The 2025-26 college basketball season begins in less than a month. For the Virginia Tech men, they will host Charleston Southern on Nov. 3 at Cassell Coliseum in their season-opener. With a handful of portal subtractions and additions along with some incoming freshmen, it's setting up for a fun winter in Blacksburg.
Veteran coach Mike Young begins his seventh year at the helm of Virginia Tech, and there is some serious hype around the program because of the offseason they had. Incoming freshman Neoklis Avdalas will have a lot of eyes on him, while Tobi Lawal, Jaden Schutt, Tyler Johnson, and Ben Hammond are some players that Young was able to retain from last season's roster.
Some college basketball analysts are all-in on the Hokies this year, but one publication is not as high as Jon Rothstein at CBS Sports and Jeff Goodman from The Field of 68 are.
USA Today preseason men's basketball poll has Hokies finish in the bottom half of the ACC
USA Today released their ACC Preseason rankings and some projections for this upcoming season, and they have Virginia Tech finishing 11th out of 18 teams. That is somewhat surprising considering some of the changes that were made.
To no surprise, Duke was No. 1, followed by Louisville, NC State, North Carolina, Virginia, Miami, SMU, Notre Dame, Clemson, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, Florida State, California, Stanford, and Boston College.
Being an underdog is something that would be fine with Young and his team this season, but it's hard not to envision them being much better than they were last season. New additions aside, they retained some key players, and with a year under their belt with Young and his staff, it should pay dividends. They get things going with their non-conference slate next month before beginning the season with Virginia on New Year's Eve afternoon at home.