Charlotte, N.C. - Virginia Tech came literally inches away from victory.
Ben Hammond got the favorable switch and took Tre’Von Spillers to the hoop. As he neared the left block, Hammond faded left for his patented floater with a chance to prolong the Hokies season and preserve its March Madness aspirations. His runner caromed off the left side of the rim right to a crashing Jailen Bedford, who tossed up a putback layup which rolled around the rim before eventually falling just short - a shot many have already paralleled to Ahmad Hill’s blown layup that ended the Hokies 2019 season in the Sweet 16.
Close but no cigar. That is perhaps the best way to describe the Hokies 2025-26 campaign as a whole.
Despite dominating the glass and even grabbing the lead down the stretch, Virginia Tech fell 95-89 in overtime to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC tournament on Tuesday in the Spectrum Center.
For all of the Hokies nail-biting losses this year, they actually had a lot of success in overtime games. This loss put an end to the perfect overtime campaign (4-0) and effectively killed any lingering postseason hopes.
“We had our opportunities and we just came up short,” said Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young reflecting simultaneously on the individual game and the season. “That’s disappointing, infuriating, and I take a lot of responsibility there.”
Everything that could have gone wrong, seemed to go wrong over the last couple months for a tournament-caliber team that squandered too many opportunities to prove their worth to the committee.
Between injuries (Tobi Lawal and Tyler Johnson), one possession losses and one of the most challenging home-away schedules in the ACC, the Hokies talent - while evident - wasn’t enough. Tuesday's loss was the perfect representation of the season - a mysterious injury kept forward Amani Hansberry out of the contest and the missed opportunity at the buzzer ultimately resulted in another tight loss.
Despite Bedford’s narrow miss to end regulation, Virginia Tech had the momentum heading into overtime. It had just ripped off a 9-0 run to flip a seven point deficit, before four straight points from guard Myles Colvin (team-high 18 points) and a couple Hammond free throws evened the score at 75.
The only problem? It couldn’t generate a stop in the overtime period. Wake shot 5-for-7 from the floor and 9-for-9 from the charity stripe to close the game. Each bucket became more and more deflating for the Hokies; many of the baskets came at the end of the shot clock.
Unlike the majority of Tech’s losses that could be pinpointed to its inability to stop a single player, the Demon Deacons executed their offense by committee, with seven of their eight rotational players reaching double figures.
Juke Harris, the ACC’s second-leading scorer during conference play, managed just 10 points on 3-for-18 from the field. He was held considerably below his season average in all three matchups (15 points and 16 points) against the Hokies. Somehow that wasn’t enough for Tech to claim the season series.
Despite recent reports that he’d miss the rest of the season, guard Nate Calmese made his return scoring 10 points on 4-for-4 shooting off the bench.
“I thought he was done for the year, but then the swelling went down,” said Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes. “He worked, he worked, he worked and now he’s back playing again. There’s nothing better than that.”
Virginia Tech was led by Hammond, who finished with a game-high 23 points on 7-for-17 from the floor and 3-for-4 from deep. He was a particularly difficult matchup for Calmese, who couldn’t stay in front of a guard that fast given his looming ankle injury.
Bedford joined Hammond in the backcourt with 17 points and eight boards. Although he continued his recent trend of cold starts with six consecutive misses to start the game, Bedford found his form, knocking down six of his last 12 attempts.
Sharpshooter Jaden Schutt bounced back from two consecutive scoreless efforts with 15 points on 3-for-7 from downtown. That included two clutch triples in the last 10 minutes and a couple perfect trips to the free throw line to essentially kept the Hokies in striking distance. This was Schutt’s highest scoring performance since the January 14 heartbreak at SMU.
The Hokies frontcourt didn’t provide its typical scoring output, as to be expected with the absence of Hansberry. However they held it down on the glass as center Christian Gurdak scored three points and grabbed eight rebounds in his first start in over a month. Forward Tobi Lawal dropped 12 points and added a team-high nine boards, but also picked up a crucial flagrant foul down the stretch of regulation.
With 1:20 remaining, Lawal attempted to cut by Sebastion Akins on an inbounds play and inadvertently elbowed him in the head. Wake was awarded two free throws and the ball in a game-altering four-point swing. While the Hokies still managed to force overtime, they lost the advantage they had with the lead and the ball prior to the flagrant.
Center Antonio Dorn enjoyed an extended role in Hansberry’s absence, and he took full advantage of it. Dorn finished with eight points, seven rebounds and three assists in arguably his best performance as a collegiate athlete. Thanks to the efforts of Gurdak, Lawal and Dorn, the Hokies dominated the glass 45-28 - a rebounding margin that almost never results in a loss.
Forward Tyler Johnson and guard Neoklis Avdalas were the only other Hokies to see the floor. The former finished with six points as he continues to recover from the lower body injury that cost him much of the season, while the latter was surprisingly benched for the most critical moments of the evening.
Avdalas finished with just five points and didn’t record a single assist for the first time all season. He sat out nearly the last 12 minutes.
“I just thought Schutt played a good ball game,” Young explained about his decision to sit Avdalas. “I thought Bedford - I was going to go with those (guys)...I thought those kids were playing better than Neo and that’s how I went.”
Virginia Tech has fallen to Joe Lunardi’s sixth team out and will now have to settle for its third National Invitation Tournament (NIT) berth in four years. While this may not be a disappointment based on preseason expectations (the Hokies were picked No. 12 in the ACC and finished No. 12), it is underwhelming based on the promise this team showed in its 12-2 non-conference slate and select games throughout ACC play.
It was as if, once every two weeks, Tech would show everyone what it is truly capable of. Unfortunately, those games came few and far between, and sometimes didn’t even result in victories due to the aforementioned inability to close tight contests.
There is a blueprint for success in Blacksburg with all the underclassmen this team boasts. The question becomes, can Young retain talent like Hammond and Johnson (and Avdalas if he doesn’t go pro) in the era of the transfer portal.
While Virginia Tech goes home earlier than anticipated, Wake Forest looks forward to a showdown against Clemson at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
