Eff’em.  Eff Dorian Finney-Smith and eff Montrezl Harrell.  That’s my stance.  Like associate AD Tom Gabbard said, if they don’t want to be here, I don’t want them.  I love Virginia Tech… a lot.  I realize it has some negatives, and some negative people, but it is a beautiful campus with an outstanding fan base, alumni, students, etc.  And full of people that would do anything to support them and make them better.  That’s apparently not good enough for them, or in one case, their mother (she’s a whole other story — a real piece of work if you ever sat near her at a game).  Just like I love my country and if someone wants out, good riddance.

Now, I won’t sit here and say, “He stinks anyway.”  “I don’t want him.”  “He’s trash.”  No, I’d have loved to have had Doe Doe and Harrell on the court for us next year.  Doe Doe took a big step forward as the year went along and showed flashes of brilliance in the clemson ACC Tournament game.  Harrell, by all accounts, was a combination between Cheick Diakite, Cadarian Raines, and the Tazmanian Devil.  He would have been a guy that got the crowd fired up with dunks and shot blocks, and scared the dickens out of other teams when they tried to go in the paint.

Do I wish them luck in their future?  To be honest, I don’t care.  They are now dead to me.  I actively rooted against gus ‘benedict arnold’ gilchrist and the entire south florida program, but this is different.  Gus and his handler, probably more so the latter, used the events of the shootings to leverage Gus’s rising stock to go to a ‘better program’.  That made me sick.  The same way bobby petrino makes me sick (I’m an Atlanta Falcons fan).  Now, I was legitimately concerned when petrino wrecked his motorcycle – I never wish an injury on anyone (I have at least a pinch of class).  But I must say the daily revealings of his misdoings were like a Christmas Day present.  Seeing him fail, after what he did to the Falcons, brought a rye smile to my face.

This is different though.  Doe Doe and Harrell haven’t done something I find truly wrong.  They just simply decided my school wasn’t for them.  While I respect their decision to leave, I don’t have to like it.  Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on your way out.

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The Hokies have apparently picked up a transfer – Adam Smith from unc-hollywood (aka unc-wilmington — did you know Wilmington, NC has the 2nd largest film studio, behind only LA?).  Smith, a former 3-star recruit according to Rivals.com from Fayetteville, GA, averaged 13.7 ppg for the seahawks as a freshman this past season.  He’ll have to sit out the 2012-13 season, but will have 3 years of eligibility left after that.

Smith’s 13.7 ppg were good for 2nd on a unc-dub team that finished 10-21, including 5-13 in the soon to be depleted Colonial (vcu just announced they are going to the A-10 and george mason likely isn’t far behind).  Adam hit 58/175 3-pointers (33%) which is solid, but just 38% overall from the field (92/221 on 2-pointers — 42%).  He made 82% of his free throws.

Smith is just 5’11″, and isn’t a point guard (just 1.6 assists per game).  We shall see if he can be successful in the ACC.  He’ll likely need to be a perimeter player.

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We should know the fate of prized recruit Montrezl Harrell by the end of the day.  That day being Wednesday, May 16th.  Today is the final day of the NCAA basketball regular signing period according to THIS WEBSITE.  So if he wants to play ball next year, one would think Harrell will have to declare his intentions, and sign, today.  Now, there could be provisions for when a student-athlete is released from a Letter of Intent, but I don’t know of them if there are any.

I really don’t know if Montrezl is still considering the Hokies or not.  According to THIS ARTICLE he hasn’t been released from his Letter of Intent, which he needs to sign with another school.  The article claims kentucky is seriously considering Harrell.

Either way, I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much, but we should at least know the final answer soon.  Real soon.

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It was announced that Virginia Tech will host the iowa hawkeyes on Tuesday, November 27th in the ACC/Big(12)Ten Challenge.  This is good news if you like wins — Tech is 2-0 in the Challenge against the hawkeyes while 0-5 against everyone else.  Yep, VT is just 2-5 in the history of the Challenge.  This is odd that Tech is playing iowa for the 3rd time when they haven’t played anyone else more than once (ohio state, penn state, wisconsin, purdue, and minnesota — all losses).

