Virginia Tech hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2022 and hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2019.
The potential path back for the Hokies and seventh-year coach Mike Young starts Monday against Charleston Southern in Blacksburg, Va.
A season ago, Virginia Tech finished 13-19 and lost in the first round of the ACC tournament. The Hokies return four players from last year’s team, including three starters. Most notable is 6-foot-8 forward Tobi Lawal, who led the Hokies with 12.4 points and 7.0 rebounds per game.
Along with Lawal, guards Jaden Schutt (7.7 ppg) and Ben Hammond (5.6 ppg, 50% 3-point shooting) also started for most of last season.
A promising collection of new talent includes 6-foot-9 Greek guard Neoklis Avdalas, who is one of the top incoming European talents throughout college basketball. Low-post freshman recruits Christian Gurdak (a 6-9 center) and Sin’Cere Jones (a 6-7 forward) also could contribute.
There’s plenty of transfer help as well. Forward Amani Hansberry averaged 9.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game last season at West Virginia, while guards Jailen Bedford and Izaiah Pasha both averaged double-digit scoring last year at UNLV and Delaware, respectively.
The Hokies lost their exhibition game against Duquesne, 83-81, despite 22 points from Hammond and 20 points from Lawal.
“We’ve got a lot of the right ingredients now,” Young said at ACC Tipoff. “Now to get them all together and get them all reading from the same script is what coaching is all about.”
Charleston Southern hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1997, and coach Saah Nimley is in his second full season there. Nimley will look to improve on three straight 10-win finishes for the Buccaneers.
Only three players return from last season’s roster, and Charleston Southern was picked in the preseason media poll to finish seventh in the nine-team Big South Conference. The top player is probably guard A’lahn Sumler, who missed last season due to injury, but scored 14.2 points per game in 2023-24 for the Buccaneers.
Transfer guards Brycen Blaine (10.7 ppg last year at Gulf Coast State) and Luke Williams (15.4 ppg, 38.2% 3-point shooting at Division-II Maryville) are two potentially significant additions.
“Those guys have come from lower levels, and I’m really excited to see how that translates over when we start to play other people,” Nimley said.
–Field Level Media
