2024-25 Hokie Hoops Statistical Notes: Volume 1

The Men's Team

The fifth year of CMYBall didn't go according to expectation, though if you had told me anytime between our entry into the ACC and well, now, that we'd go 10-10 in conference, I'd consider it a success. Through five years, Mike Young's squad has accrued more in-conference wins than any VT men's basketball coach not named Seth Greenberg, Charles Moir, or Chuck Noe, and his .484 in conference winning percentage trails only to Buzz Williams' .489, Charles Moir's .564, and Chuck Noe's .743. Call me crazy, but I do think the 1950s SoCon was not the modern ACC in terms of difficulty.

The sixth year begins in just one month and the non-conference slate is about as weak as possible. Using last year's final NET rankings, the Hokies will face 0 Q1 opponents, 3 Q2 opponents, and 1 Q3 opponent. Of all of Virginia Tech's non-conference opponents, only 1 potential opponent finished higher than the Hokies in the NET rankings.

This should be a very soft schedule to bring along a very new team.

Experience/Depth

The newness of this team is palpable. The Hokies are returning no starters and only 1 of their top 9 scorers. You would be hard-pressed to find a team that lost more of its previous year's production than this year's Virginia Tech Hokies.

However, Mike Young hit the transfer portal like the fist of an angry God and pulled in five transfers, to go along with three incoming freshmen.

Going inside out, we start of with 7-0 r-So Center Patrick Wessler, a slimmed down 6-9 PF Mylyjael Poteat, 6-8 Jr SF Tobi Lawal, 6-8 Fr PF Ryan Jones Jr, 6-8 GS SF Connor Serven, and 6-7 Sr SF Ben Burnham. That's six guys for 3 spots, with a lot of versatility and athleticism.

Guards also have gotten bigger, starting with 6-6 So SG Rodney Brown Jr, 6-5 r-So SG Jaden Schutt, 6-5 Fr SG Tyler Johnson, hell, even walk-on Fr SG Peter Carr is 6-5.

Other guards include 6-4 So Jaydon Young, 6-3 WO So Conner Venable, 6-1 Sr Hysier Miller, 6-1 So Brandon Rechsteiner, and 5-11 Fr Ben Hammond

Upcoming

The Hokies open with Delaware State (#305 NET). Returning top scorer GS Martaz Robinson (15.9 ppg), the Hornets are a team that are big, with three players listed at 6-10 or taller. I would expect the Hornets to come out in a 3 guard lineup, though I am not sure who their point guard will be, nor the other two players on the floor when tipoff arrives.

I said you would be hard-pressed to find a team with less returning talent than the Hokies, but here it is, in the shape of USC Upstate (303) having replaced all but one player on their roster, 5-10 So G CJ Rich, who has a total playing time of less than 10 minutes. All of their scoring is gone. 10 incoming transfers and three incoming freshmen make up the rest of the squad. I have no idea how to even begin to write about a team like this. They're not even tall, with only 1 player listed taller than 6-8.

#181 Winthrop comes to Cassell, returning 4 of their 5 top scorers. This is a team that loves small-ball with their top two returning scorers being 6-7 forwards. However, being a small team, they love to go inside, as opposed to trying to shoot from range, which is probably for the best as their lone 40%+ outside shooter is the only top scorer to leave. As a whole, they attempted fewer than 700 longballs, 55 fewer than the Hokies, with a full percentage point fewer going in.

Rounding out the frame is the lone Q2 matchup of this edition, #86 Penn State. Returning only one scorer in double figures from last year, the Nittany Lions are returning five of their seven top minute earners, so I expect them to be more or less a cohesive unit. Neither club should have an advantage in height.

Prediction

I expect the Hokies to win the first 3 games, easily, but I am unsure about Penn State. They're not a great squad, but then again, we weren't either. It's gonna be a close game, possibly even coming down to the final shot. Get ready for a 2 hour stomach ache. If I'm pessimistic, I shouldn't be upset if the Hokies go 3-1.

The Women's Team.

This was absolutely the most gut-wrenching off-season the Virginia Tech Hokies Women's Basketball team has ever faced. Gone is the most successful coach in Tech's history. Gone is the greatest player in Tech's history. Gone is the most exciting player in Tech's history. Gone, too, is the heir-apparent to the post, and what should have been an electrifying incoming freshman class. March was the cruelest month

Then came April.

The Hokies began with a proven hire in CMD, who in 5 years at Marquette, finished in the top 5 of the Big East every year, made the NCAA tournament 3 out of 4 years (2020 was canceled), taking Big East Coach of the Year that year, and that came off of two years at Miami (OH) coming in no worse than 4th in the conference, making the WNIT both times. She comes to Blacksburg with a career .700 winning percentage on a much harder schedule than Kenny Brooks' .734 at JMU.

Then came a flurry of reaffirmations, commits, and transfers, as the Hokies went from 1 total scholarship player to 11.

Immediately following the announcement of Duffy's hire, Wenzel, Micheaux, Ekh, and Suffren announced their intentions to return to Blacksburg. Then, Hazelton reaffirmed her commitment. Two weeks of silence then surpassed, then the roster filled out. April 21, Leila Wells became the first new commit. April 29, Kayl Peterson announced she was going to follow Duffy to Blacksburg. April 30, Lani White announced her transfer to Tech from Utah, followed the next day by 6-5 C Ramiya White who had originally committed to Kentucky.

