According to our Yahoo! colleague Pete Thamel, Virginia Tech has a top option for its open basketball assistant coaching slot. It's the top dog at a national high school power.
Under Jones (and also predating him, under legendary coach Morgan Wooten), DeMatha has put out tons and tons of talent. Here's just a selection of names to make it to the NBA:
That's a ton of talent. At a school like DeMatha - where you're essentially recruiting in a similar fashion to a college team, and certainly have connections to many of the top AAU teams in the club circuit nationally - there's not a much better proving ground for making the jump to the college game. At 49, he's in a situation where it's either explore the college waters or possibly accept being a lifer at the high school level (obviously there are exceptions, but that seems like the dichotomy here), and that's really the decision he has to make.
Should Jones get the job, it'd be a blockbuster hire, and while there would be some growing pains in terms of learning the recruiting game at the college level, as I mentioned above, the curve is shorter for a guy in his position than for most others who haven't had to recruit before. There's less experience there than if you hire from the college ranks, but the upside is much greater.
More to come if and when things get more serious in terms of approaching a hire.
Under Jones (and also predating him, under legendary coach Morgan Wooten), DeMatha has put out tons and tons of talent. Here's just a selection of names to make it to the NBA:
- Jerian Grant (2007)
- Victor Oladipo (2010)
- Jerami Grant (2012)
- Markelle Fultz (2016)
- Nate Darling (2016)
That's a ton of talent. At a school like DeMatha - where you're essentially recruiting in a similar fashion to a college team, and certainly have connections to many of the top AAU teams in the club circuit nationally - there's not a much better proving ground for making the jump to the college game. At 49, he's in a situation where it's either explore the college waters or possibly accept being a lifer at the high school level (obviously there are exceptions, but that seems like the dichotomy here), and that's really the decision he has to make.
Should Jones get the job, it'd be a blockbuster hire, and while there would be some growing pains in terms of learning the recruiting game at the college level, as I mentioned above, the curve is shorter for a guy in his position than for most others who haven't had to recruit before. There's less experience there than if you hire from the college ranks, but the upside is much greater.
More to come if and when things get more serious in terms of approaching a hire.
