I’m afraid to walk outside today for fear the sky will hit me in the head. First ESPN mega-star/analyst Dick Vitale ranked the Hokies in his preseason top 25 (Vitale has VT at #24), and now he has senior Malcom Delaney on his preseason All-American First Team!
Vitale’s Preseason All-Americans
That’s a lot of quality pub for a program that has never received much from “The Man” in the college basketball media. It also shows how much attention Virginia Tech is getting for this season. I believe that is a result of all the publicity the Hokies have gotten for two NCAA Tournament snubs in the last three years, including from Vitale who firmly felt VT belonged in the Big Dance this past year.
Note that on Vitale’s First Team, the Hokies play three of the other four guys (Singler of duke and Hummel and Johnson of purdue). The Hokies played Trey Thompkins, who is on the Second Team, each of the past two years.
While all this preseason ink is nice, let’s hope it equates to a great season or else it was all for not.
[Thanks to Hokie Guru for finding Vitale's list while I was on vacation]
Other News:
We knew from Greenberg’s update a few weeks ago that Allan Chaney would be out indefinitely, but this Richmond Times Dispatch Article, adds some more details to the story. Because of the lack of details (at the family’s request) we can only speculate on what it is and whether or not it involves his heart or something else related to his collapse a few months back. All we know is we hope it gets cleared up sooner than later for Allan’s sake and the team. The article implies it will clear up eventually.
Apparently Paul Debnam will be back next year according to that same Times-Dispatch article. This is huge news for the Hokies. While Paul doesn’t contribute a lot on the court, he is the heartbeat of that team and keeps everyone else involved. Debnam is the ultimate cheerleader on the bench.
Cadarian Raines has been cleared medically according to the article and Jarell Eddie had surgery on a knee. I believe he has been cleared though assuming he falls under the “all of Tech’s other players are medically cleared, Greenberg said,” statement. Eddie will be a freshman this season.
Recruiting News:
Rivals.com is reporting Robert Brown’s stock is going up according to a recent article: Article (You must be a Rivals subscriber to read it) Brown is a verbal commit for the Class of 2011, which is shaping up to be the best VT basketball class ever and may even be better than the VT ’11 football class, though don’t get me started on that.
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