The Hokies seemed down and out a handful of times in Wednesday night’s game against NC State, but they found a way to gut out a 79-76 win.
Virginia Tech (8-9, 3-3 ACC) trailed the Wolfpack (9-8, 2-4) by as many as 15 points, and it was a 12-point game with 6:38 remaining, but Tech closed the game on a 19-4 run, capped off by Ben Burnham stealing NC State’s last-ditch effort and tomahawking it home.
“It wasn’t very pretty, and our team sometimes isn’t very pretty,” Tech head coach Mike Young said, “but grit, toughness, determination, hustle allowed us to pull it back, and maybe the Wolfpack got a little tight going down the stretch in the Cassell. To get out of here with that one is certainly a feather in our cap.”
The Hokies played well early before the Pack got under their skin and disrupted their rhythm as halftime approached. It was a 23-5 run to end the half for the road team, which pressured Tech into one of its worst stretches of basketball this season. It was in a 45-34 hole at the break and had given the ball away 10 times, seven of which came in that awful stretch.
“It wasn’t as free-flowing and it was kind of stagnant, the ball was sticking,” Tech forward Tobi Lawal said of the first-half struggles. “It made it hard for us to get into our stuff because of [NC State’s] pressure, and then we make a dumb pass or we’ll get a dumb turnover, and you know they like to run, that’s how they get buckets. …
“We weren’t really following the game plan like we were supposed to. They were getting wide-open shots in transition; that’s what they want to do, and we didn’t shut their water off, and our offense was really stagnant.”
The group had quite the response, though, and did everything it could to scratch and claw its way back into the game. Jaydon Young, Patrick Wessler and Burnham had three-point plays with a dunk from Lawal sandwiched in between, but NC State continued to answer.
Even when Lawal and Jaden Schutt helped the Hokies rip off eight straight points to cut the deficit to six, 62-56, with 10:11 remaining, the Wolfpack pulled away, courtesy of a quick spurt from forward Ismael Diouf. It simply didn’t feel like Tech’s night for much of the evening.
Yet, the tables started to slowly turn with 5:42 left. Lawal scored five quick points — a put-back and a 3-pointer from the wing — and Young called timeout to refocus his team with 4:52 to go. And in a seven-point game, Tech finally started to string defensive possessions together — a steal from Lawal turned into a floater from Burnham on the other end and made it a five-point contest.
Then Schutt took over. Despite the Pack pushing the margin back to seven, a free throw from Rodney Brown Jr. cut it to six and Schutt got a jumper down with 3:04 remaining to make it 74-70.
The redshirt sophomore did not score in the Hokies’ two outings on the West Coast, finishing 0-of-4, but got back in the gym upon return and found his form again. And boy, did Tech need it.
“He’s a worker, man,” Lawal said of Schutt. “He keeps the same routine no matter what’s going on. I knew it wouldn’t affect his confidence. … He’s just a bucket.”
After Marcus Hill got downhill and got a layup to fall for NC State with 2:47 to play, Schutt came to life. He responded with a layup, and once his team forced a miss on the defensive end, he drilled a trey with 1:41 to play to cut it to 76-75 — the closest the game had been since it was tied at the 4:05 mark in the first half.
Schutt made the game-winning play, too. Tech forced a miss with 18 seconds remaining, grabbed the rebound in a scrum and sprinted down the floor. Schutt’s trey from the top of the key with five seconds left was off, but he followed his own miss, sprinted to it in front of Tech’s bench and, as he was grabbing it and trying to hoist it, was fouled with 2.3 seconds remaining.
“[It’s] like, ‘How bad do you want to win?’” Lawal said on Tech’s hustle plays, like Schutt’s, down the stretch. “You have to dig deep and find the strength. … I feel like we’re all learning to do that too, find ways to dig deep, and you have to win 50-50 balls if you want to win a game. You have to get the tough rebounds, the long rebounds, you’ve got to get the 50-50 balls, you’ve got to be in the right position.
