Virginia Tech men’s basketball team receives extremely disappointing midseason rating

After each season in college sports, the transfer portal gets bigger and bigger. We see it in football and basketball. This spring, Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Mike Young had a spring season he won’t forget for a long time.

Shortly after his Hokies were eliminated in the second round by Ohio State in the NIT, things started to move quickly. Three players, Hunter Cattoor, Robbie Beran and Mekhi Long, were no longer eligible, but some players still have some eligibility left and decided to play it out elsewhere.

Point guard Sean Pedulla (Ole Miss), Tyler Nickel and MJ Collins (Vanderbilt), and Lynn Kidd (Miami) entered the transfer portal. Mylyjael Poteat entered the portal, but just a few days later he decommitted and announced he was returning to Virginia Tech for his senior season.

With all of those key players gone, Young and his staff had to scramble to complete their roster for the upcoming season. They succeeded. However, according to Tristan Freeman of Busting Brackets, the Hokies have lost a lot of rotation players and haven’t fielded a roster that he believes can replace those they lost.

Freeman graded every ACC school in men’s basketball this offseason, and Virginia Tech got a D-, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. To further complicate matters, as Freeman noted, there was the Jordan Ivy-Curry situation this offseason, where he committed to Young but then backed out, reopened his recruitment and landed at Central Florida. He would have been a key piece for the Hokies in 2024-25.

It will be tough for Young to make up for his loss of production next season, but if the Hokies want to be a sleeper in the ACC and dream of a playoff berth, they need some new players who can step up and perform on a daily basis. The incoming freshmen need to do the same.