4 worst head coach hires in Virginia Tech basketball history

Virginia Tech will always be a football school, but Buzz Williams started to change that, and Mike Young has continued the most successful stretch of Hokies basketball in school history. These coaches made sure that wasn't a very high bar to clear.

By Josh Yourish | Mar 7, 2024, 8:56 AM EST

Virginia Tech Hokies head coach James Johnson / Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

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Frankie Allen. Frankie Allen. 3. . 1987-91. Record: 56-61. Frankie Allen. . player. 447

Before Frankie Allen took over the Virginia Tech basketball program at 41 years old, he was an assistant in Blacksburg for 11 years. Allen worked under Charles Moir who resigned from the program amid an NCAA probe that left the program on probation.

Like Stokes, Allen inherited a difficult situation, but the lemonade he made with life’s lemons, just wasn’t very good. In Year 1, the Hokies went 19-10 with a roster largely inherited from Moir. If he had the players, Allen was a capable coach, but Virginia Tech’s boosters became discontented by Allen’s lack of high-level recruiting.

Allen followed up his successful first year with three straight losing seasons before being asked to be reassigned within the athletic department. At least that’s the story that Virginia Tech told back in 1991.

Allen took the head coaching job at Tennessee State the next year and by 1993 had won the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament and qualified for the NCAA Tournament.

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