While this is a young team, there is certainly a favorable enough schedule to develop the very young team (8 of 11 are r-So or younger). The NCAA has announced they will be using the quadrant model for the NET rankings. In the non-conference schedule only one game (game 2) is against a Q1 opponent and maybe one (game 8) will be against a Q2 opponent. Every non-conference home game will be against a Q4 team, and the one true road game (game 9) would be against a Q3 team. Note: All of those Q ratings are based on last year's final rankings. I don't see any reason why the Hokies can't make it through the non-conference schedule with two or fewer losses. They could conceivably have 10 non-conference wins, against 11 opponents whose average NET ranking is 193.8 and the median difficulty is #196 Campbell. The Hokies probably have the largest delta of any team (348), with the highest ranking opponent being #4 and the lowest being #352; ironically, these are the first two games of the season. This year, there are an even 360 teams.

Now that level of difficulty ramps up considerably when we get into conference play, where the average NET ranking is 51.5, while the median is 61.5 and the delta is 156.

Experience/Depth

Year 1 of CMDBall begins with 2 Seniors, 1 transfer Junior, one redshirt Sophomore, two Sophomores, one redshirt Freshman, and four Freshmen. Two years ago, the only player on this roster was redshirting Freshman Carleigh Wenzel. Transfers make up the three upperclassmen. While those 5 Freshmen have never played a minute of Hokies basketball.

Starting down low, the only experienced player in the paint is Rose Micheaux. The 6-2 post played 23 games for the Hokies last season, following 60 games for Minnesota before her transfer. She should be in the 5 spot, which was rumored to be her better position. If she can get back to her Minnesota scoring and rebounding ways, where she was the 5, it should help the transition from Kitley to White and Hazelton.

Speaking of whom, White comes in as the tallest player on the roster, at 6-5, while Hazelton is 6-4. This is certainly a taller depth than most. Giving the younger players half a season to develop should allow for a deep rotation.

The Hokies wings are where the bulk of the experience lies. Starting with Senior Tilly Ekh, the 6-0 wing who leads the Hokies in returning scoring at 10.4 ppg, also has 92 career games (90 starts) under her belt

Follow that with 6-2 Sophomore Carys Baker, who put up 3.4 per game on 11.7 mpg as the second to last option off the bench.

Transferring in from Utah, 5-11 Jr Lani White comes in having played 57 games, also averaging about 3 ppg with 10 mpg as a bench player, not getting much time behind Kennedy McQueen, Jenna Johnson, Matyson Wilke and Ines Vieria

6-0 Kayl Petersen looks to round out the wing spot. Rated 4* by HoopGurlz, the incoming freshman possesses a very high ceiling.

At Point, we are likely to see r-Sophomore Carleigh Wenzel (6-0). In one year of competition, she played all 33 games last year, as primary backup point guard. In that capacity, she was a capable backup. Now it's time to see if she has the control of the floor.

Her primary backup should be 5-8 Sophomore Samyha Suffren, the least utilized player last year, having played less than half the year and even then, only 7 minutes per game. However, she has shown the ability to score, putting up 9 against Duke.

Next we have the guard depth. Look away. The Hokies have 0 experience as all that remain are r-Freshman Mackenzie Nelson (5-8) and 5-9 Freshman Leila Wells.

Upcoming

There are a few similarities with the Hokies and their first slate of opponents.

CMDBall Year One begins with a UNC Wilmington (#352 in NET rankings in 2023-24) squad coming off a dreadful year, finishing dead last in the CAA with a 5-25 record. However, they have added some firepower through the portal in the form of 6-4 Forward Alexandra Zelaya, formerly of UNC, former Belmont guard Kate Hollifield (cousin of Hokies Dax and Jack), former Richmond guard Torin Rogers, and former Monmouth guard Jania Hall. I don't want to be mean, but this was an exceptionally poor rebounding and ball-protection team, pulling down only 34.7 rpgs and an ATO of 9:5:19

Then the Hokies head down to Charlotte for a rematch with Iowa (#4). The Hawkeyes are expected to be good, though they have lost a great deal of their production from last year (3 of top 5 scorers, 2 of top 4 rebounders) but they do return an awful lot of talent and brought in a very good recruiting class. Expect to see 6-4 Addison O'Grady and 6-2 Hannah Stuelke down low, with Sydney Affolter, Kylie Feuerbach, and Taylor McCabe on the perimeter. It will be interesting to see how quickly Iowa meshes without Clark and Martin running the show the last two seasons, not to mention breaking in a brand new coach, just like the Hokies.

The Hokies will then return to Blacksburg to take on UNC Asheville (#335). Coming off of an 11 win season in which the Bulldogs averaged fewer than 60 ppg, they have some height in the post, but return only 1 scorer who averaged double figures, like the Hokies.

Coppin State (#263) then comes to town, returning three of their top 5 scorers from the previous 12-18 campaign, including MEAC Defensive Player of the Year 6-2 Forward Laila Lawrence, who is battle-tested, having put up a double-double on Angel Reese last season.

Prediction

Despite the woes of replacing a once in a generational talent in Liz Kitley, an All-American if she was 3 inches taller in Georgia Amoore, a defensive beast in Cayla King, and an admittedly talented head coach in Kenny Brooks, I don't see this four game stretch having a different result.

The Hokies should have no problem hammering UNC Wilmington, UNC Asheville, and Coppin State. I don't believe the Hokies will have the firepower this early in the season to challenge a March Madness favorite in Iowa.

What I will be looking for is who will fill out the starting rotation and who will be the key figures off of the bench. Coach Duffy should be able to go to the bench early and often in the three wins, and with no pressure to win against Iowa, we might see some creativity on the court, roster-wise.

3-1 is where I expect the Hokies to be after this first set of games play out.