Virginia Tech Picked Seventh in Preseason ACC Men's Basketball Media Poll

Editor

October 26, 2017, 03:00 AM

In 15 days, Virginia Tech opens their 2017 men's basketball season at home against the Detroit Mercy. With the opening day of college basketball approaching, the ACC recently converged upon Charlotte for the ACC Men's Basketball Media Days. As part of the event, ACC media members made their predictions on the final ACC standings. Today, the results were released. https://twitter.com/techlunchpaild/status/923611930614468608 Virginia Tech was picked to finish seventh in the ACC this season by the media. The Hokies finished tied for seventh last season and despite the departures of Seth Allen and Zach LeDay, VT still has a strong team that has added some talented freshmen including five-star guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker. VT was likely hurt in this poll by the season-ending injury Ty Outlaw suffered this offseason. Virginia Tech is in the second tier of the ACC along with Virginia, Georgia Tech, and Florida State as quality teams who could break the top 25 early this season and have the talent to make the NCAA Tournament. VT is towards the upper end of that tier, but still has a lot to prove with Seth Allen and Zach LeDay gone. Seventh seems to be an appropriate pick for a Virginia Tech team that has the talent to return to the NCAA Tournament this season. After years of mediocrity, Buzz Williams has built a Virginia Tech basketball program that consistently has the talent to make the NCAA Tournament and the potential to be a major player in the ACC. That is something that would have been hard to imagine happening in less than four seasons when Buzz was first hired. Duke was picked to win the ACC, receiving 57 of the 69 first-place votes. UNC, Notre Dame, and Miami also received first-place votes with those three teams filling out the rest of the top 4. Virginia was picked just ahead of the Hokies in sixth but what's clear is that the gap between UVA and VT is just about non-existent. Here are the full results from the ACC Media's poll.