Virginia Tech coach Mike Young facing an extremely vital offseason

Saturday night, the 2023-24 Virginia Tech men's basketball season came to an end in just about as a fitting way as possible. The Hokies lost, 83-71, on the road at Ohio State in the second round of the NIT Tournament in Columbus. As usual, struggling away from Blacksburg was an all-too-common theme this season.

Now that the Hokies plan for 2024-25 after a 19-15 season, Mike Young is facing a vital offseason in terms of roster construction for next season. Just about everything is on the table in terms of additions that are needed. In this day and age of college basketball, the best way to make immediate impact additions is through the transfer portal. After the loss to the Buckeyes, Young getting to work on his roster is going to take up a lot of his time over the next month.

"We’re based on getting to the NCAA Tournament. That’s the way it is. We’ve been to two. We’ve been to two NITs. The NIT isn’t good enough. That is not a slight on the NIT, but the job from this second forward is retooling, making those return better, and getting back to the NCAA Tournament."

- Mike Young after losing at Ohio State

Replacing Hunter Cattoor is not going to be easy as the program's all-time leading 3-point record holder with 322 and who finished with over 1,500 career points, departs after five good years . There are also questions surrounding the rest of the roster, mainly in decisions to be made over the next month about the transfer portal. It would not be surprising to see some players enter the portal as nine players will be eligible to come back next season, but there are bound to be changes.

Young needs guards in the portal and he needs to get athletes. There were a lot of times this season when they were outworked by more athletic teams that had length. Ohio State bothered them with their length Saturday night. Sean Pedulla had to spend the majority of the season handling the ball after Rodney Rice made the decision right before the season started to leave the program. I'm not saying he would have been the answer as injuries plagued his time in Blacksburg, but we'll never know.

Despite their struggles, this team somehow stayed in the NCAA Tournament conversation. They had wins over Sweet 16 teams Iowa State, and North Carolina State, and both of those teams could be joined on Sunday by Clemson. On the flip side, two losses to Miami and one at Notre Dame proved to be very costly. Losing at Florida State in the regular season and in the ACC Tournament in Washington were not good losses either. If Virginia Tech wins the games they should have, they would have likely been in the 68-team field.

Time will tell what players, if any, are going to enter the transfer portal and it wouldn't be surprising to see some names enter that might raise an eyebrow or two. Truth be told, the Hokies need a pretty decent overhaul of the roster going into 2024-25 if they want to make the NCAA Tournament. This could be considered the biggest offseason in Mike Young's tenure in Blacksburg.