"Not me," said Dip Metress, the men's basketball coach at Division II Augusta (Ga.) State. Metress was at Belmont Abbey when he first saw Dobbins at an AAU tournament in Greensboro, N.C., and kept up with his progress this past season at Fork Union Military Academy.

"He was a really good football player, everybody tells me, but he really wanted to play basketball," Metress said.

Dobbins was a starter on a Fork Union team that finished 27-2, with its only losses to Hargrave Military Academy.

"Three things: He scores inside well, he can rebound with anybody because he's got a great deal of persistence and the team just plays better when he's in there," Fork Union coach Fletcher Arritt said. "He's a charismatic guy."

Dobbins started all 113 games that Radford played in his four-year basketball career and finished with nearly 1,300 points and more than 850 rebounds.

At 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, Dobbins could see time at both power and small forward next season at Augusta State.

"He's still got a little bit of that football player's mentality," said Metress, who guided the Jaguars to a 19-11 record this past season, his first as head coach.

More recruiting

Roanoke Catholic power forward Irmantas Griksas, a Lithuanian exchange student, has made an oral commitment to play basketball at Division II Missouri-St. Louis. He originally was headed to NAIA Milligan (Tenn.) before several Division II colleges showed interest.

"In the last three weeks, I've gotten two or three calls a week about him," said Catholic coach Joe Gaither, who won the Virginia Independent Schools Division II state championship in his first season. "He's gotten better every week in his workouts since the end of the season. Maybe he's just hitting his stride."

Star in stripes

Danville Circuit Court Judge Dave Melesco is a huge sports fan, as well as a former Weber State football player, so it couldn't have pleased him to sentence former George Washington High School football star Tyrone Robertson to three years in prison on multiple drug charges, including possession of a half-pound of cocaine.

Robertson, an athletic defensive tackle, was rated the No.3 prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times before signing with Virginia Tech following the 1996 season. Robertson did not graduate from George Washington and enrolled at Fork Union Military Academy, eventually signing with Georgia in 1997.

Robertson played briefly for the Bulldogs before going to Hinds (Miss.) Community College, after which he was drafted by the Buffalo Bills.

Blacksburg-bound

Cory Byrd, a multi-sport standout at Abingdon High School, has accepted an invitation to join Virginia Tech's football team as a recruited walk-on and has hopes of becoming the Hokies' deep snapper before the end of his career.

Byrd, rated the No.69 prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times, was a two-time All-Highlands District selection in football and a three-time all-district selection in basketball. Byrd (6-foot-2, 225 pounds) had 36 receptions for 663 yards over the past two seasons and was recruited by William and Mary as a deep snapper and tight end.

Reunited

Two-time All-Group AA defensive end Horace Hubbard from Gretna will spend the 2005 season at Hargrave Military Academy, where he will join head coach Robert Prunty, who was the head coach at Gretna when Hubbard was a freshman in 2001.

Still looking

Boston University head coach Dennis Wolff said Wednesday that assistant coach Jason Williford has elected to remain at BU after being offered a position as director of basketball operations at Virginia. Williford was reluctant to give up on-court coaching duties and off-campus recruiting responsibilities for the operations job, which offers neither of those options.

At the start of his search for a head coach, Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage received permission to speak to Wolff, and they had several conversations. Wolff was well-liked as a UVa assistant under Jeff Jones in the early 1980s and was comfortable as both a resource for Littlepage and a potential candidate after averaging more than 21 wins over the past four seasons.

Local update

Randi Smith, a one-girl swim team in her final two seasons at William Fleming High School, was named All-Old Dominion Athletic Conference this past season as a freshman at Randolph-Macon in Ashland.

• Anne Ryan, a junior from Shawsville, was named most improved athlete on the Emory&Henry women's tennis team. Ryan's former Shawsville teammate, Kate Childress, and freshman Kendal Payne from William Byrd helped Emory&Henry to second place in the ODAC, its best finish in six years.