Photo Credit: Liam Sment
Scheduling for the 2020-21 college basketball season has been thrown into all sorts of fits due to the pandemic unsurprisingly. Previously, Virginia Tech was not expected to participate in one of the many early season tournaments, but the Hokies will now take part in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off event at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, likely to open their 2020-21 season.
Sources: South Florida will replace Minnesota in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off at Mohegan Sun.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) October 23, 2020
Event will now be in "showcase form".
Matchups:
USF: Rhode Island, Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech: USF, Temple
Temple: Rhode Island, Virginia Tech
Rhode Island: USF, Temple
The Hokies will be joined in the four-team field by Rhode Island of the Atlantic 10 and a pair of AAC teams in Temple and South Florida. The NCAA gave the event a waiver to allow two teams from the same conference to participate in the same event.
This will not be a normal tournament with the teams slated to play two games in a round robin-like format with the Hokies reportedly facing Temple and USF. Even with this different format, this event still gives Tech a great opportunity to face quality competition in non-conference play and potentially pick up a pair of neutral site victories that could be a big boost to their resume.
Tech's non-conference schedule is still unclear beyond this though it wouldn't be surprising to see the Hokies in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge this season, especially with every major conference embracing playing non-conference games.
Virginia Tech's non-conference schedule is coming together with a chance to play a pair of quality opponents from the AAC being a part of that this season.