Montrezl Harrell Still Haunting Hokies

On April 23, 2014, Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver announced the firing of head basketball coach Seth Greenberg. The move shocked the Hokie basketball community, especially since the timing was atrocious. More than a month had passed since the season had ended, and Weaver had no candidates or plan for a replacement. Suddenly, the book on the Greenberg era, the most successful nine-year period in Hokie basketball history, had ended, but this also meant highly prized recruit Montrezl Harrell would never don the orange-and-maroon Hokie uniform.

Harrell was a find for Greenberg, who recruited the prep star before he blossomed in his senior year at Hargrave Military Academy. Originally from North Carolina, he wanted to play ACC basketball,  and was slated to immediately play minutes due to the Hokies’ thin front court. The plan changed when Greenberg was fired; Harrell immediately asked for and was granted his unconditional release.

The following two seasons were miserable years for Hokie basketball, culminating in the firing of new coach James Johnson after only two years, the shortest tenure in the last  forty years of ACC basketball.

The 2012-13 Hokie basketball team initially  showed promise; they started the season 7-0,  led by the nation’s leading scorer Erick Green and wing guards Robert Brown and Jarrell Eddie. The lack of depth and skill in the paint soon caught up to the team. Green was constantly being double- and triple-teamed without another proven scorer, as they plummeted down the stretch going  4-19 after the hot start.

Harrell ended up signing withLouisville, one of the most talented and deep  teams in the country. He backed up Chase Behanan, and averaged six points and four rebounds in limited action. As the season progressed, so did Harrell’s role, as he became a valuable piece off the bench for Louisville’s Big East and NCAA Championship run. Last season, the big man’s role expanded, and he was up to the challenge, dominating the paint averaging 14 points and eight boards a game.

As the 2014-15 season gets underway, Harrell has been named a consensus First Team and ACC Pre-Season All-American, and is ranked among the top dozen players in next spring’s NBA draft. Meanwhile, Tech is finishing up paying their last two coaches, and new athletic director Whit Babcock invested $2.3 million a year to bring Buzz Williams as coach, in an effort to resurrect a basketball program that would not have needed to change if Greenberg had not been fired.

It is easy to wonder what would have happened if Harrell became a Hokie. Could Montrezl have been the missing front court piece and a complement to the high-scoring Green? The only thing that is certain comes from Harrell; at this year’s ACC Media Day, he stated,  “I was really looking forward to playing for Coach Greenberg, who was a great coach.”