Three players, including 6-0, 165-pound DeMatha Catholic (Hyattsville, MD) PG Lewis Witcher, signed letters of intent for head coach Seth Greenberg last month. Techsideline.com caught up with three top recruiting analysts � PrepStars.com Talent Evaluator Brick Oettinger, Scout.com National Recruiting Analyst Dave Telep and TSL�s own guru, Rev. Zeke � for analysis on Coach Greenberg�s 2006 class.
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The Players�
Dave Telep: Nigel Munson is going to give them a presence, kind of an extension of the coach at the point guard position, but I think the guy that may come in and help them the most as a freshman is Lewis Witcher. He�s a guy who, with his back to the basket, you can dump him the basketball and he�s going to turn and score. He�s got a move and he�s going to be a good player inside for them. I think for Lewis Witcher it�s expanding his comfort zone. He�s got a radius where he scores from five feet around the basket. He�s got to expand that to where he can make that elbow jump shot from the free throw line and to where he can play facing the bucket. He�s got to develop a midrange game for another element to his game. He�s got a tremendous comfort zone around the basket, where he feels like he can score in a variety of ways. I think if he continues to expand that you�ll see his game continue to improve.�
Jeff Allen is a little bit more bouncy than Lewis Witcher and he will provide a compliment to him. Those two guys along with Munson, who is your prototypical point guard, make up a uniquely well-rounded class.
Brick Oettinger: Lewis Witcher has a lot of promise. I think he could be the best of the lot even though we have him ranked at #143. He doesn�t show you a whole lot of offensive tools right now. He has a little bit of a turnaround jump shot. He�s another kid who is close to 6-9. They may list him 6-8, but he�s going to be 6-9. He�s a rangy kid who is going to fill out and get stronger. He�s not what you�d call weak, though. He�s an aggressive player and an extremely athletic player. He runs great. He�s a leaper. He can block shots. He�s active on the boards. He�s got all those things going for him, he just doesn�t have the polish and a variety of scoring tools. That doesn�t mean he won�t get more and more, but that�s why I said he may have more upside as the others.
I was actually a little disappointed in Munson � compared to his reputation and being the career assist leader at DeMatha - when I saw him at the Nike Camp in Indianapolis. Maybe it�s because that�s the way a lot of other guys played, but he was looking to shoot it even more than to pass it. He�s a pretty good shooter on the move when he�s got some room and he can hit some open 3s, but he was trying some non-open shots and he was not hitting. He�s a good athlete, but he�s not a great athlete. When he gets to college, he�s going to be more of your playmaking, pass-first point guard. That�s what his reputation is. He�s not going to turn the ball over much. Generally, I think he�s going to make good decisions and he�s an intelligent player. So he�s a good player.
I know Mike Jones is very high on Jeff Allen and said he is his best player last year despite the reputations of some of his other players, including Nigel Munson and Austin Freeman and so forth. Allen�s stats weren�t that impressive � averaging 12 or 13 points a game on a balanced team � and obviously he�s a versatile, solid, unspectacular but effective all-around player. He is a combo forward at a short 6-7 and it remains to be seen what kind of college player he�ll be. Anyway, we list him as a top 250 player and he probably deserves to be in the bottom of the top 200 � probably somewhere between 150 and 200. If he has a good season for Oak Hill, we�ll probably move him on up when we do our final rankings.
Rev. Zeke:
Nigel Munson - 6-0,165 pounds.... Its easy to see the attractiveness and allure that Munson had for Seth Greenberg and his staff. As good as Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon are, neither of them is a true, natural point guard.Munson is exactly that however. He is a pure point guard who will play strictly one position during his career here.Initially he will get his feet wet as a freshman learning behind two of the better guards to have ever played at Virginia Tech. The following year, Munson should step in as a sophomore and be handed the reins of the team. Munson shoots the jumper very well and very consistently. He doesn�t look for his shot first, but rather will look to incorporate his teammates into the game and flow. His best quality is that he is a total gym rat. He is the type of kid that you will have to throw out of the gym and turn the lights off because his love of basketball is so great and so consuming. He will not be the kind of player that Seth Greenberg will have to always be imploring to get into the gym to do extra work.
