MOUNT OF WILSON, Va. – The nation’s top high school to produce NBA talent is in Virginia’s own backyard.
Oak Hill Academy. (Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images)
According to a recent study, Oak Hill Academy, located in Mount of Wilson, is the best high school at getting prep stars to the highest level of basketball competition in the world.
The school has produced NBA players such as Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Rajon Rando, Brandon Jennings, along with 25 others since its basketball program began in 1976.
The program, which is currently run by coach Steve Smith, has finished first nationally seven times since the year 2000.
The Oak Hill Academy Warriors are routinely featured also on national broadcast of high school athletics because of the popularity and prominence that its basketball program has had across the country.
The school not only has a strong history of sending players to the NBA, but also the collegiate level. Five players from the 2017 team ended up at prominent NCAA Division 1 programs Iowa State, Ole Miss, Kansas, Texas and Creighton.
Compared to the 50 U.S. states, the same study showed Virginia ranked 14th overall for players sent to the NBA.
Oak Hill has certainly helped put Virginia on the map for basketball, but the state overall does a good job of producing professional talent for multiple sports leagues.
Other prep and high schools in Virginia and Washington D.C. were also listed in the study that measured not only basketball, but football and baseball.
Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, ranked fifth with 13 players sent to the NBA, and D.C’s Spingarn was ranked 21st with seven players sent.
Outside of basketball, Virginia’s Fork Union Military Academy was ranked second on the list for top high schools ranked by number of NFL players. The school in Fork Union, Virginia, has produced 45 players that have made it to the National Football League.
Hargrave Military Academy was also ranked seventh on the list for top high schools that ranked by number of NFL players, making it the only school in Virginia to be ranked for multiple sports in the study.
The study by Credit Loan used data collected on a total of 37,377 players from the high schools listed at baseball-reference.com, basketball-reference.com and pro-football-reference.com.
No Virginia school ranked as one of the top high schools for baseball that have sent players to play in Major League Baseball.
