Photo Credit: Liam Sment
Virginia Tech has landed some elite basketball recruits in recent years headlined by former five-star recruit Nickeil Alexander-Walker who just finished his rookie season with the New Orleans Pelicans after two years at VT set him up to be a first round pick.
Now, the Hokies are looking to land another five-star recruit in Brandon Huntley-Hatfield with Tech making the cut for his top 8.
my 8!🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/Juoa5Lr3ya
— brandon huntley-hatfield 🧘🏽♂️💚 (@RealGupaveli) August 28, 2020
The Hokies were joined by Kansas, Louisville, Tennessee, Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss, and Wake Forest in the top 8 for the elite 2022 recruit. This group comes from an offer list that includes the likes of Kentucky, Florida, Florida State, Memphis, Texas A&M, and others.
He is one of the best 2022 recruits in America with Rivals ranking him 5th nationally, the 247 Sports Composite ranking him 6th, ESPN ranking him 7th, and 247 Sports ranking him 8th.
Huntley-Hatfield also told Rivals' Corey Evans that he is looking at making a collegiate commitment on January 21st and currently has no plans on reclassifying to 2021 "right now". However, he didn't rule out to Rivals the possibility of reclassification down the road.
His recruitment does appear fairly wide open, but Ole Miss does have the benefit of having hosted him on a visit previously as mentioned by Rivals.
There's no doubt that trying to land a top 10 2022 recruit will be a major challenge for Mike Young and company, but there's definitely plenty of opportunity against a group that saw schools like Kentucky miss the cut.
Additionally, basketball has seen elite recruits land at more varying results. For example, the top 18 recruits in 2020 per the 247 Sports Composite went to 13 different college programs plus the NBA's G League route. Among those 13 programs were Oklahoma State, USC, Kentucky, Stanford, Florida State, Texas, Memphis, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Duke, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Howard.
That list clearly includes plenty of schools that aren't blue bloods and doesn't even include some of the biggest brands in CBB like Kansas, Villanova, and Louisville.
Huntley-Hatfield is absolutely the top target for Tech in the 2022 cycle and maybe overall as someone who Tech would take regardless of the class he is a part of. While it may be an uphill battle, it's clear that the Hokies have a reasonable chance at landing an elite five-star recruit.
