The Hokies showed their toughness and resolve on Saturday in their 65-63 come-from-behind win at Notre Dame.
Virginia Tech trailed by as many as 14 points and was in an 11-point hole with 12 minutes to go, but it buckled down on both ends and pulled out its third straight road victory.
“We, for lack of a better explanation, just turned it on,” Tech head coach Mike Young said after the win. “Defended at a high level. Thought Brandon Rechsteiner did a great job on [Markus] Burton, who’s a terrific player. [Braeden] Shrewsberry is very, very good; I don’t think he scored today.
“Just good basketball. The ball is getting into good places, we had a couple of timely shots — Ben Burnham’s [three] in front of our bench. Tobi Lawal was fabulous with his effort plays and his activity on the glass, couple of blocked shots. Just good basketball.”
The Hokies (11-13, 6-7 ACC) have taken three of their last four contests and have their first three-game winning streak on the road since February 2022. On the season, they’re 4-3 in opposing venues — a huge leap after a combined 4-20 mark the last two years.
What’s more, Tech is a perfect 5-0 in one-possession games this season, all of which have come since the calendar flipped to 2025. It beat Miami and NC State at home and Cal, Virginia and now Notre Dame on the road.
What is it about this team in close contests?
“That toughness, that belief and resilience,” Burnham said. “I think winning close games is hard to do and usually the tougher team comes out on top.”
On Saturday in Purcell Pavilion, the Hokies had a sluggish 2-of-15 start, which included a six-minute scoring drought, and fell into an 18-4 hole through the first 10 minutes. A Jaydon Young layup finally stopped the bleeding, and six quick points — two from Tyler Johnson and four from Jaden Schutt — pulled them back within six.
Johnson knocked down two crucial 3-pointers in the first half — for comparison, the rest of the team was 0-of-13 — and the second one made it a one-point game with 2:41 remaining.
However, the Irish (10-13, 4-8) let Burton take over. The point guard, who entered the day averaging 20.5 points per game, dropped 14 in the first half on 5-of-7 shooting. His long 2-point shot with six seconds left in the period gave Notre Dame a 33-26 lead at intermission.
To that point, Tech had allowed the Irish to shoot a 50 percent clip (14-of-28) and was outrebounded 20-12.
Yet, things changed in the second half. The game didn’t immediately swing the Hokies’ way, but they had a defensive uptick out of the locker room. Notre Dame missed its first five shots, with its only offense coming at the free throw line. At the under-12 media timeout, it was 3-of-8 but a perfect 6-of-6 from the stripe and led 46-35.
Then the tide gradually turned as Lawal and Tech came to life. He only had four points and three rebounds in the first half but exploded for 11 and seven in the second, finishing with 15 and 10 — his fifth double-double of the season. Most importantly, he helped the team attack the rim. He scored four quick points out of the under-12 before Schutt nailed his lone trey of the day, trimming the deficit to five, 48-43, with 10 minutes remaining.
Burton, who suffered a cut above his eye around the 13-minute mark and went to the locker room, returned to the floor at that point. Still, Tech kept him in check as he only scored twice the rest of the way. In the entire second half, he was 3-of-11.
The Hokies also shut out Shrewsberry, Burton’s backcourt mate and the team’s third-leading scorer at 14.3 points per game. He was 0-of-8 on the day, and combined with Burton’s quiet second half, the Irish didn’t really have anyone to turn to in the closing moments.
“Burton is the juice,” Rechsteiner said. “He’s one of the top guards in the country so it’s tough to guard him, it takes team defense. … Down the stretch, we just all came together to play team defense; it’s not just one guy.”
Tech complemented its solid defense with improved offense. Rechsteiner ran the show for the final 17:35 after Ben Hammond picked up his fourth personal foul and played well.
His triple with 6:27 left was huge, and after Burton responded with his final bucket of the game, the Hokies’ rebounding took over. Though they were outrebounded by six, they had eight second-half offensive boards, including two in a row that swung the pendulum for good.
Burnham slammed home a missed trey from Rechsteiner with 3:53 to play, which cut the deficit to one, and Lawal grabbed Burnham’s missed triple on the next possession and laid it back up to give Tech a 55-54 lead — its first since it was 2-0. The visitors were plus-two on the glass in the second half.
“That’s just the toughness I was talking about on the road, which is such a big deal,” Burnham said. “Those offensive boards, it’s not about skill or anything; it’s just going and not accepting a box out.”
It was all Hokies from there. Burnham hit a crucial corner three that gave them a four-point cushion before Rechsteiner closed out the game from the stripe by making seven of his eight foul shots. Notre Dame had no answer.
“I thought he was terrific,” Young said of Rechsteiner. “Probably the player of the game for us. I was going back with Ben [Hammond] at seven, six [minutes left]. We’re in the under-eight media and I thought to myself, ‘Brandon Rechsteiner is playing too well to take him out of the game on both ends.’
“He’s handled the ball well, he’s guarded Burton very well and I stuck with him and certainly paid dividends with his stellar play on both ends on the floor.”
Tech only shot 39 percent and was hampered by a poor 6-of-31 (19%) mark from distance, but it was 16-of-25 (64%) on 2-point attempts. Moreover, after the terrible 2-of-15 start, it was 20-of-41 (49%) the rest of the way.
“They’re going to hang in there,” Young said of his players. “We’ve got a team that is scoring the ball well, and that has certainly been a real uptick in that area here in the last couple weeks. Confident players. Schutt didn’t have his best day today, but made a huge shot off an out-of-bounds play. Ben Burnham can really shoot it. …
“I’m never concerned about scoring enough points to win. Can we defend at a high level? Can we go on the road again and find a way to win that game? And we certainly did just that.”
It was a gutsy road victory from the Hokies, who have an open date this week before hosting Virginia on Saturday (2 p.m. ET, CW). It’s their first opportunity to sweep the Cavaliers since 2015-16, and a win would make them .500 in league play at 7-7.
Box Score: Virginia Tech 65, Notre Dame 63