If you’ve ever played sports, you’ve been told that if you get knocked down, the best thing you can do is get up, shake it off, and get back on the horse that threw you and ride again.
Finally, Virginia Tech’s women’s basketball program is getting close to doing that.
Today is the ACC Tipoff event where all the men’s and women’s programs come together, speak to the press, and talk about how they see the season shaping up. And of all the programs, no one is probably more anxious to get back on the floor than the Lady Hokies.
Just about every team that doesn’t win a championship ends their season with a little disappointment. But for Virginia Tech, that’s kind of like comparing a thunderstorm to a Cat 5 hurricane when talking about the Hokies’ final days of last season.
Coming off the previous season where the team made it to the Final Four, hopes were even higher in March. But then face of the franchise Liz Kitley went down with a knee injury, followed soon by Kenny Brooks leaving to go to Kentucky and taking several players with him.
It was about as crushing a change in fortunes for a sports team as I can remember.
No one took it well, and it was the sporting fan’s equivalent of panic in the streets. Who are we going to get to replace our coach? Who are we going to get to replace the departed players? Is it over? Are we back to being an also ran in the sport? And why isn’t anything being done about this RIGHT NOW?
But in came Megan Duffy as head coach, and if there was ever the right coach for the right situation, she was it. Since being hired she has hired the right assistants, she has said all the right things, and she has attracted the right talent. Any expectation that she would come in, click her fingers and produce a Liz Kitley and a Georgia Amoore a week after she got here was crazy talk. But she’s replaced some of the holes left by those departures, and for 2025, she already has three 4-star players committed.
You get a feeling that Hokie fans are going to come out in droves this season not only to show their support for the new coaching staff coach, but to also show “he who will not be named” that he left a lot of people who loved him and the staff behind, and they’re going to show what he is now missing and be just fine without him. If it sounds like what an ex-spouse would do after a divorce, well, it kind of is.
All I know is six months ago, things were pretty bleak. Women’s basketball took a brutal shot across the middle and for a few moments stayed down.
But they got up. They’re smiling. And they’ve been itching to get back out there, take another hit to wipe off the rust, and show the world women’s basketball at Virginia Tech is more than just a few individuals. It’s a program that will continue succeed year after year.
Today starts the journey to prove that.
