Do you remember what happened on November 14th, 2015? You most likely don't but on that day, Virginia Tech lost 85-82 to Alabama State in a stunning early season upset during the second year of the Buzz Williams era.
At the time, it made many wonder if Virginia Tech would continued to be stuck in the ACC's cellar after years of decline and a failure to be a consistently high-level program in college basketball's toughest conference. The massive investment that seemed to be a guaranteed home run wasn't seeming so surefire with this stunning year 2 loss.
Instead, this date would prove to be the end of the dark days of Hokie Hoops and the beginning of a golden age, with a birth certificate dated November 15th, 2015.
This golden age delivered unimaginable success to the Hokies with five NCAA Tournament appearances in six seasons including a Sweet 16 run in 2019 as the headline plus three NIT appearances over the course of a nine-year span. Add in an ACC Tournament title plus six conference records above .500, not just regular season records, and this was the golden age of Virginia Tech Men's Basketball.
However, the key word now is not the word "is" but rather the word "was" because similar to how the golden age began after a loss in a buy game, the basketball coroner has arrived this time with a much more harrowing pronouncement.
The pronouncement: that the Virginia Tech Men's Basketball Golden Era has officially died at 9:01pm on November 20th, 2024 after a stunning 74-64 loss to Jacksonville, the first double-digit loss to a non-power conference team at home since the Hokies lost 57-44 to FIU on February 8th, 1993 according to Tech Sideline's David Cunningham.
Of course, this won't be the end of the fall and while this team still is clearly playing hard and showing some signs of life for Mike Young, it's clear that this year's team
Sow what is the cause of death? Well it's somewhat complicated but fairly straightforward at the same time.
Let's start with the NIL issue. There's no denying that Virginia Tech has gone all in on football given the choppy waters of college sports right now and life in the ACC. That seems pretty fair in many ways but there are others in the ACC and Big 12 who haven't sacrificed one for the other. Look at Clemson with a basketball surge recently or Louisville which is getting basketball turned around or Pittsburgh which is having upswings in both sports or Iowa State which has top 25 teams in football, MBB, and WBB.
The balance can be achieved and yet, the balance of that seemingly got lost last year when the Hokies had to try to either retain what they had or build a proper roster.
Instead, the Hokies lost most of their roster with schools like Miami paying Lynn Kidd around what VT's entire NIL budget was for men's basketball from what I've heard. That's how you get a bargain hunting roster that leads to a young, inexperienced roster with only one player who has averaged 20+ minutes per game in a single season before. Add in all the turnover and it's a recipe of risk and gamble that has high odds of paying off in disaster as it is for the Hokies so far this season.
That also means the margin for error for portal additions is thin and well, the Hokies' offseason transfer portal work doesn't look good.
The Hysier Miller issue is partly bad luck if we're being fair, but there always had to be that slight risk with taking a Temple player given the scandal around that program that was known at the time to all, even if the specifics were very unknown and lies certainly were likely said to schools involved. The schools most heavily involved included Seton Hall (another school with major NIL questions), Virginia (which saw Tony Bennett leave before the season with that program having some NIL questions), and Providence. This was a list of power conference teams looking to find value to meet the expectations that didn't necessarily match the price.
And now, the Hokies are in a situation with massive inexperience at point guard that will lead to likely most opponents using full-court press often and likely to great success. Of course, it doesn't help that Brandon Rechsteiner doesn't seem to be making the ACC jump in his second season and while Ben Hammond may ultimately be the long-term future, he's a freshman having to adjust via trial by fire and will need a lot of patience as well.
Miller wasn't the only portal miss as Ben Burnham has been a non-factor for this team. Burnham was the one remaining guy with significant college basketball experience, having been a multi-year starter for Charleston who was the only player with 20+ minutes per game in a season prior to this year at any school. So far this season, Burnham is averaging only 4.0 points and 3.8 rebounds in 16.2 minutes per game, holding a much smaller role than expected on this young team.
Then there's the resource side. Mike Young has made some good staff hires but once other power conference programs have gotten wind of those moves, they've had some good success at poaching guys like Chester Frazier (Illinois) and Mike Jones (Maryland). While they've been able to have some retention of quality assistants that other big programs wanted, there's not really a fear by other programs of the Hokies poaching their quality assistants.
Additionally, VT's staffing resources haven't stayed up with the times either. That is highlighted by the fact that the Hokies still only have three primary assistant coaches, despite the fact that this number was expanded to five. Plenty of other schools expanded and adjusted their staffs accordingly yet VT hasn't done so which likely is partly due to resources.
Fans have taken notice to as shown by the fact that in their victory over Winthrop, Virginia Tech had their smallest crowd for a men's basketball game since late December 2014 against Presbyterian. The student section has consistently not been full and has led to the band getting moved around to help fill in that area to maintain a tougher environment, including behind the basket for a home MBB game. The attendance is reminiscent of the dark days of the end of the Seth Greenberg era and the James Johnson era, rather than the golden era that Tech lived through from 2015 onward.
Now I do believe this young team has reason for optimism of finishing the season decently well because similar to Notre Dame last year, I think there is a lot of young upside that will be well-coached. However, it's going to take a lot of time and patience before we start to see this development become fruitful and even then, everyone else around the power leagues will start sniffing around seeing if they can continue the cycle if VT doesn't significantly improve their NIL to retain their young corps.
And for all the sacrifices they made to go all in on football, Virginia Tech fans have gotten a 5-6 team that is 1-12 in one-score games during the three-year tenure of Brent Pry, having a must-win for bowl eligibility against UVA for the seventh time in the past 13 seasons. Talk about a disastrous return on investment and a complete failure for Virginia Tech Athletics.
So yeah, there is some young promise that will make any growth, including Tech's promising first half against Michigan, encouraging. However, that is such a far cry from what the golden era of Virginia Tech Men's Basketball was when NCAA Tournaments had become the standard, NITs had become slight disappointments, preseason tournaments were places for VT to make a statement, Cassell Coliseum was feared (and likely still is somewhat) and top talent would not only arrive but stay. What a stunning fall from grace that was mostly all by choice of those outside of Hahn Hurst, rather than the self-determination of those running the show inside of it.
That is all gone for now, with a winter of misery likely headed the Hokies' way in men's basketball because of choices made to go all-in for a football team that is 5-6 and is 15-20 in three seasons under its current head coach. And with the ACC Tournament only taking the top 15 teams rather than all 18, Virginia Tech could easily miss the conference tournament this year.
Sadly, the Virginia Tech Men's Basketball Golden Era is officially dead. Long live the Virginia Tech Men's Basketball program.
