The Hokies are dancing again, and they'll head to Austin, Texas, to face Oregon. (Virginia Tech athletics)

Players and coaches leapt out of their seats when Virginia Tech flashed across the screen during Selection Sunday in Lane Stadium’s University Club.

It was confirmation: The Hokies are back in the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s awesome,” Tech second-year head coach Megan Duffy said. “It’s always an expectation here to put a really good product out for our fans, our community, and for the tradition here. That was one of my things when I came here is I didn’t want it to drop. I wanted to keep the standard high, and I didn’t know how long that’s going to take, and I’m just so proud of the team that has been responsible for doing that.

“We’re trying to do this with great emotion and energy and positivity, and these women have worked extremely hard to get to this point. The next phase is we’ve got to get after it this week and get ready to go fight against Oregon.”

The Hokies are the No. 9 seed in the Fort Worth 3 regional, where Texas is the No. 1 seed, and will play No. 8 seed Oregon on Friday. That’s a 1:30 p.m. ET tip on ESPN2 in Austin, Texas. The second round will take place on Sunday.

In the first round, the Longhorns will get the winner of a play-in game between two No. 16 seeds: Missouri State and Stephen F. Austin. 

“I think that we had a disappointing year last year,” Tech guard Mackenzie Nelson said, “and I think that it just shows all the hard work we put in, the fight we had all season long, and we’re just happy to continue to play.”

The Hokies were the first team out of the 2025 field, which fueled them in the offseason, and they entered the year with a chip on their shoulder. That’s repeatedly shown up since November — expected given how much head coach Megan Duffy preaches ‘relentless growth.’

“When we went to ACC media day earlier in the season, we talked about having that chip on our shoulder,” Tech forward Carys Baker said. “I think we played with that all season long, and just seeing our name called was kind of a relief in a way, but also just like all the hard work we put into this season, and obviously the frustration with last season, but carrying it over into this season. It was just huge for us to see it, and obviously, we were really excited.”

The Hokies also answered the bell on numerous occasions, like when they traveled up to Syracuse in early January and hammered the Orange by 20 to right the ship after a two-game skid. That kickstarted a seven-game winning streak and set them on their path to a 23-9 (12-6 ACC) record.

“That’s a game that we always think back to, like, ‘We were able to do it, let’s do it again,’” Nelson said of the win in Upstate New York. “The practice before was not easy, but it was deserving, like we needed it. We needed a hard practice, we needed to get out of ourselves and find the Virginia Tech team we know we can be and that we ended up doing down the stretch.

“I think that we’ve had film sessions where we look back at that game and just the hustle, the rebounding, the confidence we played with, and it was an away game, so going out there, I think we’re bringing the same level of confidence and all of that to Texas.”

Now Tech gets a fresh start in the postseason against a team it’s only met once, which occurred in 1999. It drew the Ducks (22-12, 8-10 Big Ten), who have made seven of the last nine editions of the Big Dance.

They were outstanding from 2016-20 with Sabrina Ionescu leading the charge, reaching two Elite Eights, a Final Four and racking up a 118-26 (57-15) record. Kelly Graves is in his 12th season at the helm, owns a 265-135 (.663) mark in Eugene and is 647-294 (.685) overall.

“There’s something about when you haven’t played a team, there’s kind of a fresh start with it, as they’ll probably feel about us,” Duffy said. “Historically, their program has been very, very good, and Kelly does an amazing job with this team. It’s kind of weird to think they’re in the Big Ten now, so you kind of have to go back and say, ‘OK, who did they play?’ But we’re just grateful to have a chance to play a school like Oregon and be in Austin.”

The No. 24 team in the NET rankings, Oregon has a similar résumé to Tech but is slightly higher. It posted a 3-9 record in Quadrant 1 games, 3-2 in Q2, 4-1 in Q3 and 12-0 in Q4. For comparison, the Hokies (No. 40) were 3-6 in Quadrant 1, 4-2 in Q2, 5-1 in Q3 and 11-0 in Q4.

Should Tech get by the Ducks, it’ll likely have its hands full against Texas (31-3), the SEC Tournament champion. The Longhorns have won eight consecutive games, and their only losses came against LSU, South Carolina and Vanderbilt — all No. 1 or No. 2 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re going to look at it as the chip on our shoulder, underdog mentality, and see what we’re made of,” Duffy said.

The head coach believes her group was tested well throughout the season, though, by both non-conference and ACC competition. The league had nine teams make the NCAA Tournament, a new record.

“When we start to look at Oregon, we’ll look at who have we played that’s similar to them, whether that’s them offensively or defensively,” Duffy said. “We’ll try and correlate that to our players, like, ‘Hey, they might look like this team in our league or somebody we played in non-conference,’ just to find some commonality, and then they could be totally different than anybody we played.

“The goal of your entire schedule and your season is to play different teams that will prepare you for the NCAA Tournament. I’ve always been a big believer in that, whether that’s your ACC opponents and their style or how you put together your non-conference. We’ve changed a lot since non-conference, but hopefully we can share some commonalities from some point throughout the year to get us ready for Oregon.”

It’ll mark the Hokies’ second game of the year in the Lone Star State after they hammered SMU 79-42 two months ago in Dallas. It’s also an exciting draw for Carleigh Wenzel, a San Antonio native, and forward Kilah Freelon, who has family in Texas. They each had their own cheering sections against the Mustangs.

“We’ll definitely have fans between me and Kilah, so that’ll be nice,” Wenzel said. “Just having people there that support you as a whole and everything like that, but it’s not far travel, so that’s great too. But just excited to have another opportunity to show out. It’s going to be a great matchup with Oregon, so hopefully we can [make] a run.”

For the full NCAA Tournament bracket, click here.