VMI men's basketball coach Andrew Wilson. Courtesy of VMI Athletics.

New VMI basketball coach Andrew Wilson, who is scheduled to address the Roanoke Valley Sports Club on Aug. 15 at the Salem Civic Center, is a former captain at Florida State, where he was the first athlete in ACC history to participate in six seasons.

That resulted from injuries in back-to-back redshirt seasons at Florida State, where he was a team captain. He also held the Seminoles’ record for games played in a career, 130. 

Wilson’s coaching career has included a stint at Georgia Southern, where he spent seven years as an assistant to Mark Byington.

When Byington took the head coaching job at James Madison two years ago, he brought Wilson with him.

Byington, a Salem High School basketball standout and graduate, spoke to the Roanoke Valley Sports Club in 2021.

  • The associate head coach under Wilson at VMI is Dave Davis, who was the head coach for 14 years at Pfeiffer and for nine years at Newberry.

Another assistant, Austin Kenon, is a former VMI player known for his outside shooting who was on the staff of Wilson’s predecessor, Dan Earl.

Recruiting

The UVa men’s basketball staff has entered the picture with Trey Green, a 6-foot-5 guard from Branson, Mo., who also is looking at Kansas State now that his high school and AAU coach has joined the staff at K.-State. Colt Langdon, a 6-8 forward from Raleigh, N.C., has visited UVa unofficially and received an offer last month from Virginia Tech.

Recruiting

The latest on Patrick Henry football standout Carmelo Taylor, believed to be making a commitment to South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer this past weekend, is that he now has plans to visit West Virginia, Maryland and Penn State (the second time to see the Nittany Lions).

Commitment

Virginia has received a rare commitment from the Danville area in TyL’ric Coleman, a 6-foot-3, 175-pound athlete from Dan River High School. Coleman, a wide receiver and safety, also had been pursued by Virginia Tech and several of Virginia’s more prominent FCS programs.

Leaving home

Of the top five 2003 football prospects from Virginia, as rated by rivals.com, Penn State has three, Tennessee has one and Boston College has one. The No. 6 player on the list is committed to Georgia.  

Transfer

Ashley Owusu, headed to Virginia Tech after averaging 14.3 points last season for Maryland’s women’s basketball team, was rated the No. 1 point guard prospect in the country by ESPN coming out of Woodbridge High School.

Connections

Michelle Meadows, the athletic director at Longwood since 2019, is a graduate of Virginia Tech, where she was a four-year starter in softball as well as the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year. She later was chosen for the Tech Hall of Fame.

Doug Doughty has been writing for more than 50 years starting as a high school student in Washington,...