To that end, he largely eschewed the AAU circuit this past summer and spring, with the exception of his participation at the Nike Camp in Indianapolis, choosing instead to hire a workout trainer and focus on his individual game and conditioning. That is the type commitment he has to basketball and getting better. His passion for basketball and improvement is very high and his workout ethic and hunger to improve can not be underestimated. Munson is a very good handler of the basketball, he has improved his ability to hit some shots on the move and in the paint and while he still needs to improve in the area of strength, he has easily gotten stronger over the past six months. He still needs work on the defensive end, both from a strength standpoint and more importantly from the standpoint of being much more of a nuisance and pest when defending the ball and players in the backcourt. He is an unselfish point guard who can handle, shoot and pass the basketball. He isn�t the biggest at 165 pounds on his 6' frame, and his athleticism is decent, maybe not eye-opening even. But he has some strong intangibles and should be stepping into a very good situation next year behind Gordon and Dowdell.
Lewis Witcher - 6-8,215 pounds.......Lewis Witcher is a young colt on the court. He runs with a fluidity and ease that most of his contemporaries simply don�t have. He has a "live" body that enables him to fly around inside and he really gets on the offensive glass well because he is so quick around the hoop and gets off his feet so quickly. While he played largely this summer in a back-to-the-basket role for Boo Williams, Witcher has the ability to step out and hit the face-up 15-17' jumper...He is a very agile, athletic post player who will eventually settle in at Tech as a four-man. His body control is just average inside but Lewis is a very underrated passer of the basketball, especially in being able to execute the high-low pass. Witcher is a better handler of the ball in space than Cheick Diakate is right now. I could easily see him at some point in the future as being a four-man who can step away from the basket and beat his man off some isolation stuff. He has a quick first step, excellent feet and is very quick with the ball. One attribute that Witcher possesses is his ability to quickly assess and process the game. He adjusts to the speed, flow and caliber of the game. He is a sponge for learning and that ability enables him to process information and quickly elevate his game. I see him as getting some off the bench minutes in a limited capacity as a freshman, playing behind Deron Washington and Coleman Collins inside, then I can easily see him exploding as a sophomore and being significantly better and more confident on the court after he has a year to assimilate to the game and advanced nature. That has been his pattern in the past, and I expect to see that remain so once he arrives at Virginia Tech......
Jeff Allen - 6-7,230 pounds.....While Jeff Allen is included in this current three-man recruiting class for Virginia Tech, my expectation is that Allen will eventually matriculate in the following years class, rather than next fall. Regardless of when Allen does arrive, his impact should be immediate. I see Allen as a player who impacts this program from day one at Virginia Tech. I feel that he is one of the top 50 players in the country if you are including him in the 2006 high school class, along with Witcher and Munson. IF Allen indeed arrives at Tech in the 2007 class, then my feeling is that he would elevate himself to being one of the top 35 prospects in that entire class. He is the best recruit that Seth Greenberg and his staff have signed thus far at Virginia Tech, and that includes Marquie Cooke. In fact, my feeling is that Jeff Allen has the ability to be as good any incoming recruit at Tech since 1990. I can easily see Allen arriving at Tech as a 6-7, 235 or 240-pound forward capable of playing both the three and four positions. His time at Oak Hill will be very valuable this year and his game will continue to expand away from the basket. He, like Nigel Munson, was not out on the AAU circuit, so it might have been that many people forgot about Allen and it was an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of situation. Whatever the case, Allen is a huge talent and his improvement in shooting the basketball in the past twelve months has been striking. He is capable of playing both the three and four positions, although he is a four right now. He is bullish strong and can post up inside, yet has the excellent hands and passing touch to easily step away from the basket and become a playmaker. While his shot has gotten significantly better, his ability to handle the basketball has also markedly improved over that same time frame, so much so that it isn�t totally out of the question to envision Allen in two years as a "point-forward" type of player who can orchestrate and initiate your offense some. However, Allen right now is a beast on the boards with a strong body, fierce demeanor and excellent hands. He overpowers smaller players inside, and abuses larger players away from the basket with his shot, handle and passing skills. The biggest concern right now for Allen, in fact, might be determining exactly what he is and staying focused on that rather than trying to do too much. Allen is tough, plays hard and can beat people off the dribble and get into the paint often...He sometimes will try and do too much with the ball, perhaps demonstrating a very supreme confidence that has been fostered in his ability to do most anything with the ball. This sometimes results in more turnovers than you would like to see, so defining his game will be a challenge for him and a continuing area of concern. However, when he does arrive at Virginia Tech, whether it be in 2006, or more likely 2007, Virginia Tech fans should be excited about a very talented and multidimensional player who should be able to fit in at several positions and impact the program immediately.
