There’s a Palpable Buzz in Blacksburg

Good afternoon, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) sports fans.  

The culture of Virginia Tech men’s basketball has changed substantially over four years.  No one can deny that. How do we know that?

• Games are selling out again in Cassell Coliseum.
• It sounds dumb, but I can actually buy a Virginia Tech men’s basketball replica jersey now – I could not do that in prior years (we can thank Buzz for this – more below).
• Buzz Williams, Virginia Tech’s head men’s basketball coach, has an overall career record of 74-59 with the Hokies.
• Speaking of Buzz Williams, he’s getting recruiting visits from top tier talent – that hasn’t happened in a long time for the Hokies.
• Virginia Tech hosted Big Monday, the primetime ACC matchup of the week, twice this year.
• This year, Virginia Tech defeated North Carolina, Duke, and Virginia in the same season – this hasn’t happened since 2006-2007.
• This year, Virginia Tech is tied with Virginia for the most RPI top 10 wins in the country.  Virginia Tech’s high end wins vs. Virginia, North Carolina, Duke and Clemson are as good as any other team’s high end wins.
• Virginia Tech has the best national win of any team this year.  The Hokies went into a hostile road environment at Virginia and won in overtime (The Hokies were down 7 points with less than 40 seconds to go in overtime – and still won).
• Virginia Tech has 30 ACC wins over the last three years.
• Virginia Tech has three 20+ win seasons in a row.
• Virginia Tech will be in back to back NCAA tournaments for the first time since 1985-86 and 1986-87.

The work, for sure, isn’t done.  The Hokies collapse vs. Notre Dame in the ACC tournament was a bad one and what is lacking at times is consistent focus and the will to slam the door on other teams.  

With a senior-laden team coming back in 2018-2019, I think you can expect the Hokies to enter the top 25 – and pretty much be a fixture most of the season.  Again, though, the work isn’t done – there’s still an NCAA tournament game to play.

Go Hokies!!

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