{"id":88834,"date":"2025-08-17T05:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T05:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/88834\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T05:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T05:15:09","slug":"virginia-tech-basketball-has-a-5-star-recruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/88834\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Tech basketball has a 5-star recruit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">For only the second time in program history, the Virginia Tech Hokies men\u2019s basketball team has a five-star addition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Dorian Finney-Smith was a five-star forward from I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, back in 2011. He committed to the Hokies and played one season in Blacksburg before transferring to Florida, where he played the remainder of his career. Finney-Smith will enter his 10th NBA season later this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">So, who is the Hokies\u2019 new five-star addition? When <a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/Player\/neoklis-avdalas-46159719\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">247Sports<\/a> added their international rankings for the 2025 class, new Virginia Tech guard Neoklis Avdalas received a 98 overall ranking, making him only the second five-star basketball commitment in school history. The 6-foot-8 Avdalas is expected to play point guard for the Hokies this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Greek native has been playing professionally since 2021 and just turned 19 in February. Avdalas expected to hear his name called in the 2025 NBA Draft. However, he pulled out ahead of the draft and chose to attend college in the United States. Avdalas quietly visited Blacksburg in the spring, loved his visit and made it clear that if he played collegiately, it would be for Mike Young and the Hokies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In June, Avdalas made it official. Since Avdalas signed \u2014 he arrived on campus earlier this month, Virginia Tech\u2019s social media accounts have posted numerous practice clips, many of which contain Avdalas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">It\u2019s an exciting time to be a Virginia Tech basketball fan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For only the second time in program history, the Virginia Tech Hokies men\u2019s basketball team has a five-star&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99,50473],"class_list":{"0":"post-88834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-virginia-tech-mens-basketball"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}