After whiffing at some of the area’s top local hoops prospects in recent years, Virginia Commonwealth University has hit what may be a home run with Alphonzo Billups.

The 6-foot-7, four-star recruit from Varina High School signed with Rams Coach Mike Rhoades on Aug. 24.

Billups will finish his senior year at Varina this coming season and become VCU eligible in 2022-23.

As a sophomore, Billups, who is nick- named “Fats,” averaged 16 points per game while helping the Varina Blue Devils to the State Class 5 quarterfinals. In a rare achievement, he made first team All-State as a 10th-grader.

Varina opted out of the 2020-21 basketball season because of the pandemic. Despite missing his junior year, Billups is rated the 90th best prospect in America (Class of ’22) by 247Sports.

Billups also drew attention playing for the Team Loaded travel squad.

Among the schools VCU beat out to sign Billups were University of Pittsburgh and Louisiana State University, which both are coached by former Rams coaches. Jeff Capel III is now at Pitt, while Will Wade is at LSU.

Billups’ signing ends something of a VCU drought regarding local talent. The last scholarship recruits coming directly from area schools were Jordan Burgess (2015 from Benedictine), Brad Burgess (2008, Benedictine) and Brandon Rozzell (2007, Highland Springs High.)

Khris Lane (Benedictine) and Mike’l Simms (Highland Springs High) came to VCU as transfers.

In the meantime, VCU coaches had come up short with such other top-tier local prospects as Roosevelt Wheeler and Isaiah Todd, both from John Marshall High School; Henry Coleman and Armando Bacot, both from Trinity Episcopal School; and Efton Reid from Steward School.

Billups becomes Coach Rhoades’ second signing from the high school Class of 2022. The first was 6-foot-10 Christian Fermin from Pocono Summit, Penn.

Coming off a 19-7 mark in 2020-21, the Rams figure to contend for the Atlantic 10 Conference title and an NCAA berth despite the loss of Nah’Shon “Bones” Hyland to the NBA and at least the tem- porary loss to injury of returning point guard Ace Baldwin.

Billups is just VCU’s second recruit from Varina High School. Hunter Hoggatt, a 6-foot-3 guard, came to VCU under Coach Sonny Smith in the late 1990s after scoring a combined 2,073 career points for Altavista and Varina high schools. Hoggatt later transferred from VCU to Longwood University.