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From the Roanoke Times: ARTICLE

New Assistants:

• Mark Byington (36) – college of charleston, uva (Director of Bball Ops)
• Ramon Williams (44) – ohio, vmi, richmond, depaul
• Kurt Kanaskie (54) – navy, penn state, drake (Head Coach)

J.J. is the 2nd youngest on the staff (40).

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The Richmond Times Dispatch is reporting that 2012 signee, forward Montrezl Harrell, has asked for his release. Harrell was a top 100 recruit according to every service, and would have plugged a huge hole inside next year. Instead, like seemingly every other year, Tech will have no depth in the post. Only Raines, Barksdale, and JVG return as true post players. Signee Marshall Wood, who is 6’8″ but more of a perimeter player who does not have the bulk yet to battle inside in the ACC, may be forced to play the 4 at times.

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In the Greenberg Era, Seth was able to sign 8 recruits ranked in the Top 100 according to Rivals.com.  They were:

• 2004 – Marquie Cooke – #57
• 2006 – Lewis Witcher – #99
• 2007 – Jeff Allen – #77
• 2007 – Malcolm Delaney – #89
• 2010 – Jarell Eddie – #70
• 2011 – Dorian Finney-Smith – #31
• 2011 – Robert Brown – #82
• 2011 – C.J. Barksdale – #99

Arguably, Cooke and Finney-Smith were the two biggest on that list, and not just because they had the highest rating.  Yes, Jeff Allen was a huge, national recruit, too, with experience at Dematha and Oak Hill, but I’ll still put Cooke and DFS above him.

Cooke was seen as a huge get for Virginia Tech back in 2004, Seth’s first full year of recruiting.  Cooke was from the 757 and played in the prestigious Boo Williams AAU program.  Tech didn’t get Boo kids in the ricky stokes reign.  But Marquie instantly appeared to be a headcase and was kicked off the team after one season.  He transferred to colorado state and was quickly booted from there.  Cooke finally finished out his college career this past season playing for elizabeth city state university in North Carolina (“Lots of people go to college for 8 years,”  “Yeah, they’re called doctors.”).

Finney-Smith was regarded as Tech’s biggest recruit since Dell Curry, Tech’s last (and probably only) McDonald’s All-American.   Doe Doe wasn’t a McDonald’s All-American but was right on the cusp of it, along with near 5-star status.  He struggle at times this past season, missing 25 straight shots early on in ACC play (he didn’t make a FG in a 5 game stretch between ACC game #3 through 7), but did get better at the end of the season and made the ACC All-Freshmen Team.  Yet, now Doe Doe is extinct in terms of Hokie status.

It is hard to say how much was Seth’s fault in either case, and we’ll likely never know.  But it isn’t a great trend (well, if you can call 2 guys a trend).  You could look at the positive side and say that of the 3 guys on that list above that stayed all 4 years, 2 of those 3 (Allen and Delaney) garnered multiple All-ACC honors (Allen as a freshman and senior, Delaney his last 3 years including back-to-back First Team All-ACC honors).  Plus, Dorenzo Hudson, who was top 100 on some lists and #110 with Rivals, also was named 2nd Team All-ACC his junior year.  But…

The charge for Coach Johnson will be not only getting top 100 recruits, but keeping them.  Can Tech only get the problem childs of top recruits?  The malcontents?  We’ll see.  But clearly the issue for Coach Johnson starting today will be landing those top guys (VA has 3 top 100 recruits in the 2013 Class) and getting them to the graduation podium.

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Newly appointed Head Coach James Johnson picked up his first recruiting win on Wednesday, or in baseball terms, maybe we should call it a ‘save’.  Johnson was able to convince 2012 signee, forward MARSHALL WOOD, to re-commit to the Hokies.  Wood, a 3-star prospect who at 6’8″ is also a talented 3-point shooter, had asked for his release.  But several outlets, including Twitter, have reported that Wood is solid as mahogany with Tech.

Now Coach Johnson needs to play Mariano Rivera and get the prized recruit, 4-star forward MONTREZL HARRELL, to stick with the Hokies.

