A riser among the state’s top boys’ basketball prospects is Jaime Kaiser, a 6-foot-6 small forward from Bishop Ireton in Alexandria.
Kaiser has offers to date from Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Wisconsin and Boston College. He’s been called the fastest rising prospect in America prior to a visit to Virginia this past Wednesday.
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John Rudzinski, new to the Virginia men’s football staff, is rated the No. 16 defensive coordinator in the country by the Big Game Boomer Twitter account. First among ACC defensive coordinators is N.C. State’s Tony Gibson at No. 5.
Notre Dame’s new defensive coordinator is Al Golden at No. 42. Golden is a past Temple and University of Miami head coach who had been the defensive coordinator under Al Groh at Virginia.
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Todd Grantham, a former assistant coach at Virginia Tech and more recently the defensive coordinator at Florida before head coach Dan Millen was relieved after the 2021 season, has caught on with Alabama as an offensive analyst.
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Transfer portal:
Andrew Canelas, an offensive lineman who originally signed with Lehigh, announced that he is transferring to Virginia. Canelas, a three-star prospect out of Leesville Road High School in Raleigh, N.C, did not play at Lehigh.
Virginia Tech’s current football recruiting class is ranked 32nd by rivals.com and Virginia’s is 69th. AtoZsports.com out of Nashville, Tenn., contends that UVa is still in the picture for the nation’s No. 1 quarterback prospect, Arch Manning, whose mother and sister have gone to UVa.
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Basketball
One of two transfers to Duke, Max Johns, is a graduate of Woodberry Forest in Orange, his home before he spent four years at Princeton, where he played in 72 games.
A more notable transfer for the Blue Devils is Jacob Grandison, who began his college career at Holy Cross before transferring to Illinois, where he averaged 13.9 points as a sophomore
Two other grad transfers on the Duke roster are Kale Catchings from Harvard and Ryan Young from Northwestern. … Michael Savarino, the grandson of retired Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, has transferred to New York University after spending three years as a non-scholarship player for Duke.
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Ratings
CBS Sports has rated Nijel Pack, headed to Miami from Kansas State, as the No. 2 prospect in the country among transfers. Rated first is Kendric Davis, headed to Memphis from SMU.
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Football
Jacob Finn, a respectable punter on Virginia’s 2021 football team after transferring from Florida, has been replaced by Daniel Sparks, a transfer from Minnesota.
Sparks, a 6-foot-5, 200-pounder from Alabama, started his college career at Louisiana Monroe before he transferred to Minnesota, where he did not see playing time last season. He averaged 44.5 yards per punt at Louisiana-Monroe.
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Honors
The newest Radford University Hall of Fame class includes Salem High School graduate Mike Ashley, who went on to work in the Highlanders’ sports information office. He wrote for Radford’s student newspaper, the Tartan., and also worked toward formation of the Highlanders’ first baseball team