Hokies officially sign 4 recruits
As I previously reported, Hokies coach James Johnson received commitments from four players. Wednesday was the first day they could sign with the Hokies, and on Thursday, Tech announce they had indeed signed.
Here is the press release:
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Virginia Tech head coach James Johnson has announced the signing of four players to National Letters of Intent for the 2013-14 academic year. Donte Clark, a guard from Charlotte, N.C., Ben Emelogu, a guard from Grand Prairie, Texas, Maurice Kirby, a forward from Chandler, Ariz., and Trevor Thompson, a forward from Indianapolis, Ind., have signed to play for the Hokies beginning in Fall 2013.
“ We addressed a lot of different areas with this recruiting class,” according to Johnson. “I’m extremely excited about these young men and know that they will be able to help us right away.
Clark, (6-4, 180 lb.) will play his senior season at Hargrave Military Academy. Clark is ranked a four-star recruit by Rivals.com and ESPN Scout.com and is a three-star recruit, according to 247.com. He is ranked 89th nationally by ESPN Scout.com and 101st nationally by Rivals.com, which also rates him as the No. 27 shooting guard in the country. He averaged 15.8 points, 3.8 assists, and 3.6 rebounds per game last season at Kennedy Charter Public School (N.C.).
“Donte is a good combo guard,” Johnson said. “We look to play him at both the point and the off guard spot. He’s a long, athletic guard who can score the basketball. He can make plays for himself and for others. With our style of basketball, a running, fast-paced style of basketball, he has a chance to be a really good player. He also has a chance to be a very good defender.”
Emelogu (6-5, 190 lb.) plays for South Grand Prairie High School in Grand Prairie, Texas, which finished 23-9 last season. He averaged 8.0 points and 2.0 rebounds per game as a junior. He is rated a three-star recruit by ESPN, which ranks him as the No. 56 shooting guard in the nation and ranked as the No. 19 recruit in Texas by TexasHoops.com.
“Ben is a strong, athletic guard that can really score the basketball in multiple ways,” Johnson said. “He’s an excellent shooter with deep range. He has a strong body and can score in a lot of different ways. One of the better guards in the state of Texas, he is an underrated recruit who we expect to come in and help us early in his career.”
Kirby (6-9, 235 lb.) plays for Basha High School in Chandler, Ariz. He averaged 7.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game last season at Basha. He is a two-star recruit by Rivals.com and Scout.com.
“With Maurice Kirby being 6-9 and 235 pounds, he gives us a big, strong post player with very good skills,” Johnson said. “He can step away to 15 feet and hit the jump shot and he can definitely play with his back to the basket. He gives us a college-ready body right now.”
Thompson (6-11, 210 lb.) will play at St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wisc., as a post-graduate after playing last season at Ben Davis High in Indianapolis and played as a freshman at South Lakes High in Reston, Va. At Ben Davis, he averaged 10 points, eight rebounds, and four blocks per game. He is listed as a three-star recruit by all three major recruiting sites.
“Trevor is a long, athletic post player with a lot of skill,” Johnson said. “He can score inside with both hands; he can score facing up and he runs the floor extremely well. He is another player that fits our type of style. He is a talented, young man that can help us right away.”
“When you add Adam Smith to this group, you have three guards that can score the ball in different ways” Johnson said. “Then you add the two guys up front. The way the league is, with the new teams coming in, physicality, size and athleticism were very important to us in this class.”
November 15, 2012 - 11:40 AM
Way to go Coach Johnson! Hokie Nation is behind you!
Other than Clark, the rest appear to be projects in which Johnson sees potential. At least his area of recruitment goes beyond three states.
Tech needs bodies and these appear to be some good ones. We’ll definitely miss Green next year but won’t be losing much else.
I can’t wait for the day when we discuss a class of ACC caliber players like we did under the hated (by Jim Weaver) Seth Greenberg. That will mean we’ve not washed away the past decade of progress.
Get off it CR. We did exactly how well in 10 years? Perpetually on the broken bubble. Even teams with worse in-conference records went dancing. Accept it, SG just wasn’t the answer. Oh for a re-birth of Don DeVoe!
Hello, shadow. I see you’re still stalking me. Perhaps you choose to ignore the fact that Seth Greenberg managed to put up the most wins in a 5-year period of any Hokie coach in history. Perhaps you choose to ignore his .500 W-L percentage against #1 nationally ranked teams – HELLO, Frank Beamer – perhaps you choose to ignore the recruiting levels that Greenberg ascended to, and the success he had in the ACC. All that’s fine, if you want to ignore reality. Perhaps you’d prefer to return to the Ricky Stokes era. Perhaps you just don’t like to admit what’s there.
I never said Greenberg was the answer. I will say this – Johnson got some guys in here pretty quickly, one of the four was even rated well. That’s fine. To compete in the ACC, though, every single recruit needs to be rated as well as Johnson’s highest recruit, and NO recruit needs to be unranked like half of his class. He got a start, but he’s got to step his game up big time to not get crushed by the ACC schedule. That’s just reality. Come February, it’s a different story than in November. I want it to go well. I’m not stupid, though, and I won’t pretend it’s not a big challenge still unmet.