After the eight teams for the first Women's Cayman Islands Classic was released earlier this year, the matchups were officially revealed today and were a little underwhelming to say the least
Ballin’ at the beach 😎🌴🏀
— Virginia Tech Women's Basketball (@HokiesWBB) August 22, 2023
Our matchups for @CaymanClassic ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/nJxqcrFPuP
Virginia Tech will open on November 24th with a 5pm game against 2023 WNIT championship Kansas followed by taking on Tulane at 11am on November 25th. This is in an eight-team event field that also includes the likes of LSU, UCONN, and UCLA plus Virginia and Niagara.
Kansas is a decent opponent, but for the Hokies to not get at least one game against either UCONN or UCLA is absurd.
Yes, a matchup with LSU was basically ruled out once VT-LSU was set for the ACC-SEC Challenge, but there's no reason why VT shouldn't be facing at least one of UCONN or UCLA. If anything, tournament organizers could have set two true pods with VT and LSU rotating games against UCONN and UCLA to create four premium games.
Instead, these four schools will only play one game featuring at least two with UCONN facing UCLA on November 24th after the Hokies take on the Jayhawks.
Kansas is still a solid game for the Hokies especially given the upward trajectory of the Jayhawks program. That should also be a solid boost for Tech's non-conferende strength of schedule while Tulane feels like a get out of town wrapup game.
Overall though, this feels like a missed opportunity for a couple premium games for the Hokies. It's even more absurd given the fact that VT just went to the Final Four and a VT-UCONN game would be bigger than UCLA-UCONN.
