DALLAS — Despite a heartbreaking loss to LSU in the Final Four, the Hokies held their heads high, not wanting to let a disappointing ending overshadow what was a dream season.
In their minds, they’ll remember the 2022-23 season at Virginia Tech for special reasons.
The program accomplished many firsts this year: 31 wins, an ACC championship, a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and appearances in the Elite Eight and Final Four. Tech sold out Cassell Coliseum for the first time since 1999 when it hosted the first and second rounds of the Big Dance.
Yet the most impressive part was the camaraderie and how tightly knit of a group the Hokies were from October to April.
“This is the best year of basketball that I’ve ever had in my life,” Tech head coach Kenny Brooks said after the team’s defeat in Dallas. “It’s because I get to coach these young ladies, and I’m so happy and proud. … I love the way they respect anybody they don’t know when they come across them. I’ll take that every time. No sacrifices. No sacrifices to get anywhere, and that’s who we are.
“I’m the proudest coach in the country. Regardless of if I didn’t get the actual prize, the fact that they love me as much as they do, that’s all that matters.”
Georgia Amoore and Elizabeth Kitley made it known when they sat with the media in Charlotte at the ACC Tipoff in October that their goal was to win the ACC championship. They did.
They also made it known that their NCAA tournament goal was to make the Sweet 16. And they went above and beyond that, advancing to the school’s first Final Four.
Even when they were the No. 1 seed in their NCAA tournament regional, the Hokies were viewed as underdogs. And they rebounded every time they slipped up, whether it was at Clemson, Miami or Duke, on their way to writing their own storybook ending.
The team’s run was unprecedented. It was the third time Virginia Tech had ever competed in a NCAA tournament semifinal, joining men’s and women’s soccer in 2007 and 2013, respectively. Had the Hokies won, they would’ve been the second Tech team to make the national championship game, joining the Michael Vick-led 1999 football team.
These Hokies didn’t reach that milestone, even though they were 10 minutes away. But that doesn’t mean the season was a disappointment. In many ways, they overachieved. They were picked second in the league and were the No. 3 seed heading into an ACC Tournament they dominated.
Kitley became the ninth player in conference history to become a two-time ACC Player of the Year. She and Amoore, the most outstanding player in the ACC tournament and the Seattle 3 Regional, were named All-Americans.
The Hokies did all of that with a short rotation, going just six or seven deep, and only two full-time assistant coaches instead of the usual three.
“Coming here, I got exactly what I wanted out of it,” said Tech guard Kayana Traylor, who transferred from Purdue in 2021. “An ACC championship, a Final Four, and then most importantly, just being around people who welcomed me and loved me from the day that I got here. … These past few years have been the best of my life.”
It took Virginia Tech seven years to reach a point where it’s viewed as a championship contender on a national level — and a backslide doesn't seem imminent.
Actually, expect the exact opposite. Though Taylor Soule, D’asia Gregg and Traylor have all exhausted their eligibility, Kitley and King announced in the last 24 hours that they’re coming back for one more year, joining Amoore to give the Hokies a strong foundation with three returning starters.
The Aussie admitted she wanted to get back to the Final Four immediately after her season ended. Brooks joked he’ll have to rein her in.
“There’s definitely another level to her,” Brooks said of Amoore, “and I promise you, as soon as we get back, when I say it’s OK for her, we’ll start working out again because she’ll probably want to do it as soon as we get back.”
Sure, Tech has some work to do in the transfer portal, but Brooks and his staff have excelled there in the past. Gregg, Traylor and Soule are some of the more recent success stories from the portal; Taylor Emery, Taja Cole and Lydia Rivers were some of the first.
As King put it afterwards, Virginia Tech is back on the map. It’s a transfer destination, Brooks explained. “It gives us credibility. It puts us up there with a lot of programs that have been here before,” he said.
Who wouldn’t want to play alongside a core of great people and even better basketball players a year removed from the greatest team in school history?
Despite the returning trio of Kitley, King and Amoore, Tech’s 2023-24 roster is inexperienced. Seven of the team’s 10 scholarship players will be in their first two years of college come the fall.
But Brooks’ most recent recruiting haul is his best high school class yet in Blacksburg. Four top-100 freshmen will join the fray this summer. In the six recruiting classes between 2017 and 2023, the Hokies had one top-100 prospect each season. Two of those — Aisha Sheppard and Kitley — went on to have historic careers. Carleigh Wenzel, the highest-rated recruit in the 2022 class, redshirted so there’s more space between her and Amoore, who can play for Tech through 2025.
The incoming class? A good blend of players big and small with Carys Baker (No. 58 in ESPN’s top 100, 6-1, F), Mackenzie Nelson (No. 65, 5-8, G), Samyha Suffren (No. 69, 5-8, G) and Clara Strack (No. 95, 6-4, C).
This campaign was historic for Brooks and Virginia Tech. And though it’s disappointing that Soule, Traylor and Gregg will never don the maroon and orange again, the future has a chance to be even brighter. The Hokies aren’t going anywhere, and now they know what it takes to get back to the highest level.
“We’ll get right back at it and start working again because this has been a marvelous experience,” Brooks said. “Everything my girls got to experience will be memories for a lifetime, and it was wonderful for me to sit back and watch them experience it. We’ll continue to work hard to try to get back here.”