Full article: https://collegehoopstoday.com/index.php/rothstein-files/5-dark-horse-can... (other final 4 dark horses: USC, Auburn, Illinois, Memphis)
Virginia Tech: Four players are back — Keve Aluma, Nahiem Alleyne, Justyn Mutts, and Hunter Cattoor — who averaged 8.5 points or more on last season's team that reached the NCAA Tournament. The Hokies may appear to be a guard short on paper, but Mike Young went back to his Wofford roots to secure Storm Murphy as a grad transfer. The 6-foot veteran should be a starter for Virginia Tech, as he's coming off a season where he averaged 17.8 points and shot 40 percent from three-point range while drilling 70 shots from long distance. There's not a lot of flash surrounding the Hokies, but Young is one of the top offensive minds in the sport and made Virginia Tech a national factor last season when his team upset Villanova early in the year at Mohegan Sun. With Murphy, Cattoor, and Alleyne, this team has established shotmaking and with Aluma, it possesses one of the best players in the ACC. Remember this nugget: Virginia Tech returns three players who started last March's NCAA Tournament loss against Florida while Virginia — last year's ACC regular season champion — only returns two starters from its NCAA Tournament loss against Ohio.
Comments
I feel like this team can make a nice run
Can't stop watching this. Mesmerized by what's possibly going through her mind.
Sugar. Sugar is going through her mind.
Pure joy with pure sugar
He picked them to finish 2nd last in the ACC last season so don't take all of his predictions too seriously
Yeah this pre-season stuff is always nonsense, but I always like the team generating positive buzz.
FTFY
Thanks, I hate it.
When Rothstein buys into us, we tend to prove him right more often than not. He was saying these same kind of things about us a few years back before our Sweet 16 run, so there's definitely reason to look into this as a great omen going into the season.
Obligatory every time that team gets mentioned I have to remind everyone how much I hate Duke, that team had some potential to keep going. That duke team was not good.
My thoughts:
Potential starting lineup (Murphy-Cattoor-Alleyne-Mutts-Aluma) is excellent. Can compete with just about anyone. Bench is unproven. Interestingly, Mike Young said yesterday that David N'Guessan has possibly been the best performer in practice thus far. If he can become a 6th top level option, that would be huge. Then we just need guys like Kidd, Maddox, and Pedulla to be solid rotation guys. If all of that happens, we could make a run with all that experience in the starting lineup. If the bench doesn't take some steps up, then we're probably looking at only a slight improvement from last year. If the bench steps up, the ceiling is pretty high.
Ojiako could be interesting this year too. He looked like a MAN last year, but was clearly still getting his feet back. If he can take a step, along with guys like N'Guessan and Maddox, suddenly we've got at least some depth everywhere, and things are looking better. I agree though, our front court in particular is mighty thin if that doesn't happen.
I feel our roster is primed for success, it's just what we're getting out of our younger players/less known quantities that will push us over the edge from good to great. N'Guessan, as stated in another comment, seems to be putting it together in practice, however I want to see the in game action because putting it together when the lights are on is a bit tougher.
Getting some extra depth at center with the Lynn Kidd transfer will help against bigger teams defensively and we won't solely have to rely on Ojiako to defend bigs or go undersized for too long. Having Keve Aluma back for another year is huge for us, as versatile bigs definitely create mismatch issues and our offense when firing on all cylinders should be a thing of beauty with pieces like that.
Hopefully Darius Maddox and Sean Pedulla can add some good minutes from the bench in the backcourt as well, Maddox seemed pretty hyped up coming in and he's had a year in the system to get comfortable, and Pedulla already had a nice clip on the VT basketball Instagram.
One thing not to understate about the roster is the experience it has, will probably be the most experienced roster we have for some time here. I wonder how high our ceiling is, but our floor is a lot higher than other teams in the country just based off returning production and veteran leadership. Grab your popcorn, hopefully it'll be a fun year!
So we really are a basketball school now, y'all!
Well, we're not a football school. Football schools are good at football.
Thankfully, Mike Young is carrying the athletic department right now.
Do you follow other sports at VT? Men and Women Soccer are good, Wrestling, T&F, Softball. All of these programs are doing really well.
yeah, basically everything except football. Whit has done a pretty phenomenal job for the most part. Couple missteps with the football program but I have faith that he's working to correct that in the near future.
I know a lot of people won't notice or care, but VT really was behind the rest of the ACC in this regard until recently. Whit has done a fantastic job raising the standard of the athletic department.
Reading excerpts from CMY's presser on Monday was glorious and put a smile on my usually sad face.
You should just watch it it's on YouTube so is Mutts and Storm
I think this team could be a lot like the Sweet 16 team. Really good but shallow bench and a lot of what-ifs with players that could've been on the team (then: Clarke & Nolley; now: Cone & Radford).