Playing their regular season final on the road at Clemson, the Virginia Tech men's basketball team knew that they were facing a team with a lot on the line. The Hokies, however, were playing for seeding in the ACC Tournament next week. A win and they could end up in the No. 9 seed and get a bye on the first day.
While a bye then playing in the 8-9 game is less than ideal, it would have been a major feat for this Virginia Tech team after the sluggish start they had to the season. Any hopes they had at pulling off the major upset were dashed in the first half and dashed in an all-too-common way for the 2024-25 season. Turnovers.
Stop me if you've heard that before this year, the Hokies are struggling handling the ball. They had 14 first-half turnovers and only eight field goals against a stout Clemson defense. To compound matters, a field goal drought over the last 3:10 of the opening half led to a 35-20 Tigers halftime lead.
To Virginia Tech's credit, they battled in the second half, even if the final score doesn't indicate it. They fell behind by 18 points, but cut it down to 13, forced a Clemson timeout. However, turnovers, missed open looks and shots being forced up against the shot clock doomed the Hokies.
Brandon Rechsteiner led Virginia Tech with 11 points and Jaydon Young was the only other Hokie in double figures with 10 points. Clemson scored 25 points off of 23 Virginia Tech turnovers, but to Tech's credit, they battled right until the end against a very good team that is capable of a deep NCAA Tournament run this year.
Virginia Tech finishes the regular season at 13-18 overall and 8-12 in the ACC and will await their official pairing, date and time for the ACC Tournament, which should be final later Saturday night.