NCAA Basketball: Ranking 4-star PG Bobby Pettiford Jr’s final 4 teams
By Ian Mumm
3. Virginia Tech Hokies – Candidate for Bobbi Pettiford Jr.
Mike Young’s first season with the Hokies showed some promising moments, as he continues to develop the program under his philosophy. His first recruiting class with the team was highly productive and five of the Hokies top-6 scorers were freshmen. Of the returning players for the 2020 roster, the top-5 are either point guards or combo guards and could possibly be a reason for Virginia Tech not as heavily pursuing Pettiford recently.
Kansas State transfer Cartier Diarra will also join the program this season. His presence will almost ensure one or more potential breakouts, specifically Hunter Catoor, Jalen Cone and/or Naheim Alleyne, stick around for at least one more year. Mike Young is also heavily involved with the recruitments of top-75 guards Rahsool Diggins and Carter Whitt, who could further complicate Pettiford’s addition from purely a minutes perspective. Young utilized a large rotation of guards last season, with 5 averaging over 18 MPG, leaving some possibility that Pettiford could see early action, even if Diggins or Whitt also joined the program.
The Hokies were a top-15 perimeter shooting team in the nation last season and Pettiford would likely slot into a strong facilitator role for the large cast of 3-point shooters. On the other hand, Virginia Tech was not an extremely effective team scoring the ball inside the perimeter and took 1.09 shot attempts inside the arc for every perimeter attempt. Pettiford would be a large orchestrator for helping to provide more balance to the Hokies on-court performances once he stepped on the floor.