Sitting squarely on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament, the Virginia Tech men’s basketball team faces a huge opportunity for a Quad 1 victory on Saturday afternoon at Louisville. The 23rd-ranked Cardinals offer an opportunity to rack up a massive résumé-building win.
The game time was originally scheduled for 3:45 p.m. EST, but was bumped up 90 minutes early due to the impending weather and will now still tip off at 2:15 p.m. EST and remain on the CW Network. Virginia Tech picked up a big win late Wednesday night at Syracuse, 76-74, when they were able to do what they failed to do in their three ACC losses this season: they closed out the Orange. However, before tip-off against Louisville, head coach Mike Young and his team received some bad news in terms of the Cardinals’ lineup.
Louisville coach Pat Kelsey has been without star Mikel Brown Jr since Dec. 13, and the Cardinals have missed his presence. According to Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports, Brown Jr, who averages 16.3 points a game, will be back in the lineup against Virginia Tech. Just more bad luck for Young and his team.
However, one positive is that if Virginia Tech, which enters the game as a huge 13.5 underdog in Kentucky according to DraftKings, can pull off an upset, this would be a very good-looking win come Selection Sunday in March. At the beginning of the season, the Cardinals were considered Duke’s toughest competition in the conference, but Brown Jr’s injury put a dent in that.
As far as the Hokies go, building off their win at Syracuse is a must with Duke lurking on the schedule next weekend after Georgia Tech visits this week. The assignment was going to be difficult before it was announced that Brown Jr was going to be in the lineup, and now it’s even tougher.
