Hokies forward Rose Micheaux was named ACC Player of the Week on Monday after propelling Virginia Tech to two wins over then-No. 13 Georgia Tech and Wake Forest.
The senior had a tremendous week with back-to-back 20-point outings. She also pulled down 21 boards between the two contests while making 19 of her 27 shots (70%) — including a 9-of-9 performance on Sunday.
Against the Yellow Jackets, she posted a season-high 20 points along with 12 rebounds. Though she had just four points on 2-of-5 shooting with two boards in the first half, she gave the Hokies a spark out of the locker room and made eight of her 13 shots for 16 points while hauling in 10 more rebounds. Micheaux was part of the first starting lineup in program history in which all five players scored 17-plus points, and the victory was the first against a top-25 team in the Megan Duffy era.
She followed that up with an impressive outing against the Demon Deacons. Micheaux was consistent, making all four of her first half field goals for nine points to go with five boards. Her presence was much-needed in the second half, too, because she made five of the Hokies' first six field goals out of the break and scored 13 of their first 16 points, which ran through the 7:11 mark of the fourth quarter. She was Tech's only option for a large stretch of the game — it went over 14 minutes without a bucket from someone not named Micheaux.
The Wayne, Mich., native finished the game 9-for-9 and added two free throws to reach 20 points while also corralling nine boards. She's the third player in Hokies history to have a perfect shooting performance on at least nine field goal attempts, joining Nicole Jones (Jan. 2, 1999, vs. Fordham) and Amy Byrne (Feb. 19, 1989, vs. Kentucky).
"Going 9-for-9, it's a really good feeling," Micheaux said after the win over Wake Forest. "But I would say it just came down to … preparation. I spent a lot of time working on understanding how they play defense, not just like with this team but teams in general, understanding how they play defense and knowing [what] my best go-to moves would be, and just working on it in practice really helped to have that outcome in the game. So it felt good to go 9-for-9, just felt good getting in the bag a little bit."
She's having a terrific senior season and is averaging 12.8 points and 8.6 rebounds per game. Though she had a smaller role last year when she averaged 4.1 points and 3.4 boards per game, she's regained her form from the 2022-23 season at Minnesota, where she was a All-Big Ten Honorable Mention selection after averaging 13.8 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.
Thursday and Sunday marked the best back-to-back games of her career since she combined for 55 points and 28 rebounds vs. then-No. 24 Illinois and at Penn State in January 2023.
Micheaux is the first Virginia Tech player not named Elizabeth Kitley or Georgia Amoore — who received the nod a combined 18 times over the last four seasons — to earn conference player of the week honors since Aisha Sheppard on Feb. 1, 2021.
The Hokies are back in action on Thursday night in Cassell Coliseum vs. in-state rival Virginia at 6 p.m. ET (ACCNX) before hosting Louisville — who received votes in Monday's AP Poll — on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET (ACCN). The program is also retiring Kitley's jersey that afternoon.