By Harry Barsan

No. 25 Louisville will travel to Blacksburg to face the Virginia Tech Hokies in their final home game of the 2024-25 season.

Okay Hokies, just okay

Their offensive efficiency rating of 108.3 on Kenpom has them right at the 162nd spot, middle of the pack for college basketball as a whole but bad in high-major play. Their slow tempo pairs poorly with their mediocre offense, only netting them 69.1 points a night which ranks 291st.

The Hokies offense has a very mediocre 51.1% effective field goal rate, lifted up by their solid three-point efficiency and dropped down by their ineffectiveness on two-pointers.

Toibu Lawal leads the Hokies offense with his 12.9 points per game, but he has failed to crack double-digits in three of his last five games. He’s also the team’s leading rebounder, coming away with 7.1 per game.

Their secondary scorer is Mylyjael Poteat with 9.6 PPG, who is currently questionable due to a knee injury. Poteat takes most of his shots right under the hoop, carrying a solid 53.8% FG% with him, having shot only a single three this year.

Jaden Schutt is their spot-up shooter. While he leads his team in made threes per game with two, his 35.6% accuracy is only fifth among Hokies shooting at least one triple a game.

Among those players are Ben Burnham and Ben Hammond, who are just two of their five rotational players averaging between five and seven PPG. Burnham played for Pat Kelsey at Charleston the previous three seasons.

The single best thing the Hokies offense does, and it is the single thing they do well, is shoot threes. Va Tech knocks down a fairly impressive 35.7% from deep. 34.5% of their points come from beyond the arc, so it’s definitely something the Cards will have to focus on. But they don’t hunt shots from that range, so it’s not the most pressing issue defensively.

It’s the effort that counts

Unfortunately for Va Tech, defense is much of the same story.

Kenpom has them at a slightly worse defensive efficiency rating of 168th in Division-1. And in spite of playing such a slow pace, the Hokies give up 71.7 points a game. This leaves them with a scoring margin of -2.6, ranking 282nd nationally with only four high-major programs below them.

While opponents struggle will generally get less possessions and shoot less shots due to the Hokie’s slower pace of play, they make the most of their opportunities. Opponents make 45.3% of their total shots, even after only getting 56 field goals per game.

Va Tech has the 11th lowest blocks per game and is bottom-40 in steals per game, further cementing why slowing the game down is so important for them.

Once again, Va Tech is ok at slowing down three-point shooters on defense, only allowing 32.8%.

Louisville won’t have to do too much to pull off a win, so long as they take Va Tech seriously, likely only needing about 70 points. The Hokies are 10-2 when scoring 70 points, and are 5-13 when giving up 70 points.

Once upon a time, the Cards held a 30-year winning streak against the Hokies. That streak was only snapped in Chris Mack’s final season as coach. Va Tech now rides a four-game winning streak over Louisville, their largest in series history.

A win would re-start the streak, put Louisville at 22-6 on the season and 15-2 in the ACC and clinch a double-bye for the Cards in the ACC tournament.

Tip-off is scheduled for Tuesday at 9 p.m. in the Cassell Coliseum.

Photo Courtesy // Mallory Peak, Louisville Athletics