Lani White and the Hokies were neck-and-neck with the Yellow Jackets for 30 minutes but couldn't slow them down in the fourth in the 72-57 loss. (Andrew Hancock/ACC)

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The eighth-seeded Hokies dropped their second-round game in the 2025 ACC Tournament on Thursday to ninth-seeded Georgia Tech 72-57, putting their NCAA Tournament hopes in doubt.

Year 1 of the Megan Duffy era has been a smashing success in many ways for Virginia Tech (18-12), who earned a single bye in Greensboro after a 9-9 ACC campaign. But it was just a tad off on several occasions, particularly late in the year, which set up essentially a must-win contest against the Yellow Jackets (22-9) to keep hopes of dancing alive.

The ball was in their court, but in a game that was knotted up at 32 at halftime, the Hokies were overpowered in the fourth quarter and watched it slip away. Georgia Tech had a 17-0 run over five-plus minutes and Virginia Tech couldn’t muster a response until it was too late.

“Playing Georgia Tech, you have to be fueled by your defense and your rebounding because they’re super talented in different positions,” Hokies head coach Megan Duffy said afterward. “And unfortunately, even when our offense went a little cold, we still needed to rely on the defensive part, and we couldn’t quite do enough.”

After an early deficit — the Yellow Jackets had a seven-point lead midway through the second quarter — the Hokies appeared to hit their stride as they found Matilda Ekh in rhythm. The senior guard knocked down three 3-pointers in the period’s final four minutes — and was 4-of-4 in the first half — to get them back in the game.

Georgia Tech started the third quarter well with two baskets in the first two minutes, but Virginia Tech responded swiftly with a trey from Carys Baker — one of her two made field goals on the day — and a Rose Micheaux layup. Trailing 37-36, GT head coach Nell Fortner called timeout at the 6:30 mark to reset her team.

It worked. The Yellow Jackets ripped off a 6-0 run to take the lead for good, and after the Hokies pulled within two at the start of the final period — Lani White, Micheaux and Carleigh Wenzel scored quickly to put pressure on GT — they ran away it behind their 17-0 run. In all, they outscored VT 36-20 after that Fortner timeout.

It snowballed for Virginia Tech. After struggling to find an offensive groove in the third quarter — a 4-of-16 mark after an 8-of-16 clip in the second — it continued its woes in the fourth while Georgia Tech went on a tear.

Matilda Ekh and the Hokies struggled to contain Georgia Tech in the waning moments. (Jaylynn Nash/ACC)

“I think our biggest problem at that time was that we couldn’t get stops,” Ekh said. “You can go through droughts like that on offense where you don’t score the ball and miss a couple of shots, but our problem was that they were scoring at the same time. We couldn’t figure out a way to get a stop.”

The Hokies were just a smidge off in terms of their rotations and how they wanted to guard things and the Yellow Jackets made them pay in a variety of ways. Kara Dunn knocked down two triples while Dani Carnegie hit one and Kayla Blackshear got a layup to fall, and in a flash Duffy was calling timeout as her team trailed by 15.

The barrage kept coming. VT couldn’t seem to find any momentum on either end, missing seven shots and turning it over twice as GT went up 67-48.

Micheaux (19 points) and Ekh (17) were the Hokies’ lone double-figure scorers and shot a combined 15-of-25 (60%) while the rest of team was 9-of-38 (24%), which included poor marks from Baker (2-of-7) and Wenzel (1-of-14).

“I think that all year when we’ve kind of struggled, we’ve let our offense dictate our defense,” Hokies guard Mackenzie Nelson said. “In good wins that we’ve had down the stretch this season, we let our defense dictate our offense, and that wasn’t the case this game. Shots weren’t falling, the offense didn’t come as easily for us and I think our defense really struggled because of that.”

It was a combination of little things, and the Hokies let their shooting woes impact their defense. They weren’t as on point as they were in other periods of the game and the Yellow Jackets, who boast two first team all-conference guards in Dunn and Tonie Morgan, along with the league’s sixth player of the year in Carnegie, made them pay. On top of that, even when they were able to get a stop, they allowed 15 offensive boards (and were outrebounded 46-32), forcing them to defend for extra possessions.

“They’re very talented at their guard positions, and when they move Dunn over to the four, it’s like four elite-level kids who can score,” said Duffy, mentioning she considered switching to zone to protect the paint. “I thought we messed up a couple times on our ball-screen defense and then a few times it was just one-on-one, man-to-man defense, you’ve got to figure it out. Tried to make a couple adjustments down the stretch and we weren’t quite sharp enough.

“What I mean by that is just trying to double a little bit when they went downhill, and a couple times when we did that, then we fouled, put them at the free throw line. Just the fluidity of some of those adjustments weren’t as good as they needed to be.”

Virginia Tech’s best stretch of play on the offensive end in the second half came in the final two minutes as Micheaux hit two jumpers and Ekh got a three down. Georgia Tech’s physicality and intensity were slightly bothersome, and it did a good job of guarding the Hokies’ actions and breaking up their flow.

Rose Micheaux and the Hokies experienced a major fourth-quarter scoring drought that changed the game. (Jaylynn Nash/ACC)

“Really proud of the defensive effort tonight,” Yellow Jackets head coach Nell Fortner said, praising her bunch’s toughness and discipline. “They just bore down really, really hard on the defensive end, and that was something that was just incredibly important to get this win. …

“You have to be willing to really be a physical defender and also be a smart defender. You have to know what the game plan was. You have to know the ways we were guarding their actions and execute it. We did that well today.”

The result was the Hokies’ first double-digit loss since Jan. 30 vs. then-No. 3 Notre Dame. Thursday’s defeat won’t be the deciding factor if they’re omitted from the NCAA Tournament when the bracket is revealed in 10 days, but it represented their final chance to make a statement to the selection committee.

They’ve got an OK résumé on a year where the bubble isn’t very strong, but they lack quality wins. Their Jan. 9 win in Atlanta over the Yellow Jackets is their only one that falls into Quadrant 1. Finishing .500 in a strong conference with wins over Louisville and Cal will account for something, but defeats at home to Virginia, Syracuse and Stanford and on the road at Boston College — the latter two of which came in overtime — sting.

As most coaches on the NCAA Tournament bubble do, Duffy made her case to the media after the game — “I think 100 percent we’re a tournament-worthy team,” she said. Things still have to shake out — keep an eye on the Big Ten and Ivy League, along with potential bid stealers — but it’s likely Virginia Tech will fall just short of making the Big Dance, which naturally makes people ask, “What if?”

“It’s disappointing for us because we needed this one,” Nelson said.

Indeed.

Box Score: Georgia Tech 72, Virginia Tech 57