Following First-Half Jitters, Virginia Tech Men's Basketball Comfortably Handles Charleston Southern

The Hokies outscored Charleston Southern, 56-29, in the second half.

Virginia Tech Athletics

After a tenuous opening half, Virginia Tech men's basketball handled Charleston Southern, riding a 56-29 second-half advantage to a 80-50 season-opening triumph in Cassell Coliseum Monday evening.

dubs only to open the szn ✅ pic.twitter.com/UIcoHZKkeC

— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) November 4, 2025

"Credit to Charleston Southern," said Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young in the postgame media conference. Those kids were well prepared. Coach [Saah] Nimley does a good job. They beat us on some actions that we were not prepared for. And they ran it with great pace and they caught us on our heels a little bit and in some things, righted the ship in the second half.

"Amani Hansberry was outstanding. Carter [Brown, the student information director for men's basketball] just told me coming in, we had two players with double doubles, Amani and Tobi, for the first time since 2023. [Neoklis Avdalas'] nine assists and some timely shots across the board, but they made eight threes in the first half. That'll put you behind the eight-ball. Consequently, we come in up three"

The Hokies (1-0) thrived in the second half behind its frontcourt; both Amani Hansberry and Tobi Lawal posted double-doubles. After starting the contest 1-for-6 from three, Hansberry shifted his approach more inside, canning five of his next eight shots and ending the evening with 15 points alongside 12 rebounds. The instance was the first time since Nov. 6, 2023 that multiple Tech players tallied a double-double.

The Hokies were particularly adept at rebounding off the miss, outscoring Charleston Southern 25-8 on second-chance opportunities.

"We're just bigger," Young remarked.

Alongside Lawal and Hansberry, guard Jailen Bedford also tallied double-digit points, ending up with 13 points and five rebounds in his first regular-season contest with Virginia Tech.

The first half saw the Hokies exit with a narrow 42-38 advantage, the score roughly akin to some of their buy games against squads like Winthrop, USC Upstate and Delaware State last year. However, Tech quickly knuckled down in the second frame, delivering a standout defensive performance.

At one point, the Hokies limited to Charleston Southern to a six-plus-minute stretch without any made field goals, steamrolling on a 27-3 run that lifted the contest far out of reach. In the second half, the Buccaneers shot a drab 9-for-36 (25%), including a 3-for-16 (18.8%) mark from beyond the arc.

That steadiness carried over to the offensive side of the ball, as well. The Hokies distributed the ball for a total of 19 assists while committing just seven turnovers, including only two in the final 20 minutes of game action. The big turnaround? The team stopped going under dribble handoffs.

"Greater attention to detail," Young said. "Just a greater attention to playing the damn thing the way we want to play it. All right, if we went under a ball, under a handoff in the first half, they stopped behind it and nailed it. All right, that's what good players do. You can't do that. We didn't do it in the second half. We did one time and they made one. But they're nice young men. They're like little people. They don't always learn their lesson with that first whack on their backside. It takes them a little bit. We're going to get better with that."

Bedford echoed that though, saying that the team worked harder to communicate on switches to avoid the flare screens.

"Eventually going over the screen, just communicating much better in the second half, making those switches, making sure we go over the flares," Bedford said.

In the wake of Kevin Giltner's move to become Wofford's head whistle, Young remarked that Chester Frazier, who returned to the Hokies from West Virginia over, has taken over the offensive coaching duties and has a "great feel for it."

That's not to say things aren't a work-in-progress; Young remarked that the team has "got a long way to go." But there's positives alongside some potential concerns. One example: the Hokies shot 2-for-13 (15.4%) from deep in the first half, but upped its total to 7-for-15 (46.7%) in the second frame.

At the charity stripe, the Hokies hit 8-for-13 (61.5%) in half one, then produced a 11-for-14 (78.6%) line in half two. Though Avdalas, the highly regarded incoming recruit from Greece, struggled shot-wise, hitting 3-of-13 from the field and 1-for-6 from deep, he also tallied a game-high nine assists.

Looking forward, Virginia Tech hasn't been able to prep for Providence just yet, on account of there being no watchable game film from this current season — that is, until now. Providence vanquished Holy Cross, 89-79, to open its season.

Virginia Tech's next challenge is a neutral-site showdown against the Friars (1-0) on Saturday, Nov. 8 at 4 p.m. ET. The game will be available for viewing on Peacock.