Virginia Tech men’s basketball will face Saint Joseph’s at The Palestra in Philadelphia on Saturday, Dec. 21, in the 2024 Holiday Hoopfest, the event announced Monday.
It’ll be Tech’s second-ever trip to the iconic venue. The first was in November 2009 when it played Temple and Delaware in the Philly Hoop Group Classic. The Palestra (8,722), nicknamed “the Cathedral of College Basketball,” opened in 1927 and is the oldest major college arena still in use. No arena has hosted more visiting teams, men’s basketball competitions or NCAA Tournament games.
“Playing Saint Joseph’s at The Palestra in December as part of Holiday Hoopfest is a tremendous opportunity for our team,” Tech head coach Mike Young said in the release. “It’s a historic venue with such great basketball tradition, and facing a quality opponent like St. Joe’s will be a great test for us. We’re excited for the challenge and look forward to competing in the cathedral of college basketball.”
It’ll mark the seventh all-time meeting between the former Atlantic 10 foes, a series split at three wins apiece. Tech and St. Joe’s last squared off in Brooklyn, N.Y., in December 2015, a 79-62 Hawks win in an ACC-Atlantic 10 doubleheader at the Barclays Center. The Hokies won the inaugural meeting in Blacksburg in January 1996.
St. Joe’s enters its sixth season under head coach Billy Lange and is coming off a 21-14 (9-9 A-10) campaign in which it made the NIT, where it lost to Seton Hall in the first round. The Hawks finished 93rd in the NET rankings and 99th in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings last season.
It’ll be a homecoming for Virginia Tech guard Hysier Miller, a Philadelphia native who transferred from Temple in April. The Neumann Goretti High school product averaged 15.9 points, 4.0 assists and 3.6 rebounds per game in 2023-24 for the Owls.
This game is another piece to the Hokies’ non-conference schedule, which is highlighted by a neutral-site clash with Penn State in Baltimore (Nov. 15), two games in the Fort Myers Tip-Off (Nov. 25-27) and the ACC/SEC Challenge vs. Vanderbilt (Dec. 4). Here’s a breakdown of the known 2024-25 slate:
