Home Virginia Tech hoops game with N.C. State off this weekend: Is this it for 2021?
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Virginia Tech hoops game with N.C. State off this weekend: Is this it for 2021?

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keve aluma virginia tech
Keve Aluma had 14 points and 12 rebounds for Virginia Tech in the Hokies’ 62-51 win at Notre Dame. Photo courtesy Atlantic Coast Conference.

Virginia Tech is done with its regular season, and now you have to start to wonder if the Hokies might be done for good in 2021.

The ACC announced today that Tech’s game at N.C. State scheduled for Saturday has been canceled due to quarantining and contact tracing within the Hokies program.

This after the game with Louisville that had been set for tonight was canceled earlier in the week.

Assuming the program is able to compete in the ACC Tournament next week, Tech would be locked in as a top four seed, meaning it wouldn’t have to play until Thursday.

And there is speculation heating up that the program might have to opt out of the trip to Greensboro to focus on being able to participate in the NCAA Tournament, but not so fast.

The two national polls have them in the Top 25, but Tech is 34th in the ESPN Basketball Power Index, 44th in Sagarin, 45th in the NET and KPI, 51st in the RPI.

That’s … good … in terms of resume.

Good, not great.

And then you’d have to factor in, this would be a team that would have played two games since Feb. 6, and if it skips the ACC Tournament, Tech would have been idle for more than three weeks heading into a potential first-round game on March 18.

The tournament selection committee likes to say that it awards bids to teams that it thinks are in a position to be able to compete for and win the NCAA championship.

Two games in six weeks, nothing for three weeks, still able to win six in a row?

I’m rooting for the program to get through this stretch and at least get a game in Greensboro next week.

Considering how close we are to the end of the pandemic, it would be just bad damn luck to fall casualty after the run that this team has had in Year 2 for Mike Young.

Story by Chris Graham

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