On Friday, Italy’s Bertram Derthona announced it signed Virginia Tech forward Grant Basile to a three-year contract to play professional basketball in Serie A.
Basile, who recently gained Italian citizenship, is forgoing his final year of college eligibility to play in Europe. The Pewaukee, Wis. native only spent one season in Blacksburg, but he averaged 16 points and five rebounds per game.
— Grant Basile (@GBasile00) April 14, 2023
An All-ACC Honorable Mention performer in 2022-23, Basile scored 354 points in conference play, which ranked third. He started 33 of Tech’s 34 games and had 29 double-digit scoring outputs. He shot 51% from the floor and 39% from behind the arc, too.
A transfer from Wright State, Basile was a two-time All-Horizon League honoree who tallied 1,228 points and 616 rebounds across four seasons. He earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting in December 2021 with the Raiders and made the All-ACC Academic Team in 2023 with the Hokies.
With Basile’s departure, Virginia Tech has two open scholarships for the 2023-24 season. That is pending the decision of Hunter Cattoor, who has the option to use his COVID year of eligibility. Here’s a full scholarship breakdown:
Mike Young & Co. added Old Dominion’s Mekhi Long and North Carolina’s Tyler Nickel out of the transfer portal in March. After associate head coach Mike Jones departed for Maryland in early April, Tech announced the hiring of J.D. Byers on Tuesday as its newest assistant coach.
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It’s likely we will have a better team that last year. Sounds counterintuitive, but our bigs are solid and will be more experienced with Poteat and Kidd, and Wessler will be a great addition if he can pack on some beef. I think the addition of Young is huge. And our backcourt is nasty with Catoor returning.
I’m of Italian heritage so I can appreciate where my paisan is coming from. Having said that, we ain’t gonna be worth a lick up front this year 😢
That hurts. Tough to find someone who score inside and out that well. Best of luck, he had a very good first and only year in Blacksburg.
Seems we are always re building MBB from the ground up. Young had to bring in 3 players from Wofford to get up and running. I was hoping we would be a little more stable with Young as coach.
Not when you compare us to virtually every other DI team. UNC has six transferring out. UVA has both centers and their probable starting power forward leaving. Miami goes to the Final Four and loses four. As for bringing in Wofford players, Tech only had four returning players when CMY took over in the spring, because players leave when coaches do. It’s the new nature of the beast.
We are going to be bad
The reason I said that is….we lose Mutts, Catoor, Basile…probably Rice. We are rebuild mode. Left with no scoring between the guys left. Better hit the portal hard.
We’re going to be bad…last place probably
Why so negative?
Yeah, really.
1hokies1 posted this at 1:27 am. Clearly, he was a depressed guy last night. 😂
Donatamente fantastico
Does he speak any Italian? Oh, well…thanks for the memories and mangia, mangia!
Good luck in Italia!
So, how did he get Italian citizenship? This is one of those things that if your grandparents were Italian you can do that? Santo ciela!
My guess is his father and/or grandfather was of Italian heritage, and he was born in the U.S. but did not have his Italian citizenship. I also think that it probably made him more attractive for Italian clubs because he’s technically not a “foreign” player.
W/ Italian citizenship, he has a chance to be on Italy’s 2024 Olympic basketball team.
I recall hearing a few years ago that because Italy’s population has been declining for a number of years due to lack of jobs, Italy has offered anyone who can link even one percent heritage to Italy an easy path to becoming an Italian citizen to try & stop their population from declining.
It was a very solid 1 year at Tech. I thought he deserved better than HM.
Fo Sho!