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Yesterday we looked at the prior head coaching experience of the current ACC coaches.  Today, let’s look at how well ACC coaching changes worked out (or didn’t) in recent history.  Since Roy Williams has been at unc for 9 years, Leonard Hamilton at fsu for 10 years, and Krzyzewski at duke for 30, I’ll exclude them.  I’ll look at ACC coaching changes since 2006 and how they did in their 1st and 2nd year compared to the previous coach.

* signifies NCAA Tournament appearance

From this ‘just the facts’ post, you can see that of the recent coaching changes in the previous 6 seasons:

• First Season: ACC record improved in 5 cases, and stayed the same in one instance (out of 10 — so 50% had immediate improvement)
• Second Season: Of the 6 examples, the ACC record improved between a coach’s 1st and 2nd season in 3 of 6 cases (50%)
• Yeesh – 7 coaching changes in the previous 2 seasons, and now 8 in 3 years?  Benett is now the 4th most tenured coach in the ACC and he’s only been there 3 seasons!
• Lowe never made the NCAAs, Gaudio did twice, Bennett once, and you can see in the table above how the new guys of the last two years have done.
• Of the 6 examples above where the team lost 10+ ACC games the previous year under a different coach (our situation), just once did the team make the NCAAs the next year (Gottfried at nc state this past season).
• Just 2 of the coaches made the NCAA Tournament in their 1st year, and in Brownell’s case they had made it the previous year.
• Only 1 out of 6 made the NCAA Tournament in their 2nd season (Gaudio — who also made the Big Dance in his 3rd year but then was fired for brain dead Bzdelik).
• Based on those last two bullets, only 3 of 6 coaches made the NCAA Tournament in their first 2 years and no one made it both times, although you could argue that most were coming into a bad situation, hence why the last guy was fired.  So those of you looking for immediate results (in the first 2 years) might want to flip a coin, because it is about a 50/50 proposition.

FYI: The previous coach was fired in every example above except for Gaudio (Skip Prosser passed away), Brownell (Purnell left for depaul), Turgeon (Gary Williams ‘retired’), and Larranaga (Haith left for mizzou).  One could argue Sendek wasn’t ‘fired’ at nc state, but he was run out of town for Sidney Lowe (ew, bad mistake).

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A lot has, and will, be made of James Johnson’s lack of previous head coaching experience taking over an ACC program.  I did a quick search and here are the head coaching ‘resumes’ that the other ACC coaches had at the time they started with their current ACC school.  I note head coaching experience (in years) and head coaching experience at a BCS school prior to their arrival at their current institution of higher learning.

*Note that both Bzdelik (wake) and Hamilton (fsu) have NBA head coaching experience.  Bzdelik is also the worst coach in the league so I’m not sure what that gets you.

It’s also interesting to note that Roy Williams had no head coaching experience when he took over a storied program like kansas more than 20 years ago.

As you can see, about half the other coaches (5 of 11) had no prior BCS head coaching experience, including some guy name Krzyzewski.  And it is interesting to note that uva’s Tony Bennett had the least head coaching experience, other than Johnson, with just 3 seasons at washington state, and he was gift-wrapped that job by his father.

One other angle is recruiting — I noted that both Brownell and Donahue, guys with no prior BCS head coaching experience, have both struggled to attact top recruits to date.  That is the real challenge at an ACC school not in North Carolina.  But both have started to prove themselves with their on the court coaching abilities already.

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Jay Wright?  Nope.  Bobby Lutz? Nope.  Shaka Smart?  Nope.  The Hokies have announced former assistant coach (as recently as three weeks ago) James Johnson as their new head coach: Official Announcement.  While Johnson has no head coaching experience, he was extremely popular with the current players and the two signees for the upcoming year.  He is considered a fantastic recruiter and coach.  This move likely will keep the current roster in place, it will be interesting to see if Harrell and Wood (the two 2012 signees) re-up with Tech or continue to pursue other options.

This is an interesting situation in that Johnson left VT for ACC rival clemson three weeks ago.  The result probably was the nail in Coach Greenberg’s coffin, and now Johnson is returning to take the vacated position.