“Those little things, people don’t think it matters, but it matters a lot because that can swing the whole game.”
It was the lifeline the Hokies needed. The foul was on the floor, but they were in the double bonus, meaning Schutt was awarded two free throws, which he calmly knocked down to put Tech up 77-76.
“It’s those things you kind of dream of, winning big games,” Schutt said.
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts drew up a play to go 94 feet in the timeout, but Burnham, guarding Wolfpack forward Ben Middlebrooks, read it like a book. He jumped the inbound pass, which was tipped by Lawal, and dunked it — the cherry on top for Tech.
“I’m kind of familiar with the play, what they were trying to get,” Burnham said. “... And then I read the inbounder’s eyes and he like gave the googly eyes to my man [Ben Middlebrooks], so I was like, ‘I’m just going to try to steal this.’”
It was an emphatic finish to a wild evening. The Hokies came together and made plays when needed. They bounced back from 10 first-half turnovers and only gave it away twice in the second half. Even when it seemed like the Wolfpack was going to run away with it, they stuck together — which started with their coach, who won his 100th game at Virginia Tech on Wednesday night.
“That’s just part of the character of our team,” Schutt said. “We’ve always got to keep fighting. It’s the nature of we can’t just walk in here and coast to a win; we’ve got to keep fighting and we’ve got to fight the full 40 minutes.
“It’s one of those things where we’ve lost nine games, and losing is not fun; it’s bad vibes, and we all want to win — it’s why we came here. We’ve just got to keep believing in coach, and when we’re looking at coach and he thinks we can win, we can win.”
This team probably won’t compete in the postseason past the ACC Tournament — an event it’s currently on good pace to make. At 3-3, Tech is currently in a four-way tie for seventh place in the 18-team conference. NC State, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Georgia Tech, Cal, Boston College, Virginia and Miami all trail Tech — the latter four of whom have three combined league wins.
Still, Young continues to squeeze every last drop out of his bunch, and the guys play their butts off for him in return. It’s also hard not to admire their resolve.
“I think I saw them grow up a little bit,” Young said of his team’s play down the stretch. “I think I’ve seen them grow up more and more here. We’re 17, 18 games in now. We’re not new to it, and to see them hanging in there together, our huddles were really good, our timeouts were really good and they all did something to help our team. …
“Certainly take nothing away from the Wolfpack, they’ve got a good outfit. We played a little bit harder down the stretch. Sometimes it’s that simple, like we had a little bit more on the line.”
As for the stats, Lawal led the Hokies with 22 points and a career-high 11 rebounds. He also finished with a plus-minus of 25 in 30 minutes. Schutt added a crucial 17 points while Ben Burnham posted 12.
Nine of the 10 players who saw time scored. Jaydon Young (eight points, four assists), Wessler (five points, four rebounds), Tyler Johnson (five points, six boards) and Brown Jr. (four points) all chipped in. Mylyjael Poteat and Brandon Rechsteiner, who played just 26 combined minutes, had three points apiece.
Mike Young also provided an update on Ben Hammond. Tech’s true freshman point guard, who is dealing with a foot injury, is expected to be back in uniform on Saturday vs. Wake Forest (2 p.m. ET). Though he didn’t have his left foot in a boot on Wednesday night, he was still on the sideline in sweats.
“Unless we have a setback tomorrow, he’ll be in uniform on Saturday,” Young said. “And I don’t expect him to play 35 minutes, but I do expect him to start. I’ve never taken a person out of the starting lineup because of an injury. I don’t do that. And he was playing very well when he went down, so he would be back in the starting lineup, and we’ll have to be careful with him.”
Box Score: Virginia Tech 79, NC State 76
Lot of thoughts from the #Hokies' 79-76 come-from-behind win over NC State: pic.twitter.com/iFOnCcKKA5
— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) January 16, 2025