Averaging 17 points, eight rebounds, and five assists as a senior this past season, Weber, young for his class, will play one prep season at Fork Union before joining the Rams in 2011.

Weber, a Southern District Player of the Year, was courted by the likes of UVA, Marshall, Creighton and CAA rival Old Dominion.

ESPN compares Weber to a Rajon Rondo type, a long armed player who uses his defense to set up offensive opportunities.

Weber joins 6′4 West Virginia product Pierria Henry as the only commitment for the 2011 class after 6′6 forward Kasey Wilson reopened his recruitment this past month.

Houston has a college-ready body at 6′8, 240 pounds and is a face-up 4 who is pretty skilled and has a nice jumper out to 20 feet. He’s yet another lefty who will be a great on-the-ball defender in the press for the Rams. He is not highly-rated by recruiting services (83 ESPN grade, Scout 2 star, unranked by Rivals), but his offers do speak for themselves. He has a high-major body and has shown flashes of high-major ability during his high school career. While he may not be an impact player in the SEC, he is more than good enough at the CAA level. He will be a steady 4-year player for the Rams who won’t be flashy, but will get the job done. He is also a fairly good athlete (though not as explosive as Toby Veal) who will give us even more frontcourt depth with Jamie Skeen, Toby Veal, Juvonte Reddic, and DJ Haley.

VCU’s Coaching Staff is recruiting at a very high level with well-regarded players and building for a bright future. Just when we thought the 2010 class couldn’t get any better, we get a SEC decommit to cap off the class! Awesome stuff from Shaka and crew! Ladies and Gentlemen, I officially present the full VCU 2010 recruiting class: Reco McCarter, Juvonte Reddic, Toby Veal, Rob Brandenberg, DJ Haley, and Heath Houston! GO RAMS!

Rivals Profile: 3 stars, offers from West Virginia, Xavier, Virginia Tech, VCU, Marshall, Ohio, Akron, Cleveland State, and Delaware.

ESPN Profile: 92 grade, considering Akron, Marshall, West Virgina, Xavier, and Virginia Tech.

Scout profile: unrated, offers from West Virginia, Xavier, Akron, and Marshall.

What makes his achievements in both sports all the more impressive is the fact that he comes from a tough family situation and despite his hardships has thrived. His father left him and his 4 siblings when he was just a child, leaving his mother working 2 jobs to keep the household afloat. His brother is sitting in a jail cell for allegedly shooting a man and Henry has had to grow up quickly and become the man of the house for his sisters. Things got so bad at home that his mother finally relented and let him go live with his girlfriend’s family to get him out of the negative environment surrounding his home. Without the money to pay for college, Henry’s flair for the athletic opened new doors towards completing a college education. The hardship of his life has given him toughness, heart, and desire that can’t be learned on the basketball court or the turf. He is one the hardest working players on the football field and was the leading rebounder on his team as a 6’4 sophomore guard. Henry’s hard work is not just limited to the athletic arena; he sports a GPA above 3.0 as well. While he’s a great player on the court, Henry looks to be an even more remarkable individual off of it.

An unfortunate injury during the AAU season sidelined Henry as he developed a blood clot in his right leg after being kneed in the thigh at the Pittsburgh JamFest AAU tournament at the University of Pittsburgh. It was the second injury after developing a deep thigh bruise in the Nike Cup tournament in Columbus the week before. The blood clot required immediate emergency surgery and he underwent a number of surgeries to take care of it. While he is expected to make a full recovery, the timetable for recovery from such an event is anywhere from 3-6 months. This means that Henry will be unable to play in both AAU tournaments this summer and football in the fall. While Henry is a division 1 football prospect, he had not received any firm offers although many coaches were looking at him at the wide receiver position. With his recovery time impeding him from playing football this fall, basketball is the way to go for Henry.

Is anyone else thinking Jesse Pellot-Rosa here? Henry has all the makings of a tough, hard-nosed guard who can put up points in a hurry but also battle among the trees in the post to grab valuable rebounds. With offers from VCU, West Virginia, Xavier, Virginia Tech, Akron, Ohio, Cleveland State, and Delaware, Henry has been recruited by a wide variety of schools and ended up choosing the Rams. His ultimate goal is to go to the NBA in order to provide for the family and mother that have worked so hard their whole lives to get by:

“That’s why I keep working hard every day to get to the pros. That’s my main thing; get my mom a nice home and a car that will work. Let her sit down and relax and enjoy life. Right now, she can’t do that. She’s been working ever since I can remember.”

