Q.         Fran, can you maybe go over some of the top prospects who are foreign?  Then, Chad, can you maybe talk about who you see as a sleeper in this draft?

FRASCHILLA:  The only reason I chuckled is because you’re covering the Trail Blazers, so half your team this year are guys that Chad and I have seen basically grow up.  I would say it’s a good year for foreign players to be in this draft.  So what looked like early on to be a quiet year for international guys, I could look at my list right now and see the potential for nine different players going in the first round. 

So I think it’s a good draft.  Chad has alluded to a couple of guys already.  I’ve studied a lot of tape of Dario Saric who has been on the scene forever.  There are things that really concern me about him, but he’s certainly a talented player. 

A guy that played really well in Portland – I don’t know if you were at the Hoop Summit, but he dominated the high school guards – was the German, Dennis Schroeder who has an awful lot of Rondo’s characteristics including the speed and the 6’7″ wing span.  He’s a guy that’s high on my list.  A kid that Chad and I have seen for a long time that’s all of a sudden started to turn the corner.  Lucas Nogueira from Brazil who is starting to play better and better in the ACB in Spain. 

There is another guy I’m starting to become high on again, a kid that’s very interesting that Chad can fill in the blanks on, Giannis Adetokoubo, a 6’9″, Kevin Durant built like guy who can handle the ball.  He’s very, very raw.  He’s played basically high school basketball this year in a very poor Greek league.  Some people have compared him to Nic Batum, that’s not fair, because he dribbles the ball better than Nic, but he’s nowhere near as experienced. 

Another kid who we’ve seen for a couple years that’s probably the most mature and most ready player, a guy that Chad mentioned, Sergey Karasev from Russia that’s already played in the Olympics, already playing at a high level, has a skill that really translates in his ability to shoot the ball and also has a great feel for the game. 

I see nine guys, and I also think this is a year where you can draft some of these guys and leave them right where they are in Europe and let them marinate a little bit more and not have to add them to your roster.

FORD:  I agree with everything Fran said on the international side.  As far as sleepers go, some of them are moving up the draft boards.  In Portland as well, you had Damian Lillard a guy out of Weber State who started his senior season not ranked in the top 30 by virtually every team in the league, wins Rookie of the Year last year.  To me, that is the definition of a sleeper. 

If you can go from one year where you weren’t ranked in the top 30 to being the Rookie of the Year in the NBA, that is a pretty impressive leap. 

I think Kentavious Caldwell Pope is maybe one of those guys out of Georgia that can really stroke the basketball.  An elite athlete that had no help at all on that Georgia team, which meant he took a lot of bad shots, and his shooting percentage may be off what he really is as far as a shooter and a scorer because of the situation that he was in.  I think Shane Larkin may be a guy who will look back on and look at Miami’s run this year and start to attribute a lot of that to the play of Larkin at point guard. 

He surprised a lot of people this year with how well Miami played.  I think a lot of that had to do with their point guard, and to me, he’s still got a lot of upside there.  I think Reggie Bullock out of North Carolina is a guy that got lost in the shuffle a little bit and has great size and can really shoot the basketball.  I think he can really defend. 

I think he got lost in the shuffle a little bit on the disappointing North Carolina team this year.  But often I felt like he was the best player on the court.  Then if you want some super sleepers, I think Mike Muscala at Bucknell is a 6’11″ guy that put up great numbers this year, but played at Bucknell.  He’s a guy that could potentially help himself the most at this combine if he comes in and really shows that he belongs with the other bigs there.  Teams are always interested in bigs. 

Then a guy that’s not even invited to the combine, D.J. Stephens out of Memphis.  I think he is the best athlete in the draft.  He’s the most explosive player, and I think he has one of the best motors of anybody in the draft.  He’s completely unskilled offensively.  

But if you’re talking about rotation players and talking about a guy who could come in off the bench; defend multiple players, be physical, athletic, block shots, grab steals, throw himself all over the floor for 15, 20 minutes a night and energize a team and a crowd, that, to me, could be D.J. Stephens. 

FRASCHILLA:  I would just add one, what I would call “hide in plain sight sleeper”, and that is a kid I’ve studied and seen in person this year who actually dominated the ACC on a bad team, and that is Erick Green of Virginia Tech.  He not only led the country in scoring, but he’s a highly efficient player.  He is a kid that makes tough shots.  He’s a willing passer, 67% at the rim, 40% from three, nearly 50% from two.  And the only major question mark I could see with him is his narrow frame.  Defensively he must improve. 

