Competitiveness And Intensity Anchor A Promising New Campaign For Virginia Tech Men's Basketball

After Virginia Tech's 2024-25 campaign ended with a first-round exit in the ACC Tournament to 15th-seeded California, forward Tobi Lawal didn’t hesitate to share his candid thoughts on how the year unfolded.

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— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) September 23, 2025

"My team, I'm proud of how far we came," Lawal said after the tournament. "What did they have us in the preseason? Maybe 14th or 15th? They thought we were going to be ass. I mean, we were still ass but, you know, we weren't that bad. You know what I'm saying? We beat expectations.''

This season, though, the tone around Virginia Tech feels different. That label he alluded to last year has faded, replaced by a sense that this group has taken a significant step forward.

"I feel like we're very mature," Lawal said on Tuesday. "And we understand what we need to do and how we need to work. So, I feel like everyone's pretty mature."

After Lawal's quote from the ACC Tournament went viral online, he laughed it off on Tuesday, remarking that he "was actually asleep when that was happening." The mood around this team, however, is a marked shift from last year, when the Hokies went 13-19 and tallied their first losing season since the 2014-15 campaign. There's a renewed sense of intensity, improvement and competition in the locker room. That begins with two of the team's returnees: guards Ben Hammond and Tyler Johnson, both of whom Lawal thinks made a jump over the summer.

"They were still trying to understand," Lawal said Tuesday. "It goes by really quick, like it hits you like a storm, so you're not really sure what's going on. But now, I feel like they're swimming like that. They understand what's going on, like the game is slowing down, so it's easy for them to make reads. It's easier for them to control, control the offense the way they want to be."

Coach Mike Young echoed that sentiment during his press conference yesterday, remarking that his squad moves better. Johnson spotlighted improved competitiveness and a heightened sense of intensity, referencing one particular practice where one team was "just on one."

The headline acquisition over the offseason was Neoklis Avdalas, the first five-star recruit of any kind to arrive on campus since Dorian Finney-Smith all the way back in 2011. Young is high on the 19-year-old Greek phenom, remarking that his passing skills were the highlight of his game.

"Avdalas and his ability to see over things, that's the best part of his game, I think, is his passing," Young said. "He is an elite passer and a willing passer. If anything, through the 20 practices we've had with him, I've found myself encouraging him to shoot more than any other part of his game. He's defending well. He's very capable."

Opposite Hammond and Johnson is Delaware transfer Izaiah Pasha. Paired with UNLV transfer Jailen Bedford, who Young said was the team's best on-ball defender, and another returnee in Jaden Schutt, the backcourt poses six possible starting pieces right off the bat. Young has often stated in this past that for his team to be good, he wants to have two and a half point guards on his roster. This time, he feels he's got more.

"[Avdalas] is a playmaker," Young said. "He's also got a lot of point guard skill set in him. So, we've got Ben Hammond who's really playing well. Izaiah Pasha, transfer from Delaware who's playing good basketball, and Neo. I think I've got three. Not two and a half, three. And I think if that's the biggest problem I've got, I'm OK."

Then there's Amani Hansberry — in Lawal's words, a "Swiss-army knife." Hansberry followed associate head coach Chester Frazier from Morgantown, West Virginia; last season, Hansberry started in 24 contests and averaged 9.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

And then, of course, there's Lawal, who led the team in both points (12.4) and rebounds (7.0) a season ago. This year, the senior enters his final year of college ball. In the summer, Lawal declared for the 2025 NBA Draft, but maintained his eligibility. On May 27, he made it official that he would not forgo his final year of college and would instead return to Virginia Tech.

Lawal's junior year was promising but inconsistent; although Lawal paced the team in points per game, he failed to top double-digit points in his final four regular season contests. This season, his focus is on improving his versatility. On that note, versatility was a buzz word often used by players on Tuesday. So was the mantra of defense and rebounding.

"That's what we're trying to hang our hat on this year," Pasha said. "Everyone has been trying to get better in some way on the defensive end. I would say we're competing every day on a defensive end, like Coach Frazier is real big on [how] that's gonna be our thing. Toughness."

Virginia Tech has an exhibition on Saturday, Oct. 25 at 1 p.m. against Duquesne. It officially tips off its season against Charleston Southern on Monday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. ET. Both games will be in Cassell Coliseum.

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