Greenberg: Swindle’s Basketball Career is Likely Over

Posted on29 March 2010. Tags:

Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg, fresh off agreeing to a revised contract that will keep him in Blacksburg through the 2015-2016 season, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Gene Swindle’s basketball career is likely over because of a nagging knee problem.

Swindle redshirted as a freshman last season. He played 21 seconds in this season’s second game before undergoing knee surgery and missing the rest of the season.

This is not a significant loss at all in terms of points, rebounds, minutes, etc. While it’s unfortunate that a knee injury prevented Gene from realizing his potential at this level, his Swindle’s departure actually frees up a much-needed scholarship for next season. And Gene will keep his scholarship to attend Virginia Tech and earn his degree, however, he won’t be able to play basketball.

Read the entire article: High hopes for Hokies next year, but Malcoln Delaney’s return is key

Niemo’s Notes:

Now two of the three big offseason questions have been answered:

  1. Will Greenberg stay?  (Yes)
  2. Who is the odd man out?  Tech is bringing in two scholarship signees next year, yet only lost one scholarship senior.  So someone either had to leave for pro ball, transfer, stop playing, or a signee had to prep.  (It appears Swindle will be the guy taken off the scholarship count to free up room for both signees – but Gene can still stay on scholarship at VT, just can’t play ball)
  3. Will Delaney stay?  (TBD but likely yes, which would give the Hokies a hat trick here)

This post was written by:

- who has written 220 posts on Tech Hoops.

Gary is a Virginia Tech graduate and veteran sports journalist with a career spanning on-air work in television and radio, and as a writer, editor and columnist in newspapers. He has covered the Hokies since 1993.

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  • Black

    I told ya, Niemo. Suit or no suit.

    • Niemo

      Yes, you did, sir.

  • http://stores.ebay.com/hip-hop-heads-vinyl-crates HipHop_Hokie

    While this is certainly disappointing for Gene, I’m sure, from a personal standpoint, I’m not worried about this loss for our team in the least. We all saw Gene standing around on the sidelines and he is undoubtedly tall, but I just didn’t see in him any sort of presence that made it look like he was going to be an intimidating and valuable factor for our team.

    With Chaney becoming available next year to help lock things down in the post – along with Cadarian Raines, who will hopefully get over these nagging injuries – we should be just fine. Still no 7-footers on the squad, but who knows… maybe we’ll find one for the 2011 class. I’m talking to YOU, John Manning…

  • King

    If clutch performances in big games down the stretch is any indicator of success in the NBA, then I’m confident that Delaney will be back based on his horrible shooting outings against Miami, Uconn & Rhode Island, in 3 of his last 4 games. If he left, this would be tantamount to Shyrone Stith leaving the football team early to declare for the NFL draft.

  • michael

    Hey Neims,
    You need to find something better to do than to talk crap about a player you don’t even know. He is very talented and it is bullcrap that he has 3 seasons left to show what hes got and an [deleted] Coach is not going to give him the oppurtunity. You could be a little nicer in your column writing.

    • Niemo

      Michael – you might want to take a reading comprehension course – I didn’t write that article (look at the bottom under the huge part that says “This post was written by”). I just added my notes into it and I certainly didn’t talk any crap.

    • http://www.vthokiefans.com Cope-acabana

      Michael, I wrote the article and I’m not sure what your beef is. What in the brief write up did you think was “not nice?” The kid isn’t being kicked out of school or asked to leave – the report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch said he has a career-ending knee injury and that’s according to the coach. Fact is fact – losing Swindle doesn’t hurt this team, at least not in terms of points, rebounds and playing time. And playing time next year would have been tough to get anyway with Allen, Davila, Raines and Chaney all vying for playing time in the post.

  • Danram

    Glad to read that Gene will still be able to stay on scholarship at VT and not count towards the team’s 13 scholarship limit as long as he doesn’t play. Works out well for all concerned, IMHO.

  • http://www.heyhokie.com Goodraisin

    So Michael, I am assuming you are either good friends with Gene or you are related to him. No one else would submit such a knee-jerk reaction to a fair post like this one. It’s true that Gene didn’t get a chance to show what he could do, and that sucks, but it’s also true that he is seen by everyone who knows/covers the VT team as a “project”. I am extremely happy to hear that he will get to stay on scholarship at Virginia Tech, but it’s hard to justify being upset about Tyrone Garland or Jarell Eddie being the player to fill his vacated scholarship. That’s college basketball in the ACC… it’s rough, get over it.

  • Les

    I think it’s realistic to assume that he wouldn’t be a significant contributor next year even if he recovered from the meniscus tear. It’s taken most of Tech’s recruits at least two years to become key role players. When they signed him, they didn’t expect him to be a significant contributor until late in his career.


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