Sound like a good kid to you? South Charleston AD Jason Redman agrees:

“For him to go through the things that he’s gone through and be the quality kid that he is … Let’s put it this way: I have a two-month old son, and I hope he grows up to be that kind of quality person.”

While it sounds like Shaka Smart and the rest of the VCU coaching staff have picked up a heck of a basketball player, it also looks like they’ve picked up an even more impressive individual in the process.

Henry joins 6’7 forward Kasey Wilson as the 2nd VCU commitment in the 2011 class. There are 2 spots remaining. I think I speak for all of Ram Nation when I say, “Welcome to VCU, Pierria Henry!”

***This post can also be found at: www.theramrecruitingreport.blogspot.com ***

The verdict is in: VCU has the CAA’s top class this year.  Recruiting guru Jerry Meyers at Rivals.com has 6′10 big man Juvonte Reddic as the CAA’s top recruit; he just missed the cut for the Rivals 150 and was the first one out according to Meyers. The reclassification of Vanderbilt-signee James Siakam from 2011 to 2010 bumped Reddic off a spot in the top 150, which Brian Rivals at Rivals.com said Reddic would be in strong consideration for in his write-up on Reddic’s commitment:

On the strength of his senior year, Reddic will earn definite consideration for a Rivals150 ranking when they are updated after the season.

Reddic seems to be the headliner of the class having committed to VCU over final offers from Maryland, Oklahoma, and Mississippi with an early offer from Georgetown as well. Reddic will be the CAA’s top recruit when Rivals does its conference recruiting breakdown in the coming days.

Though Reddic did not crack the Rivals150 as many anticipated, it was not all bad as the updates brought good news regarding the rest of the class. Darrell Haley, Rob Brandenberg, and Toby Veal were all unranked prospects prior to the update and have now joined Reddic and 6′7 wing Reco McCarter as 3-star recruits! That gives VCU a 5-man 3-star class, the same number of 3-stars as the rest of the CAA combined. While star rankings mean about as much as the paper they are printed on, it is nice to see those involved in recruiting give such respect to the class Head Coach Shaka Smart has assembled.

Scout.com has also updated their recruiting rankings and while Reco McCarter was the CAA’s only Scout 3-star recruit (#38 SF) prior to the spring signing period, things changed in the latest update as Juvonte Reddic joined McCarter as a 3-star and the #35 C in the nation. This makes them the first consensus Scout/Rivals 3-star recruits since Joey Rodriguez and Ed Nixon signed with the Rams in 2007. National Director of Recruiting for Scout.com, Dave Telep has been highly complimentary of the class and says ‘it should be the talk of the league’ among other things in an interview by Adam Stern at the Commonwealth Times. It’s a great read as Telep comments on Brandenberg, Reddic, and Haley.

“They snatched a couple guys, man” said Dave Telep, National Recruiting Director for Scout.com, a sports publishing company that focuses on recruiting. “I actually thought they were wasting their time with Reddic. I thought he was going to wind up going higher, so for them to pop Reddic was a big deal.”

“Shaka did really, really well,” Telep said. “This is an Atlantic-10 recruiting class in the CAA, that’s what it looks like to me. I think this is going to wind up being the talk of the league.”

With this being the first class for which Shaka Smart was able to recruit players year-round (after having to scramble late last year in the wake of Anthony Grant’s and Ben Eblen’s departures to Alabama), it is clear that if there is one thing Shaka can do exceptionally well, it is recruit.  VCU Athletics released a highlight video of the Class of 2010 and if you could summarize it’s contents in one word, ‘athleticism’ comes to mind immediately. This is a fast, long, and athletic 5-man class that runs the floor well and should allow Shaka Smart to wreak his brand of ‘Havoc’ on the CAA.

2010 Highlight Video from VCU Athletics

In the coming days, I will be breaking down each member of the ‘Fab Five’ complete with rankings, scouting reports, video clips as well as interviews with a couple as well.

