The Virginia Tech men’s basketball transfer Grant Basile said on Thursday that the Hokies “just got to put teams away.”
The trend of letting opponents hang around continued on Friday, but once again Tech did enough. The Hokies opened up a big lead on Penn State and then held on to beat the Nittany Lions on Friday, 61-59, in the semifinals of the Charleston Classic. The team will now play for the title on Sunday.
“We’re five games in and we needed a tooth sharpener, and Penn State was that team. They’re good. They’ve got a good club,” Tech coach Mike Young said.
As Tech Sideline’s David Cunningham pointed out after the game, the 61 points marked the first time Tech has won a game under Young while scoring under 62 points. The team was previously 0-18.
“To have those numbers a win I think is a really, really good sign for the Hokies moving forward,” Pry said.
Tech is 5-0 for the third time in four seasons under Mike Young.
In this one, Basile led the way with 17 points while Justyn Mutts recorded a double-double, getting 10 points to go with 12 rebounds. Darius Maddox added 11, and Sean Pedulla had 1 0 points of his own as the Hokies shot 44.8 percent from the field.
Usually a good shooting team from deep, Tech made just 3 of their 19 attempts from range while PSU was able to stay in the game by making 11 3-pointers.
Tech led by as many as 15 points in the first quarter, holding on despite Penn State pulling within two points on multiple occasions in the final minutes.
With the win, the Hokies will play in the championship game on Sunday against either Colorado State or the College of Charleston.
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