Delaware State Hornets
At Virginia Tech Hokies
8pm, Nov 4th Cassell Coliseum
ACC Extra/ESPN+
Tomorrow's the day 😎Don't miss the exciting season-opening doubleheader for @HokiesWBB & @HokiesMBB! Get your tickets NOW 🔥— HokieSports (@hokiesports) November 3, 2024
TV
Evan Hughes, PxP
Mack McCarthy, Analyst
ACCNX RADIO
Zach Mackey, PxP
Mike Burnop, Analyst
First Episode: Who are these Guys?
Mike Young, handcuffed by NIL and late preseason news carrying away his starting PG, has his work cut out to shape this into a team. There are only four of last season's roster back and only one of those was a sometimes regular starter in Poteat. It's going to be interesting to watch.
Don't forget to check out the Ladies at 5pm tomorrow also on ACCNX/ESPN+ as they take on UNC Wilmington.
You can argue that some of the transfers bring more athleticism to this squad which was surely lacking last year but the late departure of Hysier Miller puts a heavy burden on Rechsteiner and freshman Ben Hammond to deliver at the point.
The Hokies will rely on multiple transfers to play key roles. Tobi Lawal at forward has hops for days (think Deron Washington) but will be put up against some big bodies this year. Jaden Schutt, who sat out last year at Duke, will play the wing and be looked upon to score from outside. Ben Burnham will be the 6th man but likely have as many minutes as most starters.
After that playing times gets murky between the two incoming freshman Tyler Johnson and Ryan Jones along with Cal transfer Rodney Brown. Still not sure what to expect from Patrick Wessler either.
Delaware State is led by Stan Waterman, who is starting his fourth season with the Hornets. He was a highly successful high school coach in Delaware, winning multiple state championships before taking the head coach position. They are coming off a 15-19 season that ended with a loss to Seattle in the College Basketball Invitational.
The Hornets floor general is guard Martaz Robinson, who made the All-MEAC preseason first team after averaging 15.9 points and 6.5 rebounds per game last season. Joining Robinson will be the Watson twins, both 6'8 forwards transferring in from Cal State-Bakersfield. Both have had injury issues in the past so will be interesting to see if they are effective or even featured.
Alston Andrews (6'10) and Javarzia Belton (6'11), a transfer from Northeastern Oklahoma CC will provide the Hornets with additional size down low. There may be a freshman infusion at guard with John Clemmons and Ponce James.
The Hornets were voted to finish fifth in the MEAC this season. Delaware State lost starters Deywilk Tavarez, the 2024 MEAC Rookie of the Year to College of Charleston, Jevin Muniz, to Florida Gulf Coast, and forward Wesley Oba, to Missouri State.
Hokies will be outsized in the post in this one. Too many new pieces to really know what to expect from either team.
Hokies Projected Starters per Game Notes
Brandon Rechsteiner
G, #7, 6-1 190 So. Acworth, Ga.
2023 Stats 1.8 ppg 0.7 rpg
Jaydon Young
G, #3, 6-4 205 So. Goldsboro, N.C. 2023 Stats 1.8 ppg 0.8 rpg
Jaden Schutt (transfer from Duke)
G, #2, 6-5 205 r-So. Yorkville, Ill.
DNP 2022 Gatorade POY in Illinois
Tobi Lawal (transfer from VCU)
F, #1, 6-8 215 Jr. London, England
2023 Stats 7.7 ppg 6.0 rpg
Mylyjael Poteat
C, #34, 6-9 260 Gr. Reidsville, N.C.
2023 Stats 6.4 ppg 3.5 rpg
Hokies total 2023 starter stats
17.8 ppg and 11 rpg
Hornets Projected Starters
Martaz Robinson
G, #3, 6'2, GR, Baltimore, MD
2023 Stats 7.6 ppg, 4.8 rpg and 2.5 asst
John Clemmons,
G, #5, 6'6, FR, Bear, DE
DNP
Ponce James
G, #15, 5'11, Bridgeport
DNP
Alston Andrews
F, #1, 6'10, GR, Detroit, MI
5 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 1 apg, .5 bpg
Javarzia Belton
C, #32, 6'11, 280 lbs, JR, Calhoun Falls
No stats from Community College
Your guess is as good as mine.
