No. 19 Louisville has a lot to play for as it wraps up the road portion of its regular season on Tuesday night against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
For starters, a win would guarantee the Cardinals (21-6, 14-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) a double bye in next month’s ACC Tournament in Charlotte, N.C.
A victory also would allow coach Pat Kelsey to tie Hall of Famer Denny Crum for the most regular season wins during a debut season at Louisville. Crum’s first team in 1971-72 went 26-5 overall and reached the Final Four.
Those were not the expectations for Kelsey, who needed to overhaul the vaunted program after it won just 12 games the previous two seasons. Thanks to the arrival of several seasoned players, the Cardinals have the conference’s longest current winning streak at five games, and they’ve won 15 of their last 16.
The run helped Louisville move up six spots in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll.
All of that has led to Kelsey being considered for national coach of the year awards, a topic he deflected Saturday after Louisville beat Florida State 89-81, saying the entire program deserves to be honored.
The credit is due to “my staff and the belief by having them and the trust I put in them and the job that they do and the excellence with which they go about every day,” he said.
“I believe if everybody in the organization is that way, and I’ve said this many times, the results take care of themselves, and for the better part of this year they have.”
On the floor, Chucky Hepburn leads Louisville with 15.6 points and 6.0 assists per game. His 2.5 steals per game lead the ACC. The senior guard, who transferred from Wisconsin, set a team record with 17 made free throws as part of a 29-point performance in Saturday’s win.
Reyne Smith, a transfer from the College of Charleston, entered Monday leading the nation with 103 3-pointers. The senior has hit 39.1 percent from beyond the arc (18 of 46) in Louisville’s last four games.
The visit from Louisville starts a three-game homestand for the Hokies (12-15, 7-9). Coach Mike Young’s team ended a two-game losing streak Saturday with an 81-68 win at Miami.
The bench stood out for the Hokies in that win. Jaydon Young’s career-high 27 points nearly doubled his previous best of 14. The sophomore guard went 9-for-15 from the field, including 5-for-11 from the 3-point arc.
Scoring has been an issue for the Hokies, whose 67.6 points per game average in ACC games is next-to-last in the 18-team league. They lost 54-36 on Feb. 18 at Boston College, the program’s lowest output in 58 years.
“Nobody was happy with how we played at Boston College,” reserve center Patrick Wessler said Saturday, per Roanoke.com. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. So I think we all had the mentality of, ‘That’s over with, move on.'”
Wessler, a 7-footer who averages 3.6 points and 9.5 minutes a game, scored 10 points in 17 minutes Saturday. He may see more time on Tuesday if starting center Mylyjael Poteat cannot play. The 6-foot-9 senior injured his right knee in the first half against the Hurricanes and did not return. Young told reporters after the game that Poteat might miss a couple days at worst.
–Field Level Media
