Buzz went through 5 straight years of upward progression: predictable Year 1 losing season, NIT year 2, consecutive NCAA first round exits, and finally the payoff with a Sweet 16 run, spending virtually the entire year ranked. Buzz leaves and leaves the cupboard bare. Mike Young comes in with little to work with and…upsets #3 Michigan State in Maui early in 2019, showing he’s got some moxie and in year two VT has a very solid NCAA season during a weird Covid year. Year three, with sky high expectations, VT is not so awesome early, but gets it to click late and wins the ACC Tournament, beating two very good UNC and Duke teams. That right there was 2014 - 2022 in hoops. Almost a decade of getting better, winning way more games than we lost, 5 NCAA tournament appearances, a Sweet 16, and an ACC Championship. To be honest, that’s about as good an 8 year run in hoops as a VT fan can possibly expect. And putting that success on a fanbase who were barely removed from perpetual Greenberg Bubble Failure mode was just the spark we needed to light our false hopes of being a basketball version of the football power Virginia Tech had created. Now, we have an overinflated sense of who we are as a basketball school. And now, we also are truly faced with our football program being banished from the Upper Crust of College Football. It’s a lot to take. So, when human beings are faced with more than they can comprehend, they whine. Much as they did shortly after being born when they couldn’t properly verbalize their desire for basic needs like food and warmth. We can’t properly verbalize our realization that VT Athletics having a chance of being among the Top Tier is over. “WAAAAAHHH!” ** Edited by hokieZ71 at 11/16/2024, 5:34:15 PM