Comments
Thanks for this. We need a change of venue.
Let's Go!!
Hokies!
I will be at the women's game and then hopefully home to watch the men.
Be there for both. Sweep.
GO HOKIES
Exactly the distraction this place needs... lord help us if we dont blow the roof off Cassell and have all the "Fire CMY" chants come out.
Can someone remind me how to watch games that are on ACCNX ?
Watching can be done either at the TV or online. The access is what is odd. This is not a channel you get with Disney Plus or ESPN+ and it's driven entirely by your cable/satellite package.
EDIT: I think this is online only... the ACCN (cable) will have the Maine @ Duke game on at 8. ACCNX is the online (only) way to get the VT game, and I think you HAVE to have ACCN via your cable provider - no ability to simply subscribe to ESPN+, ACC online, or DP to get access to the game.
Best bet is to go the ESPN+ route if you have it. ESPN+ is an option for this game.
Stand corrected. Women's game is also showing up on ESPN+ app.
I missed that part about the split coverage between ESPN+ and ACCNX - ESPN+ definitely the easier route
I was able to find it on the ESPN app on my Roku.
Signed in with my YouTubeTV account and a quick search shows separate ESPN+ and ACCNX feeds.
someone fill me in on our roster. i remember being very underwhelmed by all our transfers, except for maybe the guy that just got kicked out. i know we got that dude from duke.
is there anyone else on our roster that even had offers from other ACC schools??
obviously my expectations for this season are pretty low.
all I know is that we dismissed one last week, so whatever the roster cap is, we have that total minus one.
Tobi Lawal, Forward, 6'8, averaged 7.7 ppg, 6 rpg and shot 67% inside last year at VCU. He is a dunk machine with a vertical that has his head above the rim. Average free throw shooter which could become a factor if teams choose to foul to keep him from the rim. He was not a starter last year on a very senior laden team but averaged about 18 mpg. He is a junior this year.
Jaden Schutt, Shooting Guard 6'5, missed last season at Duke due to injury but is a top outside shooter.
Rodney Brown, Shooting Guard, 6'6, played in 32 games at Cal last year as a freshman. He got about 13 mpg, shot 42% inside and 39% outside.
Ben Burnham, Small Forward, 6'7, transferred from College of Charleston, where he averaged 9.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg, and .8 apg as a Junior. Started 35 games playing about 23 mpg. Shot 52% inside and 37% outside on 126 attempts.
Connor Severn, F, 6'8, a graduate transfer from Eastern Michigan played in 31 games as a Senior after being a role player at Illinois for three years (7-9 games per year). He started 13 games late in the season finishing about 19 mpg, 3.3 ppg, 3.2 rpg but most of his contributions came in his 13 games. He had 4 double digit scoring games and 10 games of 6 or more points.
There are four freshman.
Tyler Johnson, Wing/SF, 6'5
Ryan Jones Forward, 6'8
Ben Hammond PG, 5'11
Peter Carr, Combo Guard, 6'5
We will see a heavy dose of Ben Hammond with Hysier Miller's departure.
Coach Young has been speaking very highly of Tyler Johnson so I expect we will see him frequently. I really hope that Ryan Jones gets into the mix but will be interested to see how his playing time compares to Patrick Wessler and Connor Severn.
I read who our starters were from the post, then I saw the next 5 guys and thought that was our bench. I was confused that we only had 10 players. And I didn't see Wessler, one of the few players I knew. When I reread the post, I noticed the other 5 players were Delaware's starters, not our bench. This is going to take awhile getting to know who plays for the good guys.
I look forward to watching this game and having literally no idea if we are any good or even who any of the players are.
Bring it on, Delaware State!!!
