Sunday Sit Down: Best Virginia General Manager Greg Richardson

MORGANTOWN, W.Va (WDTV) - Best Virginia GM Greg Richardson joins this week’s sit down to break down everything off the court for BV.

“The biggest challenge is just getting the team together, you know we did the alumni, true alumni team, we were probably one out of maybe five that year that had a true alumni team, but with injuries and people have other commitments, some of their contracts, it’s just tough to get all West Virginia guys,” said Richardson,

Richardson loves his role with the team, and what BV can do for not only the players, but the state, “The best thing at the end of the day is when all the guys come together and we go out there and we put on a show, so hopefully in Charleston, first goal is to win the region, second goal is to win it all, more or less I just hope to do it for the state of West Virginia, the more were in the tournament, the more coverage we get, the more the state gets and this would be a major, major championship for West Virginia, so and I think a lot of guys have pride in that, a lot of guys still live here.”

We get an inside view to what Richardson does as a GM, “Getting out on the road, I’m picking up guys from the airport in Pittsburgh and a lot of them, they live here, so once they get back I’m usually the main guy they call like, ‘Hey Greg, my airplanes coming in, in two days can you be there’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah I gotchu you,’ know what I mean, and I post a lot of stuff and usually positive stuff about Best Virginia just because I want people to show up like the exhibition games and stuff like that and of course the more we have at the exhibition game they’ll say hey these guys are pretty good, were gonna make that trip to Charleston.”

Aside from winning the TBT million dollar prize, there’s other goals Richardson always has for the short Best Virginia season, “My biggest thing always is, the farther the guys go, I know some of the guys don’t have the contracts they want, I just want them to be on a bigger stage, they can produce a bigger contract for themselves and make a better life for their families. So, if they’re seen on TV, a lot of these coaches are live, a lot of people watch TBT now, even the coaches to, if the coaches can elevate themselves from, say Coach Tallman gets an offer from a small DI or DII, or Coach Long gets a offer from a bigger school, I just want to see them succeed. I’ve been around these guys for a lot of years so if they can do better and we go farther along, then that gives them a better chance to succeed at something else.”

Reaching higher heights is the goal, and it’s been done for players that have stepped foot on the court with BV, “In 2019, they said Nate Adrian was one, I don’t know if he was already working on a contract, but I know after TBT he got a team or two more involved than they were,” said Richardson, “I know John Holten last year, even though he didn’t have a whole lot of minutes, but the minutes he did, it was good enough for him to get a better contract than he had before, and there’s several other guys that were in a country that they didn’t wanna be in but they got to a better country. At the end of the day, people are watching, GMs are watching from teams overseas and even the G-League, some of the guys may want to go to the G-League or something, this gives them the opportunity to do so.”

BV will play WVU Tech at Fairmont State University on July 16th at 6pm for this year’s exhibition game, tickets can be purchased here: https://wvalumnigame.ticketleap.com/game2022/

(1) Best Virginia will take to the TBT court on July 24th at 7pm for their first matchup of the tournament, facing off with (8) Virginia Dream, BV having the No. 1 seed in the West Virginia Regional, one of eight regions in the tournament.

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