On Thursday, the Hokies unveiled their 2010-2011 Virginia Tech Men’s Basketball Schedule. Overall, the quality of opponents this year far exceeds that of last season, especially on the non-conference side. The Hokies will play host to a top five team in Purdue, will travel to face another top five team in Kansas State, and will top it all off with a tournament in California where Tech could play Oklahoma State and potentially Stanford or UNLV in the championship game.
Last season, Tech was left out of the big dance primarily because they didn’t have enough quality wins over tournament level competition. Sure the win over UNC was nice but UNC was honestly a terrible team last year. You could say the same about the rest of Tech’s conference and non-conference wins. This year that will change, especially if Tech can knock off one of those teams mentioned in the first paragraph of this article.
VT vs Boise State Tickets | VT Football Season Tickets | VT Gameday Store
VT Golf Store| Gameday Housing| VT Nike Store
For a closer look, let’s break this schedule down starting with the non-conference side of things.
Non-Conference Schedule
Tech’s biggest non-conference win last season came in a 103-94 thriller against Seton Hall down in Cancun. Obviously it was a big win from a Hokie point of view (Delaney didn’t play) but it didn’t impress the “Selection Committee.” Just by scrolling through the list to the right, you can tell that bulking up the out-of-conference schedule was a major point of emphasis for Coach Greenberg and his staff.
The opening game against Campbell should be an easy win but that fieldtrip out to Manhattan will be a tough game. Kansas State did lose Denis Clemente after last year but they have enough stockpiled talent to be a real national championship contender. A win here could catapult the Hokies into uncharted waters early on this season.
The tournament out in California could really benefit the Hokies especially if they make it into the championship game. Cal State Northridge shouldn’t give the Hokies too much of a problem but whoever Tech plays in round two could. Oklahoma State is a talented team on the same tier as the Hokies from a prestige perspective. Both teams will want to win that. Same goes for DePaul who recently hired Clemson's Oliver Purnell.
The Hokies won’t receive much of a rest after they come home, as the Purdue Boilermakers will be waiting for them in Blacksburg. Obviously, this is the must win game of the year. If Tech can beat Purdue, it will not only give them a quality win against a national title contender but it will be enough to impress the selection committee even if say the Hokies fall against Kansas State and Oklahoma State previously.
The rest of the schedule is fairly winnable with Mississippi State, St Bonaventure, and possibly Mount St. Mary’s being the unknowns. I have a feeling that the Miss State game could be similar to Tech’s Cancun matchup last year.
Overall, this is not only an exciting schedule but one that gives Tech the opportunity to take that next step towards being an elite basketball program. I will give kudos for Greenberg and all the hard work he put into this to make it happen.
Conference Schedule
In an interesting twist, the Hokies start off conference play on December 5th, at home against UVA. However, Tech goes over 35 days until they play another conference game so whoever wins that first one will likely see their name atop the ACC for about a month.
Obviously, you can see the full ACC schedule to the right but to break this down for you, we play UVA, Georgia Tech, Boston College, Maryland, and Wake Forest twice this season while playing UNC (away), Duke (home), Clemson (away), Florida State (home), NC State (away), and Miami (home) all just one time in 2010.
Of the teams Tech plays twice, only Wake Forest and Maryland are huge concerns. Boston College returns just about everybody so that could be a tricky matchup but honestly in college basketball it just depends on which team shows up for which games. Tech does luck out and avoids having to travel to Duke this year but will have to play in the Dean dome against a young UNC squad. Honestly, that probably plays into VT’s hands.
Final Thoughts
Tech’s schedule is juiced and should provide for some fireworks this winter, especially with the amount of talent on this team. Find a way to get 10 wins in conference and beat one of the highly ranked out of conference foes and Tech will be dancing in March as a fairly high seed. If you’re a Tech basketball fan, get ready because this has all the makings of a very memorable year.
Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed and never miss another! Or sign up to get exclusive VirginiaTechFan.com Sports Analysis delivered straight to your inbox!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
the Purdue game is certainly one that we really want to win, but calling it must win is going a bit far. Would a loss there hurt? Yes. Does this game make or break our season by itself? No. 1) No one game does that. 2) A win over KSU might actually look better (in KS, vs. @ home). 3) Even losing to both Purdue and KSU, we would still be in better shape than last year entering conference play if those are our only two losses. Etc…
That’s a good point. Still, it’s a home game against a top 5 opponent so a win there would really help our chances of making it into the tournament, especially if we go say 10-6 again in conference.