Also, he’s single with no kids, so no hot daughters (sorry!).

COACH JAMES JOHNSON BIO

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Update:  Rumors are swirling that Montrezl Harrell will ask for his release, too.  I’ve seen rumors about him and kentucky, cincinnati, xavier, and more.  But again, if VT can get a coach in place soon and get him in front of the guys, VT may be able to keep them.  The basketball signing period ends May 16th so that means these guys have to be inked by 3 weeks from today, putting urgency on VT and them to make decisions.

When you have a coaching change, there is always a high risk of losing players.  With Coach Greenberg fired, the first potential person to jump ship is 2012 signee Marshall Wood, a forward from Rustburg, VA.  This is all according to my sources and this ROANOKE TIMES ARTICLE.  Marshall will apparently ask for his release from his binding Letter of Intent, which universities usually grant when there’s a coaching change.

Marshall was ranked a 3-star recruit by most services, and the lesser of Tech’s two signees (Montrezl Harrell was the more prized recruit).  But Wood seems to have great potential.  He is a fantastic 3-point shooter for a big man (6’8″) and also has explosive leaping ability.

There is a chance he’ll still sign with VT, but I think the odds of that are 50/50 at best and very much depends on who VT hires and how soon.

Keeping Harrell will also be key as he certainly has options.

MARSHALL WOOD PROFILE

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I’ll give you a hint: it involves duke.  No, not Tech’s win over #1 duke in the 2010-11 season.  It is from our first season in the ACC back in 2004-05.  Nope, you are still way off, it wasn’t when we beat #7 duke in the Cassell in mid-February by a 67-65 score.  My favorite memory came a few weeks before that when Virginia Tech traveled to Durham for their first ever ACC game in Cameron Indoor, and the Hokies were quickly shown where they stood on the ACC ladder.

January 30, 2005: The Hokies traveled to duke riding the gravy train with biscuit wheels.  Tech, in their first year in the ACC, had surprised pretty much everyone, including myself.  I predicted an 0-16 finish in the ACC that first year.  But the Hokies entered that Sunday Night Hoops contest with a 4-2 ACC record.  After losing by 34 at home to unc in the ACC opener and again at florida state (still haven’t won there), Tech rolled off four wins in a row over clemson, nc state, at georgia tech, and over uva at home.  The bandwagon was starting to form but people were still skeptical.  This would be the real test.

Well, it wasn’t pretty.  90 seconds into the game Deron Washington was flung out of bounds by Shelden Williams.  No call.  That would not be the case for the Hokies.  Tech was called for 34 fouls on the night (the ACC record at the time was 41).  But keep something in mind – the game was a blowout so the Hokies weren’t fouling at the end of the game, yet still managed 34 whistles against!  It prompted Seth after the game to say, “I guess we foul a lot.”

duke, meanwhile, was whistled for just 20 fouls, 40% less than Tech.  Jamon Gordon fouled out in 8 minutes of playing time.  Heck, even Jeff King picked up 4 fouls.  It had Coach K whining that it was too physical after the game.  The Cameron nerds even started chanting, “Please stop fouling!”   But the refs were sending a message – this is the ACC, this is Coach K, this is duke.  And you guys are nobody.  VT would go on to lose 100-65.

So why is that my favorite memory of Coach Greenberg?  With about 5 minutes to go in the game, Coach went bananas.  He had had enough.  He was not going to take this.  Coach announced to the league that we weren’t going to come into the league and be a bunch of lap dogs playing more or less exhibitions with the blue bloods.  We deserved a fair shake, and we damn well better get it or they were going to feel his wrath.

Did Coach get ejected?  Oh, yeah!  And he stormed off the court with smoke coming out of his ears.  He earned my respect right there.  I started to believe in our program again.  I sat there and said, “That’s our guy.”

The game against duke a few weeks later was won that Sunday.  He told the league we deserve the same shake the dukes of the world got.  And everybody took notice starting that night, with confirmation in February when we beat the team that had previously beaten us by 35.

