Friday night’s celebration and a huge ACC football contest against Florida State are drawing in priority hoops recruits.
Virginia will host all three class of 2020 commits this weekend for official visits. Carson McCorkle and Jabri Abdur-Rahim are set to arrive tomorrow, with Reece Beekman joining them on Saturday.
Coach Bennett visited this week with 2021 big man Efton Reid at The Steward School in Richmond. He’ll return the favor tomorrow night with an unofficial visit to UVA for the banner ceremony.
According to multiple reports, 2021 Paul VI (VA) guard Trevor Keels will take his first official visit this weekend to UVA. I talked to his mom this afternoon who confirmed to me that Tony Bennett and Jason Williford were at Paul VI for an early morning workout this week.
Keels and Reid played together this summer with Team Takeover. They’re both heavily prized recruits in their class. Keels has offers from Villanova, Maryland, Georgetown, and many others. Reid doesn’t disclose all his offers but he took recent visits to NC State and North Carolina. I think there are other recruits expected, but those two along with our commits are the big ones.
From Trevor Keels IG story
Gonna be in Charlottesville Saturday? Come on by and Hang with the Hoos. Free event from 11am-1pm. Guests include Justin Anderson, Ty Jerome, DeAndre Hunter, Cory Alexander and more.
Someone on twitter mentioned that the Paul VI coaches don’t like the UVA style of play, and it would be hard to land Keels because of that. How much credence is there in that?
Will 2021 recruiting be a harder lift for the UVA coaches because of the stellar 2019 and 2020 classes? I can’t recall two better back-to-back classes for CTB than 2019 and 2020. The super class of 2016 (particularly if you include Diakite, who basically as far as the NCAA was concerned was a 2016 recruit) seemed to lead to a two year recruiting drought, with several recruits supposedly scared off by lack of perceived immediate playing time. Albeit, the Charlottesville white supremacy clash in 2017 did not help matters. Or do you think the dynamic has changed with UVA’s entrenched position in the top 10 now and the national championship in April? Thanks.
Not HGN of course but I think you are correct, its gonna be tough, but doable if you frame it in terms of need. Obviously we wont have a lot of needs in 21 when Reid/Keels would hopefully be first years, but project out. Keels could fill the defensive stopper need, who else on the roster other than JAR at that time could guard 1-3 or 1-4, so def need there. Reid could simply be sold on being Huffs replacement, stretch 5. Additionally in 2022 Shedrick might already be in the league, leaving only a banger in Caffaro as a true big. Just another way to look at it, opportunity will be there for the rolls both guys would fit in
Ya know Calvin Baker was on the PVI staff until recently he was hired at Maryland-Eastern Shore. I don’t think there’s anything against UVA there. For the most part, high school coaches aren’t that involved in recruitments. More an AAU thing. Team Takeover just wants the best fit for their guys. They seem to do a really good job of helping them through the process without really pushing them in any direction. The thing I’ve noticed is Takeover players typically maximize their opportunities. They rarely commit real early but they also don’t drag it out.
Oh yeah, it’s going to be a lot harder especially for guards. ForestHoo above is on the right track though. Keels is the perfect example. He’s a great fit at UVA but obviously as things stand now we can’t match the immediate opportunity available somewhere like Villanova. What if Casey Morsell has a big freshman season and starts showing up on more reputable 2021 draft boards than this one where he’s #34. That’s why there’s no real need to push hard for a heavily recruited guard right now. Things could look different by April.
We only have 3 forwards on the 2021 roster though. Depending if Shedrick redshirts, all of them could be upperclassmen when Efton Reid arrives. You start comparing it to others, there’s very few with a better opportunity. Bigs usually have a different attitude about it anyway. Sure they want a chance to play right away but they know development and system fit are the key.
And winning the title helps but not by itself. It’s more the spotlight that put on 1) The success of our individual players, along with 3 of them being early entry draft picks of course. 2) The offensive changes. These kids really don’t watch much college ball. Bennett going to more ball screen/iso opportunities shattered some stereotypes. I think it was Jaelyn Withers last summer who giggled in an interview when talking about UVA…“They run a lot of set plays”. He didn’t mean it as a compliment.
Efton Reid was only there Friday night as originally reported. This was at least the 4th time in the last two years he’s visited UVA, but the first since his June offer. It was very casual. Right now, he’s only interested in getting to know all the coaches and schools recruiting him. He took the same kind of short visits to NC State and UNC both last Saturday. It’d be fair to say we have the early head start just based on familiarity, but the race hasn’t really started yet and it looks like heavyweights will be involved.
Trevor Keels was there all weekend on an official visit. He’s more open to being recruited. Now don’t get that twisted. There’s probably not going to be any decision on the horizon. By Spring, maybe though. By all accounts, he enjoyed himself…a lot. He and Jabri have gotten to be good friends, so that helps. I talked to someone that knows his situation well who believes UVA was the team to beat before this weekend. So things look great with him. I don’t think he’s gotten to the point yet where roster competition is being considered, which could be a big hurdle down the line.
Overall the weekend was a huge success on the recruiting front. Our three commits got together for the first time, and had a blast. What appear to be Bennett’s top two priorities in the class of 2021 visited. Heck, one of them got to storm the field at Scott Stadium. How can you beat that! Efton met Ralph. Oh and we hung a banner and beat FSU! Great time to be a Hoo.
With what I know about Casey Morsell’s family, he doesn’t seem like a one ‘n done kid. But I guess anything can happen. As we know, Casey has an NBA body right now and has really worked hard on his game.
Switching subjects for a second, what are you hearing about Woldetensae?
Oh Casey’s not one and done. I’m talking more about the 2021 draft. I think 2-3 year early entry is very possible if not likely.
Woldy is a mystery for sure. I heard last week that he’s not quite the athlete they hoped. But in fairness that was never considered his strength anyway. That’s about all I got. It’s gonna be interesting how they work things when Kihei’s on the bench. Casey’s never really been the primary ball handler. Does he step up or Tomas? No idea.
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