Starting lineup above was confirmed by a couple of the press guys
G Brandon Rechsteiner
G Jaydon Young
G Jaden Schutt
F Tobi Lawal
F Mylyjael Poteat
Holy shit Cassell is a tomb
People need to be home tomorrow.
It's kind of an important day to be near your home.
Ghost town. No one knows who these guys are and it just means less
Jaydon Young has come to play
Like what I'm seeing so far. Little bit of everything on offense.
Nothing like seeing the same 2 alternating commercials 3 times each during the timeouts!
Waiting for Spurtle and Blue Chew to make an appearance
This time I just got the ACC Logo with 'your event is in a commercial break'....much better than the actual repeating commercials.
I know the competition isn't great but Jaydon Young looks much improved and more confident.
I was just thinking the same thing about wessler too...seems to be in better position and hustling down the floor.
Schutt can shoot!
We shoot this well from three in a couple games this year and we'll have a fun upset or two on a hot night
E$PN has no box score, so I can't track player stats.
https://stats.hokiesports.com/mbasketball/live/
Thanks lieutenant!
SCHUUUUUT
Okay. I like 3's but time to stat dominating inside. We've let them claw back a bit.
With this guy Schutt on out team, I'm not gonna be able to get the movie Vision Quest outta my head all season.
That might be too old of a throwback for most of you guys.....
Linda Fiorentino, Daphne Zuniga, and 1985 Madonna.
That is all
Had Red Rider on the soundtrack. Good enough for this person who wasn't even born when the movie came out.
Woof, definitely seen both ends of what this team can be
Was thinking the same thing. We've seen the ceiling and the floor in the first half of this first game. And all of it against the preseason picked 5th place MEAC team the mighty Delaware State
Laval's athleticism is hilarious. The hops are insane.
Definitely DW vibes.....
Thank you Tyler Johnson. Go inside and score
Christ it's been a ton of sloppy passing topped off by the bone headed inbounds pass and step out right there
Any word on why Jones Jr isn't playing? Just wondering if CMY is sticking to his tradition of not playing highly rated freshmen recruits 😂
None, weird too since Johnson, playing a position with more depth is seeing plenty of time. We knew Hammond would play some with Miller gone but definitely want to see Jones get time especially if it's going to be a learning season for everybody else too.
Speaking of, Rodney Rice scored 12 points in 24 mins last night for Maryland. I had been hearing he was not a key piece for them. He did come off the bench and it was Manhattan, but still impressive.
For those watching on broadcast, can someone clue me in on what happened at the turnover at around 1:15 left in the half when Tech was inbounding and then it was a turnover? It wasn't clear live...
Rechsteiner passed it in so when Lawal got it he thought he was supposed to inbound, not realizing Rechsteiner had already, so he stepped out to inbounds. Official called him for stepping out with possession. I put it more on Rechsteiner. He should have just dropped the ball.
Got it. Thanks homie. Looks like the Steiner math didn't work out.
Well I gotta pack it in fellas.....early start tomorrow. Hope we pull away in the second half-
LETS GO!
CAN WE MAKE A FREE THROW PLEASE
How about 2 in a row?!!
Good to see we have figured out how to stop the dribble drive into the lane /s
So it's not just me thinking this is play is really not what we hoped for out of the gate.
Even Cassell Guard seems quiet and not as animated as normal
Holy...two in a row
For all the talk about how much better shape Poteat is in, he definitely is not dominating the post
I think it's just you and me in here
No. There's half of half dozens of us!
C'mon don't be so pessimistic.
More than what seem to be sitting in the season ticket seats
I know we need depth behind Poteat but Wessler just isn't the guy. It's like he's in slow motion.
Which is why I want Jones to play early and often. Lane play has been ugly outside of Lawal.
so many turnovers....
Fire Mike Young into the sun.
I'm relatively new at this...I'm pretty sure this is what we say next.
Give him a raise...all the bs non support he has gotten from Babcock.
Pretty incredible he even managed a roster after 75% left this offseason and the four returners were minimal impact outside of Poteat. Young could have mailed it in after they yanked most of his NIL support but hasnt.
