R.J. Curington, one of the rare Oak Hill Academy basketball players who has spent five years in remote Mouth of Wilson, will be moving closer to home for college.

Curington, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard, committed to DePaul earlier this month.

Curington’s family lives north of Indianapolis, just a couple of hours south of DePaul and Chicago.

He is one of five Oak Hill seniors who have made oral commitments, joining point guard Nate Britt (North Carolina), small forward Troy Williams (Indiana), shooting guard Sindarius Thornwell (South Carolina) and combo guard Ike Iroegbu (Washington State).

A sixth Oak Hill player, 6-8, 230-pound Lennard Freeman from the Washington, D.C., area, originally had planned to spend one year at Oak Hill and then take a postgraduate year elsewhere. However, North Carolina State and Pittsburgh want him for the 2013-2014 season.

Texas and Michigan State had scouts at Oak Hill this fall and, while they did not offer Curington at the time, he was still on their lists when he committed Dec. 1. He had visited UNC-Wilmington and Western Kentucky in the fall but felt he would be best served by not signing at that time.

Curington knows what it’s like to be patient. He played on Oak Hill’s Red Team for two years before moving up to coach Steve Smith’s Gold Team as a sophomore.

“We’ve had five-year students here before,” Smith said. “R.J.’s the first five-year player.”

• Oak Hill has improved its record to 29-5 during a current five-game winning streak, but the Warriors dropped out of the USA Today Top 25 this week for the first time since 1988. They’re ranked 22nd by ESPN.
• Oak Hill alumnus Tyler Lewis had not played as much as 10 minutes in nine straight games for N.C. State until point guard Lorenzo Brown was injured at Virginia. In four subsequent games, Lewis, a freshman, has averaged more than 30 minutes and scored 12 points per game.
• Another Oak Hill product, Keith Hornsby, recently made 45 straight free throws and is the second-leading scorer (15.2) for UNC-Asheville as a sophomore. Hornsby’s father is musician Bruce Hornsby.

Coaching carousel

James Madison on Saturday formally announced the hiring of ex-Virginia Tech offensive line coach Curt Newsome.

He will be making his second stop at JMU, where he spent seven seasons as an assistant from 1999-2005. Newsome will coach the O-line at JMU and serve as assistant head coach to Mickey Matthews.

It has been widely reported that ex-University of Kentucky head coach Hal Mumme will be the Dukes’ new offensive coordinator after taking Division II McMurry to the NCAA playoffs this past season. Jeff Durden, who was at VMI before he was dismissed as JMU offensive coordinator, has been hired as offensive coordinator at Tennessee-Chattanooga.

• In his new position at the University of Iowa, ousted Virginia defensive coordinator Jim Reid will be joining forces with an old rival, Hawkeyes head coach Kirk Ferentz, who was the head coach at Maine when Reid was the head coach at Massachusetts in the early 1980s.

Recruiting

Defensive back Quin Blanding from Bayside High School in Virginia Beach has set a date of Feb. 27 to announce his college choice. Blanding, rated the No. 2 junior in Virginia by The Roanoke Times, comes from a program that has three players on UVa’s current roster, with five-star signee Taquan Mizzell on the way to Charlottesville.

• Hampton High School running back Marshawn Williams, a 2014 recruit who has been committed to Virginia Tech since June, said he is transferring to Phoebus High School after rushing for 1,159 yards and scoring 17 touchdowns this past season. His college choice remains unchanged.
• Sean Huelskamp, a 6-2, 210-pound linebacker from Chantilly High School, has decided to play for the Hokies as a recruited walk-on. Huelskamp, a second-team All-Metro choice by The Washington Post, was rated the No. 91 prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times.

Title bids

Virginia Tech’s Rector Field House will be the scene, starting today, for the ACC men’s and women’s indoor track and field championships. Florida State and Clemson are the reigning men’s and women’s indoor champions, respectively, although the Hokies won the men’s outdoor championship last spring.

• The ACC swimming and diving championships are being held for the first time at the Greensboro Aquatic Center, where the UVa women will be going for a sixth straight championship this weekend. The UVa men will go for their sixth consecutive title next week at the same venue.

• Also coming up shortly will be the ACC wrestling championships March 9 at Maryland. Seventh-ranked Tech, which has won 13 straight dual meets, will face No. 4 Minnesota on Friday in the quarterfinals of the National Duals in Minneapolis.

Local update

Former Cave Spring volleyball standout Shannon Craighead was redshirted this past season as a freshman at Stetson, Fla., but that didn’t prevent her from winning two team awards — for “best teammate” and “best student” after posting a 4.0 grade-point average in her first semester.

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