Where does Virginia Tech rank among the ACC schools?
Dave Telep: It�s a little bit unfair to say where they stand in the ACC because, when you look at the league, the league as a whole signed 22 top 100 players and had six classes ranked in the top 25. So here you have Miami, Maryland, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Virginia, with really respectable classes that are going to wind up being in the lower half of the ACC. It�s unfair to say because of the high amount of quality players the entire league signed. I think it�s more of an indicator of the strength of the league�s class to say these programs are in the bottom half of the league.
Brick Oettinger: �Since Jeff Allen looks more like a 2007 player than a 2006, that affects our ranking. We gave Virginia Tech a C+, which is the same as Boston College. We have those schools as the lowest two in the ACC, but I don�t think anybody did really poorly. When the other recruits are ranked by us at #133 (Nigel Munson) and #143 (Lewis Witcher), it�s hard to give them a grade higher than that. When you have 330 or whatever Division 1 schools in basketball, there are a whole lot that would be delighted to have a couple of kids ranked in the top 150. But in the ACC this year, that doesn�t stack up that well compared to the others. You have North Carolina with three of the top seven, Duke with three of the top 30, Georgia Tech with two of the top 20, and so on.�
How will this class contribute next year?
Brick Oettinger: Probably, they are going to provide more depth in their first year. I think Munson is going to be a solid back-up point guard in his first year and then he�ll get his shot after that. They do need some quality size. That may mean that, if Witcher progresses, he�s going to have a chance to contribute a lot his first year. I do think those guys will provide depth. They�ll have experienced guys coming back next year, so I think the newcomers probably will provide the depth.
Where does Virginia Tech go from here for 2006?
Brick Oettinger:
Virginia Tech, which on paper is full, is still trying to get Tyrone Appleton. Tyrone Appleton is a good player who would add some athleticism to the backcourt. He�s a combo guard at close to 6-4. But, Virginia Tech has three guys and one of those probably, probably is not going to come in until �07. The key is academics and it�s not impossible for him to make it. That�s why he went to Oak Hill. There�s a conceivable chance he could improve his academics and raise his test score and qualify in the spring. If he does that, I think he�ll go to Virginia Tech and help them out.
Rev. Zeke: My expectation is that I can see Virginia Tech signing one additional player in the spring. I don�t think that is necessarily fait-accompli, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say its more likely that they do sign a player in the spring, rather than they don�t sign someone. Furthermore, if there is a spring signing, I would expect it to be a guard. Probably ideally, it would be a combo guard, but they might easily find a two guard and bring him in barring a situation where there is a frontcourt player that falls into their lap that is simply too good to pass up, whether it be a transfer or someone that de-commits or what have you...A combo or two guard is ideally what they would like to add.
Tyrone Appleton-Miller, a 6-3 combo now at Harmony Christian in Cincinnati continues to be a strong candidate, as is Bobby Maze, a 6-2 combo guard originally from Maryland and now at the Patterson School in Lenoir NC, which coincidentally is coached by former Laurinburg Institute head coach, and Virginia Tech graduate, Chris Chaney. Maze has exploded on the scene since early fall and is being evaluated by scores of schools, a number of high major schools being involved as well.......Finally, Keaton Grant, originally from Kissimmee Florida and now at Bridgton Academy is another guard possibility. Grant originally committed to Missouri last year, but de-committed from there early this fall. He has good size at 6-4 and good strength as well and is a combo guard type, although he has just started making that transition to that position this year while at Bridgton. Bridgton, of course, is the school that provided Cheick Diakite to Virginia Tech.