The saying is, you can tell what a college basketball coach thinks about his team based on the nonconference games he schedules.
Virginia Tech coach Mike Young is acknowledging with the schedule that he rolled out on Thursday that his 2024-2025 team is going to be a work-in-progress.
The 12-game nonconference schedule has as many teams that finished 300+ in the NET as it does that were in the Top 100.
Which is fair, for a program that lost practically everybody from last season, either to graduation or to the transfer portal.
The marquee games on the 2024-2025 nonconference slate are Penn State (16-17, NET: 85) and St. Joseph’s (21-14, NET: 93).
The Hokies will face Michigan (8-24, NET: 130) in the Fort Myers Tip-Off on Nov. 25, then get either South Carolina (26-8, NET: 56), Xavier (16-18, NET: 64) or St. Joseph’s (21-14, NET: 93) in either the championship or consolation round on Nov. 27.
The ACC/SEC Challenge game is Vanderbilt (9-23, NET: 202), which will be led by first-year coach Mark Byington, who was hired away from JMU after leading the Dukes to a 32-4 record last season.
This is the kind of schedule that you use to get a feel for your squad, work out where guys fit in the rotation, and you hope that you get what you need in place ahead of the heart of the conference schedule.
It’s not the kind of schedule that you put together thinking that it’s going to help you at tournament selection time.
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Chris Graham
