Year 2 of Megan Duffy at Virginia Tech is just three weeks away from beginning. After coming up short of reaching the NCAA Tournament as the first team out, the Hokies are looking to make sure they get inside the field of 68 this year.
Duffy got some key retention along with some key players from the portal to commitment. Factor in some promising freshmen, and it's easy to see why there is a lot of excitement around the program for 2025-26. On Tuesday, two preseason polls were released, and they paint a difficult picture for Virginia Tech.
Virginia Tech women's basketball picked to finish in bottom half of the ACC
The ACC released its preseason poll, and Virginia Tech was picked to finish 10th out of the 18 teams this year in what is expected to be a loaded conference once again. Here is the order of predicted finish, with first-place votes in parentheses,
- 1. Duke (40)
- 2. North Carolina State (25)
- 3. North Carolina (1)
- 4. Louisville (2)
- 5. Notre Dame (2)
- 6. Stanford
- 7. Virginia
- 8. Miami
- 9. Florida State
- 10. Virginia Tech
- 11. Clemson
- 12. California
- 13. Syracuse
- 14. SMU
- 15. Georgia Tech
- 16. Pittsburgh
- 17. Boston College
- 18. Wake Forest
Virginia Tech did not have any players named to the Preseason All-ACC Team or the Preseason All-Freshman Team. Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo was voted the Preseason Player of the Year.
To compound how difficult the ACC is this year, five teams were ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll that was released on Tuesday. Duke was seventh, followed by NC State (ninth), North Carolina (11th), Notre Dame (15th), and Louisville (20th). One potential non-conference opponent on the Hokies' schedule was ranked, Vanderbilt, which came in 19th. The Hokies could potentially match up with the Commodores in the second round of the Paradise Jam Thanksgiving weekend. Virginia Tech plays BYU in its opener, while Vanderbilt plays Oregon State in the first round.