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Greenberg and Niemo from 2011

Obviously this past season I’ve been somewhat critical of Coach Greenberg and his poor track record of making the NCAA Tournament (just once in nine years and that once was five years ago).  But it is also fresh in my mind where this ‘program’ was nine years ago.  We had just fired ricky “program bomb” stokes after going 10-38 in their first three years in the Big East.  I’m not sure people even knew we still had a basketball program when he got fired.  The Cassell was empty and so was our glass of hope, or so it seemed.  Then in stepped Coach Greenberg.

I will always be thankful to Coach Greenberg for lifting us up out of the dark ages.  In his first year, 2003-04, he led Tech to a 7-9 record and their first and only appearance in the Big East Tournament, winning one game.  The next year we all assumed we’d take it on the chin in the ACC, but the Hokies scrapped to an 8-8 record and a NIT appearance, Tech’s first postseason trip in nine years. Seth was named ACC Coach of the Year for that 4th place finish.  Coach Greenberg would win the award a second time in 2008.  Here’s a look at what he accomplished at VT:

• Improved Tech’s Big East record by 3 wins in his first year
• Took Tech to their only Big East Tournament appearance
• 2-time ACC Coach of the Year (05 and 08)
• Earned four ACC Tournament first round byes in eight years
• Finished tied for fourth or better five times in the ACC
• Took Tech to the postseason six times (5 NIT, 1 NCAA – 07)
• 61-67 ACC record
• 3 ACC Tournament Semi-Final appearances (uva had 0 over the same span)
• 170-123 overall record
• 2nd place on Tech’s all time win list

Let’s not forget that we also got that spiffy new practice facility on his watch because our program was relevant again and the administration was willing to invest in the program.  Not sure they would have if we were still putting up 4-12s every year.

The Date: 2/26/11 – In many ways February 26th is where everything changed.  Tech had just knocked off #1 duke, Greenberg’s third win over a #1 since coming to VT.  Coach was hugging his daughters and very emotional on the court.  VT hoops hysteria was at an all time high.  After several NCAA snubs, we had clinched an NCAA Tournament bid… or so we thought.  But after 2/26/11 Tech went just 4-14 in ACC regular season play, including two losses to close the 2010-11 regular season that put us back in the NIT.  That was followed up by a 4-12 ACC record this year after a solid out of conference showing, and the buzzards started to lurk.  From seemingly the tops of the mountain last February, it was a mighty fall.  But most of us thought he’d get another year.  My sources indicate there was a strain between A.D. Jim Weaver and Greenberg recently after previously defending him (I won’t get into it since I’m not sure of it and because what’s done is done).  And then, today, it was over.

Part of the reason sited was a lack of a family atmosphere, which is interesting because he had one daughter graduate from VT, another at VT, and potentially another on the way.  Coach did have an abrasive personality – some liked it and his straight-forward approach, others got rubbed the wrong way.  And his antics always made for good fodder, whether you liked him or not.

I remember talking with Coach at one of the past Hokie Celebrations.  Upon hearing I wrote for TechHoops.com, Coach pretty much let me know he didn’t care for the blogs.  His reason being that one minute they love you, the next they want your head.  I tried to assure him that wasn’t my way, that he had my full support.  Then, this year, I did take part in the rumblings this year and expected a NCAA bid next year or I’d have been calling for his job.  I guess you were right, Coach.  Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

I definitely wish Coach Greenberg well and wish him nothing but success moving forward.  It is sad to see him go.  While it may have been time, you also have to be careful what you wish for.  We knew what we had with Seth – a tireless recruiter who could really implement a solid defense.  Did he hit a ceiling here or did the ceiling hit him?  We’ll never know.  But either way, here’s to you, Coach, and thank you for everything you did for Virginia Tech basketball.

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According to multiple sources including CSNWashington.com (ComcastSportsNet), WJLA.com, and the Daily Press’s David Teel, VT Head Coach Seth Greenberg has been fired after 9 seasons leading the Hokies. A press conference is scheduled for this afternoon.

We’ll have more on this later tonight.

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According to multiple sources, a major announcement with “BIG” news is expected for later this afternoon. I’ll be out of pocket until 5:30 but will update the news as soon as I can.

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