But when we talk about all these good point guards, and again, we’re only talking about guys that hopefully will be rotation guys, maybe a few starters.  But to me, Erick Green is a guy that dominated in the ACC the last couple years, and the beauty of Erick Green is he averaged two points a game as a freshman.

Iona has hired Virginia Tech assistant Billi Godsey as its new women’s basketball coach. The Metro Atlantic Atheltic Conference school in New Rochelle, N.Y., will introduce her at a news conference Tuesday.

Godsey was on Dennis Wolff’s staff at Tech the past two seasons. Iona needed a new coach to succeed Anthony Bozzella, who was hired by Seton Hall.

Green told me tonight that because of the combine, he must skip the Virginia Tech commencement ceremonies next week.

The combine will air on ESPNU at 10 a.m. on May 16 and May 17, and on ESPN2 at 2 p.m. those days.

Here is the full list of invitees, courtesy of CBSSports.com:

Steven Adams

Lorenzo Brown

Reggie Bullock

Trey Burke

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

Isaiah Canaan

Jackie Carmichael

Michael Carter-Williams

Allen Crabbe

Seth Curry

Brandon Davies

Dewayne Dedmon

Gorgui Dieng

James Ennis

Carrick Felix

Jamaal Franklin

Rudy Gobert

Archie Goodwin

Erick Green

Tim Hardaway Jr.

Solomon Hill

Richard Howell

Colton Iverson

Pierre Jackson

Grant Jerrett

Myck Kabongo

Kenny Kadji

Ryan Kelly

Shane Larkin

Ricky Ledo

Alex Len

C.J. Leslie

Trevor Mbakwe

Ray McCallum

C.J. McCollum

Ben McLemore

Tony Mitchell

Shabazz Muhammad

Erik Murphy

Mike Muscala

Nerlens Noel

Victor Oladipo

Kelly Olynyk

Brandon Paul

Novel Pelle

Mason Plumlee

Otto Porter

Phil Pressey

Glen Rice Jr.

Andre Roberson

Dennis Schoeder

Peyton Siva

Tony Snell

James Southerland

Adonis Thomas

Deshaun Thomas

Jeff Withey

Nate Wolters

B.J. Young

Cody Zeller

For the 2014-15 season, there will be 14 Big Ten teams. So one ACC team will still be left out of the challenge that season.

Here are the pairings for this year:

Tuesday, December 3

UAB is a member of Conference USA. The assistant coaches there include  former Tech assistant Rob Ehsan and former Tech director of basketball operations Jeff Wulbrun. Both were at Tech under Seth Greenberg when Brown was a freshman.

“I’m real [close] to Coach Ehsan and Coach Wulbrun,” Brown said, according to the newspaper’s website. “It’s significantly closer to home from where I was. They brought me in and showed me the campus and I really liked it.”

The Florida native said he also considered ETSU.

Shelby replaces Chantelle Anderson, who was on Wolff’s staff the past two seasons. Wolff said Anderson’s exit was a “mutual decision.”  Anderson said she did not want to comment on the situation.

Shelby spent the past two seasons as an assistant at Seton Hall under Anne Donovan, who has left the school to coach in the WNBA. She also has been an assistant at Southern Illinois, Stetson and Tenn. Tech.

Nahodil was ranked the No. 20 post player in the nation by ESPN. She led her team to a state title this year, and finished her prep career with more than 1,700 points and 1,000 rebounds. She became the fifth signee in Wolff’s 2012-13 recruiting class.

Also on the ACC women’s basketball front Thursday, UVa’s Ataira Franklin was named to the all-state first team by the sports information directors of Virginia colleges. Tech’s Monet Tellier made the second team.

Tech will host ACC newcomer Syracuse, a team that never visited Blacksburg when the Hokies were in the Big East.  Tech will also host UNC.

The Hokies will visit ACC newcomers Notre Dame and Pitt, as well as Duke.

Tech will face UVa, Miami, Maryland and BC both home and away.

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/colleges/1871219-12/trade-pays-off-in-the-end-for-jj.html

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/virginiatech/vtbasketball/1867172-12/acc-only-gets-tougher-for-virginia-tech-women.html