See now, I like this take better
Dang did they really pull his NIL money? I hadn't heard about that, but knew a lot of people left over NIL deals elsewhere.
"Greatly reduced" ....it's tough. They did it to bump up football NIL but still sucks for the staff to watch 75% of their roster walk.
So we all stop giving to the Hokie Club and just dump everything into the NIL?
When it comes to NIL, not sure. That focus would only work if it went straight to the players.
Tell you who could have put the money into the players NIL. All the season ticket holders that didn't show up last night. The bottom level seats on both sides was embarrassing. It seemed 70-80% empty. If you aren't going to come, then put that cash to the players. Or sell your tickets for the games you aren't and put that money in the NIL pot.
So there's a new initiative this year called "Fill the Cassell" where season ticket holders have to claim the seats that they want to go to for the out of conference games ahead of time (and pay extra money to do so). If they're not claimed, those seats go back into general on sale. From what it looks like to me, a lot of the season holders didn't claim last night's game so they weren't there, and then Tech couldn't sell those tickets in the general on sale window.
The end result was the opposite of filling up the arena.
If I were a basketball season ticket holder this would be something I could get behind. I'm sure there will be plenty of season holders that will claim all knowing they would need to personally list the tickets they wouldn't use, but I would hope that reasonable people would know for sure that they aren't going and put those tickets into a pool that could be claimed by students. Hell - bring back the ticket waiting lines (esp. for premier games). Have the ticket office announce the quantity in the pool of tickets ahead of time so student know how many are available, and then issue the best seats available on a first come, first serve basis.
Only problem there is that the students didn't even fill the normal Cassell Guard seats.
For some clarification. The athletic department in all their glorious wisdom (unless they reversed themselves) decided to separate non-conference from conference season tickets. The same amount that you spent for the entire season was only going to cover the conference game tickets.
VT Athletic department said it was because a lot of season ticket holders only came to conference games and they wanted more people for non conference games. They said that those non-conference games had no value and that is why they weren't going to reduce the cost of the conference games.
Now, as a season ticket holder that went to ALL of the games I said then give me the non-conference games as well as the scanners will tell you I attended everything. They said no, but you can BUY a non-conference package to go to those games as well.
Screw them.
You said this better than I did.
"bs non support he has gotten from Babcock." - We play in the fucking ACC. I'm going to give Whit the benefit of the doubt here and assume he knows that. And that he knows this non support stance is going to get us killed in our league. So we just don't care about sucking in hoops now? I guess not. Whit is the gift that keeps on giving. God he sucks.
honestly wouldn't be a problem if we were competitive in football but now we just suck at everything. Thanks Whit.
This is where I am. Football has sucked relatively ever since he was hired. The best thing he did was hire Buzz Williams who left as soon as he could. He fucked around with Kenny Brooks, he extended Fuente- who at the time already wasn't recruiting effectively and he hired a first time head coach for the school's marquee program. He sucks. Get him out of there.
He's got 2 years left on his current contract iirc. The problem is I think Whit is well liked by the people that "matter" and I have a feeling he's not going anywhere.
A few years back, he was actively looking to leave on his own. Maybe we get lucky.
Yeah that could happen he's got a good reputation which is wild. He's expanded programs at tech but I wouldn't call the expansions successful he's got like 2 ACC title teams since he's been here which isn't exactly stellar.
I know there has been a lot of mumblings about the brooks situation, but it has never been clear to me what egregious thing Whit ever did. From an external perspective, I see the public comments from Brooks throughout and he certainly makes himself look bad.
Whit offered to match the salary offer from Kentucky for Kenny. However, Whit could not match the $5 million in staff and NIL allowance. The biggest complaint about Kenny is he never acknowledged the fans or said goodbye. From the week before stating how the Hokies were the best crowd and good for 10 points a game to gone. Georgia at least said goodbye.