Over the past 4 years, VCU has been the CAA’s winningest program. This next class of VCU players will look to deliver on Shaka Smart’s pledge at his hiring press conference to ‘take VCU basketball to even greater heights’. The future is bright!

On Thursday, Smart and his staff rounded out a class that they feel embodies those components with the additions of Toby Veal (Savannah, Ga./Northwest Florida State College), D.J. Haley (Palmdale, Calif./Palmdale) and Juvonte Reddic (Winston-Salem, N.C./Quality Education Academy). The trio joins guards Reco McCarter (Goldsboro, N.C./Wayne Country Day) and Rob Brandenburg (Gahanna, Ohio/Lincoln), who signed during the fall.

“We are extremely excited about the five student-athletes that will be joining our program,” Smart said. “As a group, they will add a high level of athleticism, length and competitiveness. All five will fit very nicely into our HAVOC style.”

Veal is coming off an outstanding season with the Raiders of Northwest Florida State College, where he averaged a near double-double with 11 points and eight rebounds a night. His stellar play earned him Panhandle Conference Newcomer of the Year honors and he was a key component in the Raiders run to the 2010 NJCAA National Tournament and a No.5 national ranking.

“Toby is an impact frontline player, which is our most pressing need,” Smart stated. “He will provide us with strength, toughness and athleticism from day one.”

The 6’ 8”, 230-pound forward was ranked as a top-50 prospect by Juco Junction in 2010 and ESPN.com ranked him as the 25th-best forward in the country coming out of Johnson High School in 2008.

He chose to join the Black & Gold after receiving interest from LSU, Arkansas and Southern Mississippi.

Ranked as the eighth-best center on the West Coast by Scout.com, Haley will bring a 6’ 11 ¾”, 230-pound frame to the Verizon Wireless Arena at the Stuart C. Siegel Center next season. He averaged a double-double for Falcons of Palmdale to earn a spot in the 2010 East/West California All-Star Game.

“D.J. Haley is a near seven-footer with a very high ceiling,” Smart said. “He runs extremely well for his size and possesses a very good touch around the basket.”

Haley’s success is not limited to the hardwood. He carried a 3.7 grade point average during his time at Palmdale. He chose the Rams over interest from Drake, Iowa State, Colorado and Penn.

Rounding out the trio of new additions is the powerful inside presence of Reddic. The 6’ 9”, 215-pounder was ranked the 20th-best center in the country by ESPN.com and led the Fighting Pharoahs of Quality Education Academy to the 2010 National Christian School Athletic Association Division I National Championship.

“Juvonte possesses phenomenal upside and a very good ability to learn,” Smart commented. “His length and athleticism make him ideally suited for our style of play.”

He averaged 16 points and 15 rebounds during his senior season and Scout.com rated Reddic as one of the three best available big men in the spring of 2010.

After receiving interest from Maryland, Georgetown, Oklahoma, Auburn and Ole Miss, he chose to join the Black & Gold next season.

“I think it’s an incredibly diverse group of guys that will ultimately help them continue to compete for league championships every year,” Scout.com’s National Recruiting Director Dave Telep said. “It’s not often you can bring in a near 7-footer in D.J. Haley, a guy who was recruited at the mid-to-high level in Juvonte Redic, an incredibly gifted and long guy in Reco McCarter, a multi-positional threat in Toby Veal and a late bloomer who just gets it done in Rob Brandenburg.”

photo courtesy of rivals.com

Read the full article here

Reddic is the #20 rated center in next year’s class according to ESPN and is said to play with a high level of intensity, who works well in the post. Reddic was impressed by the atmosphere at VCU, so Ram Nation you can give yourselves some credit on this signing.

“It was the support,” Reddic said. “At VCU basketball is the focal point and there’s a lot of support. I liked that a lot.”

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Today is the first day recruits can sign a letter of intent. Ohio recruit guard Rob Bradenberg is also expected to sign today.

(via RTD)

McCarter comes to VCU via Goldsboro, NC and chose VCU over the likes of Wake Forest, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Charlotte, and Boston College. He becomes the second 2010 recruit alongside 6′2 guard Rob Brandenburg.

ESPN grade: 91

Scout.com: 3 star recruit