Photo Credit: Liam Sment
Virginia Tech found out yesterday that they had a void on their schedule for Saturday night at Bubbleville as Temple had to cancel the game due to COVID issues with their program. That left the Hokies looking for a new game which they found in a top 5 team that's also from Philadelphia.
See y’all Saturday night 🤝 https://t.co/aJpQx1nmDh pic.twitter.com/vWDiMSZGmv
— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) November 27, 2020
Virginia Tech will play #3 Villanova Saturday night in the same 8pm timeslot with the game now slated for ESPNU after the VT-Temple game was previously planned for ESPNews.
This game comes after Villanova decided they wanted to try to get one more game in at Bubbleville following victories over Boston College and #18 Arizona State to win the Empire Classic. The Hokies opened their season with a 77-62 victory over Radford on Wednesday in Blacksburg before flying up to the Mohegan Sun.
Tech is 1-9 all-time against the Wildcats with the lone victory coming in Blacksburg in 2003 when the Hokies were still part of the Big East. The two teams have not played since the Hokies left the conference following the 2003-2004 season for the ACC.
This is a win-win situation for the Hokies as they get to test themselves against one of the best in the country early in the season with simply playing Villanova boosting their strength of schedule significantly. If they can pull off the upset, Tech will be in a great early position to make a serious run at making the NCAA Tournament in year 2 of the Mike Young era.
This may be a wild turn of events, but it would be surprising if this was the only crazy scheduling change this season.
