photo by: Nick Henthorn

Eli Sancomb goes in for a layup during the WVSSAC Class AA state championship game against Williamstown on March 22, 2025 inside the Charleston Coliseum.

WHEELING — The top basketball player in the state of West Virginia has made his decision.

Wheeling Central senior Eli Sancomb, the reigning Bill Evans Award winner and WV Gatorade Player of the Year, verbally committed earlier this week to Liberty University, a Division-I University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Sancomb, rated as a four-star recruit and the No. 1 player in the state by 247Sports and ESPN, had narrowed his recruitment to five schools– Liberty, Iowa, Colorado State, Saint Louis, and Loyola– last week.

“I think he did it the right way,” Wheeling Central head coach Mel Stephens said of Sancomb. “He had some decent offers, and he narrowed it down to the five schools, and I think he just felt that Liberty was the best fit for him both athletically and academically. And I think that’s just the type of kid he is. I’m sure he looked at all the things that all five of those schools had to offer and he basically went with what he thought was best for him, and that’s the way it should be.

“I just felt like it was the best fit for me,” Sancomb said. “You know, their coaching staff has been talking to me for a long time. Their coaching staff came to a lot of my games over the summer, especially the head coach. I felt like I had a really, really good relationship with their head coach. When I went on-campus, I just felt it right away, you know, with their team, players, just the people there. We got very, very good people there and I just feel like I fit into that.”

Liberty is coached by Ritchie McKay, and the Liberty Flames went 28-7 last year competing in the Conference USA.

Sancomb expects to officially commit sometime in November, but wanted to put his recruitment to bed earlier than that.

“I definitely wanted to get the commitment out of the way,” Sancomb said. “You know, it was a lot of phone calls and stuff. But I feel really, really good about my decision and really excited to get to Liberty.”

Sancomb took an official visit to Liberty on the weekend of August 30 when Liberty’s football team opened their season against Maine. Lynchburg is an almost-exactly six-hour drive from Wheeling.

“It’s probably one of the closest ones that I was choosing from,” Sancomb said. “So, you know, six hours, that’s not too, too bad. If I have to drive home for something, I can do that. But also, it is pretty far, so I just kind of ended up right in a middle-ground, so I like how far it is.”

Sancomb averaged 25.8 points, 10.5 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 2.6 steals per game, shooting 54% from the floor, 36% from 3 and 85% from the foul line. His Maroon Knights won the WVSSAC Class AA State Championship this past season.

“They’re definitely getting a good one,” Stephens said. “I know their coach really showed a lot of interest during the AAU season. I think he was at every single one of Eli’s games. A lot of those other schools, I think, probably sent assistant coaches to those. But, I think that the head coach at Liberty, He definitely put Eli as a top priority and he made it a point to make sure that he went out and got to watch him play every single way he could.”

His commitment was the fulfillment of a life-long dream for Sancomb.

“It’s been a goal since I was little, going to a Division 1 school, and I’ve got to keep working, keep getting better, keep developing,” Sancomb said. “But, you know, I just think that I have a good chance to go in there and make an impact right away, and they have a very. very good program over there. Just a winning program. Coach McKay and their coaching staff have a lot of belief in me, so I can’t let them down, got to keep working every single day.”

Sancomb’s father, Danny Sancomb, was a prolific player at Wheeling University and has since been a longtime coach at several different programs, including his current tenure at California University of Pennsylvania. With strong family ties to the game of basketball, Stephens knew what he had in Sancomb from an early age.

“When you watch him in grade school, you think, ‘oh, you know, it’s only eighth grade basketball,’ but you could just tell, the way he handled himself and the way he approached games,” Stephens said. “Once he got to high school, I mean, you gotta give him a lot of credit. He missed his entire freshman year because he got hurt in football, and that had to be tough. But that didn’t hold him back. He continued, he worked, he rehabbed really hard because he wanted to make sure he got back for his sophomore season. And, you know, he just continued to work.

“Sunday night he committed, and Monday morning he’s back, he’s upstairs at 5:30 in the morning, getting shots up and stuff. So that’s just the type of kid he is. He’s going to work really hard, you know, and I think in college, you know, that’s going to play because he’s going to be a great leader in their locker room, too, because just the type of kid he is. Part of that goes back to being the son of a coach. I mean, he understands what it takes and what you have to do to be a really good player. You know, he works really hard.”

Sending a player to a large Division-I school is certainly not unheard of for Wheeling Central, but Stephens appreciated the effect a player like Sancomb can have on the Central program.

“He was gonna be a good player, you know, regardless. But I think it definitely lends some credibility to our program because he kind of epitomizes what we’re trying to do,” Stephens said. “To get a kid that shows these other guys what kind of work it takes if you wanna get to that level — you know, whether or not we have anybody in here or else in this locker room now that we’ll get there, we’ll see, I don’t know. But, he definitely has shown an example of how hard you have to work and how dedicated you have to be if you want to get there.”

As for Sancomb, he feels like Wheeling Central has done as much for him as he’s done for his school.

“It’s a really special place here, with the people, the coaches, everyone here is just very special, very good people I’m around,” Sancomb said. “I’ve got a lot of good role models here. We have coaches that open the gym for us every single morning to work on our basketball skills. And, you know, it’s like a family here, really. Everyone’s close with each other, there’s no one here that hates anyone. It’s all love. And that’s what I really like about this school.”