Rose Micheaux recorded just the second triple-double in Virginia Tech history on Saturday in the team’s 87-69 win over Elon.
“It means a lot,” Micheaux said afterward. “It just shows that really hard work and dedication, what it can get you, and just giving your all, what consistency shows, but then it also shows like I couldn’t get a triple-double if it wasn’t for my teammates and them hitting shots and me having confidence in them to hit the shot.”
The senior forward from Wayne, Mich., accomplished the feat 21 seconds into the fourth quarter of the Hokies’ (5-1) victory when she found Matilda Ekh on the wing for a 3-pointer, good for her 10th assist — a career-high. (She had never had more than three assists in a game in her four-year career.) Micheaux finished with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting along with 14 rebounds, six of which came on the offensive glass.
Micheaux is the second player in Hokies history with a triple-double in a game, joining Georgia Amoore, who had 24 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds in Tech’s 85-54 win over Nebraska on Dec. 1, 2022.
“We worked a lot on just playing off what they were giving us,” Micheaux said. “Like on offense, if there was a double or a skip pass was open, just holding our composure and being focused on what was going on and finding our teammates. That’s what we’ve been working on so I just had really good carry over. I know my teammates really have my back with that too.”
Prior to Nov. 16 vs. Coppin State, Micheaux had played in 26 games for Tech but never recorded a double-double. She’s done so twice in the last two games — a 19-point, 11-rebound game against the Eagles and a 16-point, 17-board outing vs. Rutgers — and had her third in a row on Saturday vs. Elon (3-2)... until she started racking up assists and did something even more impressive.
She realized the opportunity for a triple-double was there after she assisted Carleigh Wenzel’s 3-point shot with 7:37 to play in the third quarter, her sixth dime of the game.
“She was like, ‘I have six assists, I’m four assists away from a triple-double. You guys better make your shots,’” Ekh recalled.
“I’m like, ‘I got six. Look, y’all, I’m kicking it out. Please be open, please hit the shots, I’m kicking it out,” Micheaux said with a laugh.
After the ups and downs of last season where she averaged just 4.1 points and 3.4 rebounds per game, she’s up to 15.2 points and 9.6 rebounds through the first six games of 2024.
“We’re just confident in her,” Tech head coach Megan Duffy said of Micheaux. “We believe in her. Being that lone senior in the frontcourt, we need her to produce and perform, and even a little bit when was getting in a little bit of foul trouble, she was focused on, ‘Well, how do I get better at it? How do I not put myself in that position?’ And that’s being coachable.
“I’m just happy the way she just comes into work every day. It’s as simple as it sounds — when you approach every day with the same mentality, when you buy into your coaches, you try and be a good teammate, positive things start to come. Tonight it was the stat line, but she’s doing other things with the toughness of our team as well, which is very helpful.”
She was the catalyst against Elon, recording nine points, eight boards and four dimes in the first half to help Tech jump out to a 42-31 lead at intermission. The Hokies never trailed in the contest and led by double digits most of the way, but things tightened up right before the break.
After back-to-back layups from Micheaux put Tech up 32-19 at the 4:29 mark of the second quarter, the Phoenix used two 3-pointers — from Alyssa Ervin (10 points) and Raven Preston (14) — and a jumper from leading scorer Jayda Angel (20) to pull within five. Duffy called timeout with 1:57 to settle things down.
“I just thought we were being … tentative, and that led to a few turnovers,” Duffy said. “Some of the things we talked about in our prep we weren’t necessarily carrying over into the game, so just needed a little bit of momentum. I thought Mackie [Nelson] did a great job with that, Samyha [Suffren] with her defense, so just a little bit of bringing a couple people off the bench. I thought we missed a couple easy shots early, and if you make those, maybe it changes a little bit of the momentum.”
It worked. The Hokies ended the first half on a 6-0 run, capped off by Nelson’s layup right before the buzzer, and came out of the locker room with a pep in their step, scoring the first six points of the second half — three from Micheaux and three from Ekh — to push the lead back to 17.
Though it was a back-and-forth game from there — VT only outscored Elon 39-38 over the final 18 minutes — Tech had a comfortable lead and cruised to its fifth victory of the season.
Ekh joined Micheaux in double figures with 16 points while Nelson added a career-high 12 points and Carleigh Wenzel dropped 11, six of which came from the foul line.
Other players got involved too. Lani White played a pivotal role early for the Hokies, scoring five of their first nine points, and finished with seven. Carys Baker matched that with seven of her own while Suffren had six. True freshmen Leila Wells and Kayl Petersen had five (a career-high) and four, respectively.
Tech shot 46 percent from the field (31-of-67) while Elon hit a 42 percent clip (22-of-52). The Hokies had 15 total turnovers but just six of those came in the first half, and they were dominant on the glass with a 42-30 margin. They also posted 48 points in the paint.
If not for the 12-0 stretch with halftime sandwiched in between, Tech might’ve been in a close game.
“I would like our defense to improve, for sure,” Duffy said. “I thought we had some breakdowns based on what Elon was running and we’ve got to do a better job with that.”
The Hokies took care of business, though — a nice tune-up and building block ahead of the challenging stretch of games that are around the corner.
They leave Wednesday for the Fort Myers Tip-Off, where they’ll face Davidson Friday and then Belmont or Michigan Saturday. After that, it’s off to Athens, Ga., to face Georgia in the SEC/ACC Challenge the following Wednesday. Then they open ACC play at No. 14 Duke the following weekend.
“We have a great stretch coming up,” Duffy said, and the MTE tournaments are really fun over — we used to call it ‘Feast Week,’ but — Thanksgiving time where you get to leave town for a little bit, go down south and play different opponents at a neutral site. They’re always just really fun.
“… Coaches are going to get to work after today with the scouting, getting prepped. I think our team needs rest, I think they need to just chill out a little bit and rest their bodies and their minds so when we go into prep mode a little bit at the beginning of the week, they’ll be fresh, because when you play back-to-back nights, you’re going to need different people stepping up.”
Box Score: Virginia Tech 87, Elon 69
Thoughts from the #Hokies' 87-69 win over Elon, led by Rose Micheaux's triple-double: pic.twitter.com/jZKiLTf898
— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) November 23, 2024