Six months ago, Virginia Tech women’s basketball fell one game short of playing in the national championship. The Hokies’ bid was taken by LSU, who went on to crush Iowa in the title game. Many at the time believed they would’ve had a decent shot to take down Caitlin Clark’s red-hot Hawkeyes, too.
In two weeks, everyone will get a chance to see how that matchup might’ve played out.
No. 8 Virginia Tech travels to Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 9 to face No. 3 Iowa in the Ally Tipoff game. It’s the first meeting between the two programs since 2011.
“I think it’s going to be tremendous for women’s basketball,” Tech head coach Kenny Brooks told reporters at the ACC Tipoff on Tuesday. “We’re very fortunate they chose us to be an opponent. Iowa is a team that I adore watching. They play a style, a brand of basketball that I love that I think we play. I think there’s two very similar styles and I think it's going to be really theater for a lot of people.
“When you have a Caitlin Clark and a Georgia Amoore on the floor at the same time [and] you throw a Liz Kitley in there, Cayla King — it’s going to be star studded and two teams that came close to winning a national championship last year.”
All eyes will be at the top of the key once the ball is tipped in the Spectrum Center. Amoore and Clark face off as two of the top 3-point shooting point guards in the country last year. Clark led the NCAA in threes per game last season with 3.7; Amoore was tied for second with 3.3 triples per game. Both guards led the country with 9.5 three-point attempts per game.
“Obviously, Caitlin has more length, but Georgia is so quick and explosive,” Kitley said. “Everyone knows about [Amoore’s] deadly stepback, so hopefully that’ll come out a few times.”
Despite the similarities in their games, the two star guards likely won’t be guarding each other for the majority of the night. Clark clocks in at 6-0, a whole six inches taller than the 5-6 Amoore. Tech could opt to go with the lengthier King, who’s been one of the Hokies top perimeter defenders since she arrived in Blacksburg.
Regardless of how the Hokies decide to defend Clark, she’ll take plenty of shots from behind the arc. She hocked up 50 attempts from three in Iowa’s final three games last season, including the national championship.
Success from range will be important for both squads in Charlotte. Virginia Tech averaged 7.8 threes per game last season and plans to focus its offense around the longball even more in 2024.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of offense, a lot of threes,” Amoore said about the matchup with Iowa. “We were a 3-point team last year. Well, we’ve even stepped that up this year.
“We have Matilda Ekh from Michigan State. She is phenomenal. She’s automatic. It’s insane. We even have someone like [Olivia] Summiel from Wake Forest who can pick and pop. We bring back Cayla, who’s incredible as well as [our] safety blanket. The team is very much looking forward to it. It’ll be a great game.”
Ekh is another threat from distance for Brooks to move around on offense. The Michigan State transfer shot 39% from three over her two seasons in East Lansing and led the Spartans in triples each year. Her addition gives Tech’s offense the ability to open up the floor and create more one-on-one opportunities for Kitley, allowing the Hokies to attack Iowa in different ways.
“This year, we have more people at the 3-point line [where] three is their first option,” Amoore said. “Now when Liz kicks it out, the first thought in me, Cayla and Matilda’s mind is three, so that places a strain on the defense and [they] can’t double as much and if they do, then it’s literally, for Matilda and Cayla, immediately three points.”
Spacing the floor and creating lanes for Amoore, King and Kitley to score should keep Tech’s offense flowing, allowing the Hokies to go blow-for-blow in what could be an offensive slugfest at the Spectrum Center.
If Brooks' team is able to leave Charlotte with a win against the No. 3 team in the country, it would signal that another historic year could be on the horizon.
“Credit [Tech] for scheduling [Iowa and LSU] because these are games that are very loseable when you look at two teams that made the national championship game,” ACC Network analyst Kelly Gramlich told Tech Sideline. “I think it says so much about this program because they’re getting to play in this Ally Tipoff, which is a massive neutral site event that maybe even two years ago they would not have been invited to, and they’ve definitely earned it.
“You’re going to learn a lot.”