With apologies to Duke and North Carolina, Virginia has become the premier basketball program in the ACC under their coach Tony Bennett. Since the 2016-2017 season, North Carolina has 1 national title, 3 NCAA appearances, 1 regular season ACC title, and no ACC tournament Titles. Last year would have been certain miss of the NCAA tournament for UNC. Duke has 0 national titles, 3 NCAA appearance, 0 regular season ACC titles, and 2 ACC tournament titles. Virginia by comparison has 1 national title, 3 NCAA appearances, 2 regular season ACC Titles, 1 ACC and Tournament Titles.
Virginia has more 30 win seasons than Duke and North Carolina combined since that 2016-2017 season as well.
Saturday Virginia Tech faces off against Virginia and it’s an opportunity for Virginia Tech to find out exactly how they stack up with the Hoos. Under Mike Young the Hokies have developed a propensity for knocking off top 15 teams. In his first year, Virginia Tech defeated #3 Michigan State 71-66. Earlier this season Virginia Tech picked up the best out of conference win by ACC team by beating #3 Villanova 81-73 in OT.
They also beat Clemson and Duke when they were ranked.
It goes without saying, but this weekend’s game against Virginia is a big one. Not just because the Hokies are going up against the conference leading Hoos, but because they also still have a chance at winning the ACC. October seems like a lifetime ago, but at the time Virginia Tech were being given little chance to win the ACC at 100 to 1 odds. And now: they’re in third place
and with odds at only +600.
The Hokies will have to go into the game without key contributor and second leading scorer
Tyrece Radford who was suspend from the team. How the Hokies manage that loss will determine if they can pull off the upset of Virginia. The Hoos are playing their best basketball of the season, with Sam Hauser starting to play at an All-ACC level. PG Keihi Clark is as steady as they come, and the Hokies did not play well defensively against Syracuse.
The Hokies did rebound with a solid performance against Notre Dame in a 62-51 on Wednesday night proving the loss of Radford won’t make Virginia Tech any less dangerous at least in their first game without him.
That said Virginia is not Notre Dame, but Mike Young’s wins over Michigan State and Villanova did come out of no where. Once might be a fluke, but twice in two years and that shows that Young knows how to prepare his team for elite opponent. That’s exactly what Virginia is.
Virginia Tech hasn’t beat Virginia since the 2017-2018 season. That’s four straight losses to Virginia. If the Hokies pull this off they solidify their NCAA tournament prospects, put themselves right back into the ACC race, and at the very least are in great position for a Double Bye if there is an ACC tournament.
For Virginia a top 3 NCAA seed, and an outside shot at a NCAA tournament #1 seed are still in play.
Yea there’s a lot on the line Saturday.
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