Going into Saturday's ACC men's basketball game at Cassell Coliseum, something had to give. Two teams struggling through the 2024-25 season met when former Hokie Lynn Kidd and Miami visited Virginia Tech. Both teams are likely going to find themselves near the bottom of the conference basement when the season ends as both were looking for their first ACC win of the season.
In the end, only one team could emerge with a victory, and that was the Hokies. Despite the turnovers, scoring droughts and not being able to get stops in the second half didn't spell doom for Virginia Tech who improved to 6-8 overall and 1-2 in the ACC. Miami dropped to 4-10 and 0-3 in conference play.
Instant reaction from Virginia Tech's win over Miami
- In his return to Cassell Coliseum, Lynn Kidd had seven points and eight rebounds, He attempted to be the third player off of last season's team to come back to Blacksburg and win, joining MJ Collins and Tyler Nickel with Vanderbilt last month, but it wasn't meant to be.
- Poteat finished with a career-high 25 points going up against Kidd including the game-winning three-point play. The points inside were there all afternoon with Poteat and Tobi Lawal scoring 22 points. They combined to shoot 18-for-26 from the field.
- Not to be overlooked was a huge 3-pointer from Brandon Rechsteiner late in the second half. Miami led 74-69 with the shot clock winding down and Rechsteiner drilled a win trey off a tip pass from Jaden Schutt as the shot clock expired.
- Speaking of Schutt, he knocked down three 3-pointers and his shooting has been getting better and better as the season has gone along.
- Defensive stops late in games have been few and far between this season for the Hokies, but credit to Schutt for forcing a tough shot from Miami's Jalil Bethea down 85-83 with 11 seconds left to set up Poteat's three-point play.
- Nine different Hokies scored in the game. Jaydon Young is the only player who played who failed to score.
- It's rare to see two teams finish shooting over 50% for the game, but the Hurricanes finished 58.9% from the field and Virginia Tech 54.2%.
- Freshman point guard Ben Hammond is getting better and better and he had a nice pass to Poteat on the game-winning play. He finished with eight assists and in this day and age of the transfer portal, Virginia Tech has to do whatever they need to keep him in Blacksburg.
Up next for the Hokies is a trip out west to play Stanford on Wednesday night and California next Saturday night. Those are going to be two tough games against a pair of first-year ACC members.