After being left out of the 68-team NCAA Tournament field in Megan Duffy's first season at the helm of the Virginia Tech women's basketball team last year, the Hokies found themselves back in the field this season. After a regular season that saw them win 22 games and go 1-1 in the ACC Tournament, the Hokies drew a tough bracket in March Madness.
The writing was on the wall that the Hokies were likely going to be locked into an 8-9 game somewhere, which ended up being the case. Virginia Tech was the No. 9-seed in the Fort Worth Regional 3 and earned a trip to Austin, Texas, for a first-round matchup with No. 8-seed Oregon. They ended up digging themselves into a deep deficit and couldn't get out of it in a 70-60 loss.
Despite the loss, it was a successful season in Year 2 under Duffy and is a big step for the program going into the offseason.
First portal loss comes as no surprise
Last week, it was reported that sophomore Kayl Petersen was going to be the first Hokie to enter the Transfer Portal when it opens next week. It isn't surprising that she's going that route, as she didn't see as much playing time this year as she would have liked.
She originally committed to Duffy at Marquette and flipped when she was hired in Blacksburg. Virginia Tech is also losing Mel Daley and Kilah Freelon, who are both out of eligibility. We'll see if there are any more Transfer Portal losses coming in April.
Megan Duffy to be hard at work this offseason
Coaching now in college has become a year-to-year thing. That's because of the Transfer Portal and NIL, it makes it difficult to keep any players for a long period of time. While it was great for Duffy to make the postseason, she promised that things would be different next season.
“This is a different time in college basketball. You have no guarantees the next year what your roster is going to look like, who’s going to be back,'' said Duffy. "I think we’ve got the right people in the room in the locker room. We’ve got the right leaders.
“We’re going to take the positive things that happened and keep that momentum, and then — I’ll guarantee you something from me — I’m going to try everything I can to fix the things that didn’t go well.”
There is no doubt she will do everything possible to do that, it's just going to be a matter of how much money and resources she has. We'll see.