Hokies have committed to play in the 2023 ESPN Invitational in Orlando Florida
Expected teams in the field:
Virginia Tech
Iowa State
Butler
Texas A&M
Penn State
VCU
Boise State
MAAC team that is currently TBD
Should be a pretty solid test early next season. Should be during Feast Week next year.
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Comments
Boy is it going to be fun beating the shit out of PSU and aTm in the same week
VT and the Aggies first round matchup incoming? 👀
Not even gonna lie I'd love to stick it to one Brent Williams.
Depending on when it is scheduled and our remainder of 2022-23, it could be the game Young passes Williams in career wins at VT.
Did some math. We would need to win out this season, and win 7 games before that tournament to make that happen assuming we played them in the first round, but you can subtract some games if we get to play them later in the tournament.
I don't think the, uh, scheduling is going to work out unfortunately. I appreciate the optimism though.
NM, your math is right.
No problem. I'm glad to see someone double checked. I promise I'm more surprised to see I'm right than you are.
What I liked about your math, though (and why I did the math myself), is that your definition of winning out didn't just include the regular season, but included 3 wins in the ACC Tournament and 6 wins in the NCAA Tournament. Beautiful.
I like to get the important details. It's the obvious stuff that I like to ignore.
Revenge on Boise St for the FedEx Field game too? Dominate
Weekend in Orlando then game watch party for Commonwealth Cup with Central Florida Hokies.
Ain't nothing more appropriate for a early season basketball tournament than seeing VT and Penn St in the same field
Seeing A&M had me look at what Buzz has done there. Still hasn't made an NCAA tournament and their OOC record will not help them this year. Currently 5 of their 6 wins are Q4, 1-1 in Q3. They have to do really well in the SEC to get in.
VT is a much better program than A&M right now and I don't think anyone expected that when Buzz left to take the A&M job and Young took over for VT.
Buzz deserves credit for pulling the program out of the dumpster and shining it up. Let him be a lesson in leaving a job gracefully and not burning bridges. Grass may not be greener on the other side.
Buzz deserves a ton of credit for showing Whit what it takes to support a major college hoops program. His staff was the largest in the ACC- he demanded that from Whit. He also showed VT fans what big boy college basketball is about in recruiting and roster turnover. Buzz wasn't affraid to recruit over someone. That's what the big boys do. He set the foundation for Mike Young. I think Young is Buzz's equal in terms of X and O's. Buzz is a better recruiter though. I'm ecstatic we have Young though
It's why guys like Mike Jones, Christina Webster, and Giltner are so important. Young knew he wasn't a hot shot recruiter and staffed up. I would say Young is better X's&O's though considering the majority of his teams so far were lead by Wofford and Delaware St. players. This is the first year he's had any highly rated recruits on the floor for meaningful minutes
Webster will be a D1 head coach one day- perhaps soon. That was a great keep by Whit and Young. Giltner is running young's offense, so he is learning on the job. VT is also Jones's first D1 job. Both are good recruiters- Young knows thats how you have to do it- you can''t coach up good players if you don't land them in recruiting. Buzz had a great staff at the end Roccaforte, Webster and McNeilly. You need that to compete in this league.
I loved Buzz when he was here and he's a great coach. A&M will be good at some point, but I do take joy in their struggles. Having a big staff is good, but from what I remember reading about when Mike Young came in, there was so much redundancy. Like 4 video analysis guys or something. I'm glad Buzz got us to new heights and raised our floor at the same time, but especially with the staff sometimes it was being different just to be different.
Buzz has never been one to schedule tough OOC. He almost won the SEC tourney last year... they could have gotten in how VT got in.
Yea. I thought about it after I posted, and actually last year was pretty identical between the 2 programs. So, I probably over stated the "much better" part. VT definitely having the better year this year though.
Especially when you take into account the resources A&M has in terms of NIL funding, donations, etc.