Virginia Tech’s NCAA Tournament wait has stretched into a four-year problem, and Mike Young is heading into his eighth season trying to flip it. The Hokies keep finding enough quality to hang around in the ACC, but not enough clean finishes to break through to March Madness.
Young knows how much injuries warped last season. At ACC Tipoff in October, he pointed directly to the health issues that derailed the Hokies’ year.
"Let's hope we have some good fortune and we can keep them healthy," Young said at ACC Tipoff in October. "That was as frustrating and as debilitating as anything I've experienced in 25 years as a head coach, what we went through last year. We're in good health now."
That matters because Virginia Tech was never fully whole. Guard Tyler Johnson missed 15 games, and forward Tobi Lawal sat out nine.
Both were in the opening-night starting lineup, and both absences showed up in the results. The Hokies dropped nine games by single digits and four by one possession.
What makes that frustrating is that Virginia Tech wasn’t getting blown off the floor every night. The Hokies were competitive against a lot of ACC teams, even if the final score often told a harsher story.
Against Florida State, Tech was right there through the first half before the Seminoles caught fire and shot 78.3% in the final 20 minutes to win 92-69 in Blacksburg. The same kind of thing happened in other spots, too.
Against then-No. 23 Louisville, the Hokies were in the fight until a four-minute stretch late in the first half tilted the game.
Against then-No. 4 Duke, Tech cut the margin to six with 6:10 left and was within two scores with four minutes remaining before Cameron Boozer sparked a seven-point run that pushed the Blue Devils to a 14-point win.
That’s the central question around this team now: was last season proof the Hokies are close, or proof they still don’t have enough high-end punch to stay with the ACC’s top tier for 40 minutes?
The answer may be somewhere in the middle. Virginia Tech showed it could compete, but it didn’t piece together enough complete performances. A few of those close losses turning the other way could have changed the whole feel of the season.
Now the pressure shifts to the new faces. The Hokies do bring back several pieces from that team, including senior forward Amani Hansberry and junior guard Ben Hammond, along with Johnson and Lawal among the five returnees from the 2025-26 roster. But the season will hinge on whether the newcomers can give Tech the kind of steady production it lacked too often a year ago.
If that happens, the Hokies should have more ways to survive rough nights. Multiple players able to carry the offense would help when the top options don’t have it going. The question is whether that translates into enough wins in a league that punishes every lapse.
There is one obvious wrinkle: the NCAA Tournament now includes 76 teams, which gives Virginia Tech a little more room for error. But the bigger issue remains the same. The Hokies still need to turn the tight losses that piled up last season into wins.
That likely means more than just surviving in ACC play. Virginia Tech may need to cash in more often against everyone else, especially with a difficult non-conference slate ahead. If this group can stay healthy and clean up the late-game mistakes that haunted last year’s team, the path back to March Madness finally starts to look real.
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Virginia Tech Heads Into Georgia Tech With Two Troubling Questions
Virginia Techs open practice this week offered a clearer look at where things stand heading into the Georgia Tech game, and the picture included both encouragement and concern. Offensive lineman Brody Meadows was active, giving the Hokies reason to believe a veteran piece up front could be back in time for the matchup, while Montavious Cunningham remained limited as the team continues to manage injuries around the roster.
James Franklin also used the session to address the issues that have lingered most visibly on game day. Penalties remain a point of emphasis after costing the Hokies too often, and the special teams job is still unsettled as the staff weighs options at kicker and punter. John Love and Nathan Totten are among the players under scrutiny, and the competition is set to keep running through Friday as Virginia Tech tries to settle a few things before heading into Atlanta. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Tech Gets An Early Warning For Must Win Georgia Tech Game
The ACCs first availability report for Virginia Techs matchup with Georgia Tech offered an early glimpse at just how thin the margins may be in Saturdays game. With the kickoff set for 3:30 p.m. ET on the ACC Network, both teams are already dealing with the kind of roster uncertainty that can shape a league game before it ever starts, and Virginia Tech showed up on the report with 11 players listed in some form of question or limitation.
Three Hokies are already listed out on the initial report, while others remain in the gray area as the week moves on. Georgia Tech has its own concern as well, with running back Justice Haynes tagged doubtful, and the rest of the week now becomes a waiting game for both staffs as they sort through availability ahead of a matchup that already feels important. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Tech Faces One Big Homecoming Test Against Georgia Tech
Virginia Tech enters homecoming trying to steady a stretch that has featured too many self-inflicted problems, from missed kicks to turnovers and penalties. The Hokies know they need cleaner football on both sides of the ball, and the matchup with Georgia Tech offers a clear lane to do it if they can get their run game moving and create more pressure defensively.
Georgia Tech has been vulnerable against the run, but the Yellow Jackets have also shown they can hang around deep into games before either finishing strong or letting things slip away. For Virginia Tech, that makes this more than just another ACC matchup - it is the kind of test that can either restore some confidence at home or leave even more questions hanging over a team still searching for a reliable identity. [Read more 🡒]