Three years ago, Will Johnston played 11 minutes per game for Virginia Tech’s basketball team.

This Will Johnston:

In a few days, the Hokies are among the favorites to land Class of 2017 5-star shooting guard MJ Walker.

This MJ Walker:

So yeah, things are going pretty well in Blacksburg right now.

The Hokies’ 2017 class is already ranked 14th by 247’s composite rankings. That’s one spot ahead of North Freaking Carolina. And now there’s a chance they ADD a McDonald’s All-American to the fold?

I’m gonna need a change of clothes.

Let’s play the What-If game for two seconds and pretend Walker commits this weekend. The 2017 class would look like this:

MJ Walker: 5-star SG (#25 overall)

Nickeil Alexander-Walker: 4-star SG (#33 overall)

Wabissa Bede: 4-star PG (#65 overall)

PJ Horne: 3-star PF (#198 overall)

How does this stack up with the best recruiting classes in program history? It’s a really long list.

Just kidding there’s barely a list at all.

Here’s the 2007 class:

Malcolm Delaney: 4-star PG #68 overall

Jeff Allen: 4-star PF (prep school)

Dorenzo Hudson: 4-star SG (prep school)

Lewis Witcher: 3-star PF (#125 overall)

Terrell Bell: 3–star SF (#143 overall)

J.T. Thompson: 3-star SF (#172 overall)

**

The 2011 class:

Dorian Finney-Smith: 5-star SF (#24 overall)

Marquis Rankin: 3-star PG (#128 overall)

Joey Von Zegeren: 2-star PF (#253 overall)

**

And 2015:

Chris Clarke: 4-star SG (#61 overall)

Justin Robinson: 4-star PF (#103 overall)

Kerry Blackshear: 4-star PF (#120 overall)

Johnny Hamilton: 3-star C (#208 overall)

—

That’s really the best competition. You can go back to Dell Curry and Bimbo Coles’ classes if you want, but that was before recruiting rankings was a billion-dollar business and there was even remotely reliable system for ranking players.

Quick aside: recruiting rankings mean almost NOTHING for a given player. Jimmy Butler was a 2-star. Dorian Finney-Smith was a 5-star. Which one is an NBA All-Star?

Rankings do usually do a decent job of predicting a team’s success, though. When you load up on 4 and 5-star prospects, the odds of striking out on all of them are pretty low. In the Hokies’ case, potentially adding three top-70 players just means the chances of being an ACC contender in the coming years are great.

I don’t think there’s any question that adding MJ Walker would make this the best class in school history.

So in three years, Virginia Tech will go from winning two ACC games to landing multiple top-30 recruits. Someone give Buzz Williams a raise. I’d give him one myself but I don’t have a job.

If Walker comes, the depth chart looks like this next season:

PG- Robinson/Bede/Jackson

SG- Hill/NAW

SF- Bibbs/Walker

PF- Clarke/Outlaw/Horne

C- Blackshear/Sy

Then the NEXT season looks like this:

PG- Robinson/Bede/Jackson

SG- Hill/NAW

SF- Walker

PF- Clarke/Horne

C- Blackshear/Sy

That is a top-10 team. College basketball’s a funny business. The glamour schools — Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, UCLA — gobble up 1-and-done’s, turning over the entire roster almost annually…but the schools that win in March recruit one tier below those schools, pulling in enough talent to compete with anyone, but not enough to lose key players early. That 2018–19 lineup is filthy. Almost too filthy, where you worry that a key player like Hill could transfer out. There’s only so many minutes to go around.

Either way, the future of Virginia Tech basketball has never been brighter, with or without Walker. But if Walker does decide to be a Hokie, hop on the hype train now before it leaves the station.