 record this season, where Bryant is only their third leading scorer at 9.5 PPG. He is shooting 70.7% from the FTL. Seems to have the Jarrell Eddie complex, scores 22 on some nights and then others comes out and lays an egg.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
7.) Franklin Howard Has an offer from Virginia Tech
Franklin is our second player checking in from Paul VI in Fairfax. He is a 6'4" 185 lbs Shooting Guard. He is currently ranked 65th Nationally, 12th as a Point Guard and is the number 3 prospect from Virginia. He is currently seen as being split between Georgetown and Syracuse for his final destination. He had to sit out this season due to an ACL tear so does not have any stats for this season.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
8.) Levi Cook He has an offer from Virginia Tech
Levi is a 6'10" 305 lbs Center as the second player from Huntington Prep on this list. He currently is committed to play for West Virginia University. He is considered the 77th player Nationally, the 9th center and the number 2 recruit from WV. He is averaging 5.1 PPG with 5.4 RPG along with 1.3 BPG this season while going 50% from the FTL. He appears to suffer from having too many other scorers around him as he is the eighth leading scorer on his team and also missed several games due to a minor injury this season. More concerning is that he is only fifth on the team in rebounding, as two PF's on this team seem to clean up the glass with less size.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
9.) Justin Jenifer No Offer from Virginia Tech
Justin is a 5'9" 160 lbs Point Guard from Milford Mill Academy in Gwynn Oak, MD. He is considered the 105th player nationally, 28th Point guard and 2nd best player from the state of Maryland. Currently being strongly pursued by Georgetown and Louisville. Justin has led his team to an 11-4 record so far this season and led them to the Maryland 3A State Title last season. No stats are available for Milford Mill that I could locate.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
10.) Chris Clarke Has an offer from Virginia Tech
Chris is a 6'5" 170 lbs Shooting Guard from Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia Beach, VA. He has verbally committed to play at Maryland as of January 17th, 2014. He is ranked 113th Nationally, 22nd as a Shooting Guard and is the 4th best prospect in the state of Virginia. He has led Cape Henry to a 17-0 record so far this season. While no consolidated stats were available, Clarke seems to be the center of his school websites Highlights on every game I click on, scoring somewhere in the high teens in most games. Unfortunately they were sporadic at best of uploading highlights.
247 Sports
Rivals Yahoo
ESPN
Comments
I depend you to keep my CBB Hokie flame burning brightly. I have seen Derrickson play locally and I like his game.
Thanks.
No worries, it allows me to keep myself in the know, and share at the same time.
Yeah Paul VI! My old high school reping! Derrickson's freshman year was my senior year and he was a beast then playing in the WCAC (which is the best high school basketball conference in the country). Gotta believe he has only improved in the past two years. Howard transferred to PVI the year after I graduated so can't comment on him
When I see this:
"...all ten of these players are in the top 113 Nationally according to 247, and with almost 360 NCAA programs at Division I for basketball, the competition is a bit tougher when compared to football"
I think this:
Changes are needed to secure some of this talent.
I agree. Just to give you an idea of what 247 Sports thinks of our 2014 Class, ranked 53rd Nationally, the biggest challenge though is that its ranked 10th in the ACC. This includes Pitt, Syracuse and Notre Dame. It also still has Maryland included but does not count Louisville, but that's a wash really as Maryland is 3rd in the ACC with their class and Louisville is ranked one ahead of them overall so would just take their place.
http://virginiatech.247sports.com/Season/2014-Basketball/Commits
The three players making up this class are Nationally ranked 118th, 193rd, and 315th in 2014 so the first would be just outside the bubble of where the 2015 Top Ten local talents ends so hopefully my next segment on our Targets shows some potential in the 100-200 range of talent.
sweet baby gebus Levi Cook @ 6'10 305 lbs
I think ideally he should prob aim to play at about 280-285 to help with his vertical and his ability to work the floor....but you can't coach height and big body banger
I really get the feeling that some of the best players for basketball on campus are on the football team. It's too bad none of them are Jeff King.
It would help with their off season conditioning even if they were only on the BB practice squad.
As long as they don't blow an ACL and miss most of the football season.