Recruiting in Richmond still a top priority for VCU and Richmond

Quinn Casteel
Sports Editor

Benedictine College Preparatory has served the city of Richmond’s two highest profile college basketball programs well.

In the last five years alone, the Catholic prep school has produced one leading scorer each for VCU and the University of Richmond. Bradford Burgess recently graduated as the Rams’ sixth highest scorer in team history with 1,684 points, and Darien Brothers led the Spiders with 14.6. Burgess graduated from Benedictine in ’08 and Brothers in ’09.

“Both of us try to recruit in the Richmond area hard,” said Richmond coach Chris Mooney of he and VCU’s Shaka Smart.

Mooney also brought aboard Trey Davis in 2011, a McDonalds All American nominee at Benedictine two years ago. Davis redshirted last season but will play this year.

“Trey is our fourth player from Richmond which is huge for us,” Mooney told the CT Sports at Atlantic 10 Media Day. “I know VCU has Jordan (Burgess) coming, so it’s really important. The No.1 thing we do each year in recruiting is target Richmond and the surrounding areas. We’ve done a good job of that and certainly so has VCU.”

Meanwhile at VCU, Burgess’ younger brother Jordan is expected to have a great career following in the footsteps of Bradford. In the VCU athletic department’s 2012-2013 media guide, Jordan said his older brother is his biggest role model. However, Smart told the CT Sports Thursday that Jordan is the tougher and nastier of the Burgess brothers while Bradford is the more fundamental player.

Benedictine is not the end-all-be all of high school basketball in Richmond, and Mooney said recruiting in the city is his No. 1 priority. He said that he and Smart have been in competition for local recruits several times, and now that they are both in the A-10 he expects it to happen more often.

“I think we’re both looking for similar players, we like guys with a lot of athleticism,” said Mooney. “We’ve run up against VCU a number of times and it will probably be more now since we’re in the same conference. We look forward to it, and I’m sure we’re not going to get everyone but hopefully we’ll have enough to be competitive.”