Whit has never lead or presided over a national championship team. For reference Stanford wins them every year and UVA wins them regularly. At any rate, had he been a true leader wanting to win an actual National Title in something - which in turn would have made it a 200% more attractable job to Kenny Brooks- and any other coach for that matter- he would have been PROACTIVE for once in his fucking life and extended Brooks and took care of his assistants before they left the final four in Dallas. But no, he is reactive and hoped that Brooks would take some kind of discount to stay. That's why Brooks is gone. Whit is a cheap reactionary that has never lead anything to a title.
It's absolutely amazing the inconsistency in his contract extensions. Fuente has two solid years in football with Beamer's roster, with a notable decline in offensive production by the end of year two, and Whit gives him an enormous premature extension which we had to eat with the buyout. Meanwhile, Brooks has WBB in the freaking Final Four and we don't offer anything until its too late.
To me, Whit just likes paying more for less in football and is stingy in everything else. The standard for extensions/raises in football has become mediocrity - 6-6 or better and you and your staff are getting raises. We have become so embarrasing and clueless at running a football program that I honestly just wish we would pull the plug sometimes. Paying as much as we do for the lack of success that we have is astounding.
He also gives his wrestling coaches 1 year deals with cost of living adjustments and tells them take it or leave it. Not serious about winning at the highest level.
This has been the one thing I've consistently heard time and again regarding Brooks and I'm inclined to believe it. I would love to have seen what our hoops teams could have done with some of the NIL money we blew on a football team that might get lucky enough to go to a bowl.
Also refused to commit to the approved/planned Cassell Coliseum overhaul. That has been shelved for football.
Kenny walked into a completely renovated facility at Kentucky for both practice and games.
There were also rumors Brooks wanted to give a scholarship to his youngest daughter but Whit wouldn't green light it. She is on scholarship at Kentucky now.
All in, you can't blame Brooks decision from a professional standpoint. How he chose to go out is a whole other matter.
Let's be honest, as soon as Cattoor's playing career is over he is going to be an assistant coach on Kenny's staff.
Heaven forbid probably one of the highest earning people in the state of Virginia, making millions of dollars; pay $30k for his daughter to go to college.
Fuck that guy, we'll be fine without him.
Correct- She was a zero star and a better volleyball player than basketball. She would not get a P4 scholarship anywhere but Kentucky. In this case Whit was correct not to simply give a handout, not to mention the fact he could have used the scholarship on a better player.
Most of Young NIL money was taken away so we could pay all the WR's on the team that can't protect the QB long enough the throw the ball.
Wow that LAWAL DUNK
Please play Ryan Jones more....4 points on three trips down the floor
Haha at least we finally got to see him
I assume that the double header actually led to less attendance for the men
Definitely seemed that way but there is also more energy for the women's team. It's a feel good story while the men's was just a black hole of questions. Even Cassell Guard section looked empty for men's game. Looked full for ten or so rows and then dwindled.
Oh my lord.
One of the better college dunks you'll see. Lawal was outstanding tonight, and he wasn't the only bright spot. Poteat and even Wessler were very solid inside, and Jaydon Young was impressive at times.
Looks like we're going to be thin at PG, and probably won't shoot as well as last year. But the athleticism is a major improvement, and I think the team has a higher ceiling this season compared to last year. Overall, a pretty encouraging first game for an almost entirely new roster.
Not bad overall. I was disappointed in Rech an the foul shooting/turnovers. I expected better in those areas. This team will do OK if Young can scheme wide open shots, and we hit them. Other than that we are going to have issues scoring, IMO.
Yeah it would be great if we could find a couple of reliable deep threats like we had in Cattoor and Pedulla last year. Unfortunately there's going to be a lot of pressure on Rech to step up (and to stay healthy). It's a small sample size against a mid-major opponent obviously, but it looks like we're going to have more guys able to get their own shot than last year. And I was really impressed with Poteat, and surprised by Wessler. Wessler looked confident and competent, which is about as much as you can ask from a backup center.
Agree- If Wessler can give you 10 mins a night off the bench and not be a liability on defense, call it a win. He can be a serviceable back up 5 here.