Isaac McKneely, the top-rated recruit in the Class of 2022 from neighboring West Virginia, announced his commitment to Virginia on Saturday.
The 6’4”, 170-pound junior is rated a four-star recruit, and is #51 in the 247Sports composite for the Class of 2022.
McKneely chose UVA from his top eight list that also included Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisville, North Carolina, Purdue and West Virginia.
Familiarity with the offensive and defensive approaches used by coach Tony Bennett will be a plus coming in. McKneely’s coach at Poca High School, Allen Osborne, has used the mover-blocker offense and a version of the Pack Line defense since visiting UVA for a practice and film session several years ago.
Thinking ahead to the fall of 2022, Virginia is losing Tomas Woldetensae from its backcourt rotation this year, and then next year loses Kihei Clark, Trey Murphy III and Kody Stattmann.
For 2022-2023, Bennett would be looking at having Reece Beekman, Jabri Abdur-Rahim and Casey McCorkle as juniors and Casey Morsell as a senior.
Those four were, like McKneely, all four-star prep recruits.
Story by Chris Graham