Beginning their first ACC West Coast trip on Wednesday night, the Virginia Tech men’s basketball team put together as good of a first half as veteran coach Mike Young could have requested. Playing without freshman point guard Ben Hammond due to an injury, the Hokies played tough defense, shot the ball well, and entered halftime with a 30-25 lead.
However, in the second half, what has become a common theme with Virginia Tech this year is that the defense was not as good, they struggled offensively and faltered down the stretch in a 70-59 loss to Stanford. It’s too bad that they were not able to come close enough to repeat their first-half performance in the second half as the win was there to be had. What happened down the stretch?
Mike Young explains second-half struggles on the road in 2024-25
To Virginia Tech’s credit, after disappointing non-conference results that saw them finish with a losing record, the Hokies have been competitive in their first four ACC games. They lost at home by five points to Pittsburgh in December and then hung tough with Duke on the road on New Year’s Eve. Yes, they were blown out in the second half and then were outscored by 16 points by the Cardinal Wednesday night. Why did that happen?
“There’s got to be a greater level of toughness and a greater level of urgency,” Young said. “The team that plays the hardest typically gets fouled more, the team that plays hardest typically rebounds more and that has got to get better. We’ve been on the road now at Duke and in here. Let’s go to Cal on Saturday and put some things together and win.”
It didn’t help against Stanford that Virginia Tech was missing Hammond, but that wasn’t going to change the results of rebounding and not having a greater level of toughness. That has to come from all five players on the floor and hopefully, that can turn around on Saturday night at California.