UVA Basketball alum Darion Atkins, 10 years ago, gave us an all-time quote about an upcoming game with Michigan State being a “dick-swinging contest.”
The quote from Tobi Lawal summing up the 2024-2025 Virginia Tech season is the new leader in the clubhouse.
“What did they have us in the preseason? Maybe 14th or 15th? They thought we were going to be ass. I mean, we were still ass, but we weren’t that bad. You know what I’m saying? We beat expectations,” Lawal said, now famously, after the Hokies’ season-ending 82-73 loss to Cal in the ACC Tournament earlier this week.
ICYMI
Lawal wasn’t ass – he averaged 12.4 points and 7.0 rebounds per game, shooting 55.9 percent from the floor and 37.1 percent from three, and he’s a matchup nightmare with a pogo-stick-like 49-inch vertical leap.
Not bad for a guy who transferred in from VCU, where he barely got run as a freshman under Mike Rhoades, averaging 5.5 minutes per game, which upped to 18.9 minutes per game as a sophomore under Ryan Odom.
With talk about Odom being the guy to get the job at Virginia, I’ve had my eyes on Lawal, whose freakish athleticism and production in his junior season is set to earn him a hefty payday on the NIL/transfer portal here in a few days.
We’ll have to see how much his love for playing for Tech coach Mike Young weighs against what he expects to command on the open market.
“When I was a freshman, they used to say, the details matter, every little thing matters. I was like, What are you talking about, Coach? I mean, I wasn’t playing. That’s probably why. The details really matter, especially in the way Coach Young coaches and the way he runs his offense,” Lawal said.
“You start to understand that every little thing matters – the gamesmanship, the setup before the play, the way you move your body, the way you act, the way you get open. Every little thing matters,” Lawal said.
Young, clearly, found the key to unleashing Lawal’s game.
“I had no idea that I was going to improve, coming from the A-10, because I did not do anything. I ain’t never done anything. Most of this stuff is very new to me. so it is getting me far. I am just trying to understand and process as quickly as possible,” Lawal said.
The talk down around Blacksburg is about Tech trying to find a way to give Young a bigger budget for recruiting and roster retention.
Whoever the next UVA coach is, and especially if it’s Odom, who has a history with Lawal, I’d make a play for the kid, because I think he’s still just scratching the surface of what he can be.
And to be clear, it ain’t ass.
Share
Chris Graham
