Doug Doughty

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     The sight of Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Seth Greenberg doing a shot for ESPN’s First Take on Friday immediately raised the question of how Tech recruits might respond to Saturday’s emotional football opener with East Carolina.

     It probably won’t have any effect on Greenberg’s basketball recruits. Greenberg, well-spoken in his interview with Dana Jacobsen, won’t be there. Neither will his staff or players

     Recruits are allowed to take official recruiting visits as soon as school is in session, but Greenberg’s basketball team will be in Canada this weekend for an exhibition series. If the Hokies had gone to Canada before the start of school, Greenberg could not have used his freshmen, a major factor in his decision to play the exhibitions now.

     While Tech will not have any basketball prospects on camp, Virginia, which does not have a home basketball game, will be entertaining Sylven Landesberg, a 6-foot-6 swingman from Holy Cross High School and Flushing, N.Y.

     Holy Cross is the alma mater of UVa football player Kevin Ogletree, who, ironically enough, is injured and did not make the trip. Ogletree was a high-scoring senior on the 2004-2005 Holy Cross team on which Landesberg was a freshman and has said he will get together with Landesberg and his family this weekend.

     Generally speaking, college coaches prefer to have a player’s first visit unless they can be assured of the player’s final visit. Presumably, the latter will be the case for UVa with John Brandenburg, a 6-10 post player from DeSmet Jesuit High School in St. Louis who will be in Charlottesville later this month.

     The Cavaliers can hope for better luck with Brandenburg than they did with the first DeSmet big man to catch their eye. In the early 1980s, Steve Stipanovich stayed home and played for Missouri rather than join 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson on Virginia teams that routinely were strapped for a second inside presence.

     Brandenburg went to Stanford unofficially and has narrowed his choices to the Cardinal and UVa. Landesberg still has visits scheduled for Georgia Tech and St. John’s, so the competition is formidable in a field that also includes Kentucky and Texas.

     Virginia is also in the picture, as is Virginia Tech, for 6-10, 230-pound Frank Ben-Eze, who plays at Bishop O’Connell in Arlington. Ben-Eze, a Nigerian native who has been playing organized basketball for only three years, is an outstanding student who was seen on Marquette’s campus this past week.

     The Hokies expect to get a visit from Ben-Eze as well as Tyshawn Taylor, a 6-3 point guard from St. Anthony’s Prep in Jersey City, N.J. The Hokies are considered the favorite for Taylor, who also has been listed with Georgia Tech, St. John’s, Cincinnati and UVa.

     That last piece of information comes courtesy of PrepStars, which did not have Tech listed with 6-8 Victor Davila from Starmount High School in Boonville. PrepStars, which has Davila rated 89th on its most recent list of the nation’s top juniors, has him considering Memphis, Clemson, South Carolina and Iowa State. The Hokies are expecting a visit from Davila.

     There is also a growing possibility that Tech will get a visit from 61st-rated Ralph Sampson III, a 6-10 post player from Northview High School in Duluth, Ga. Georgia Tech is among the schools recruiting Sampson, whose father, the above-mentioned Ralph Sampson, was a three-time national player of the year at Virginia.

    The younger Sampson lives with his mother and the perception is that she doesn’t want him to follow in his father’s footsteps at UVa, but rival recruiters are finding that the elder Ralph Sampson has had an involvement with the recruiting.

     UNCOMMITTED SENIOR football prospects at the Hokies’ game with East Carolina will include a pair of preseason SuperPrep All-Americans, offensive lineman Vinston Painter from Maury High School in Norfolk and running back Ryan Jackson from Stonewall Jackson in Manassas.

     Painter and Jackson are rated the Nos. 3 and 5 prospects in Virginia by SuperPrep, and the Hokies also will be entertaining the No. 15 player on that list, defensive lineman Antoine Hopkins from Highland Springs.

     Before then, Tech may take a commitment from D.J. Coles, a running back from Goochland who has seen as a prospective wide receiver in college. Coles, who probably would need to spend a year in prep school, is SuperPrep’s 13th-rated player in Virginia.