Virginia Tech's Tobi Lawal Gears Up For End of Regular Season

Tobi Lawal is in the final week and a half of his last regular season in collegiate basketball. The 6-foot-8, 215-pound forward, from London, England, recently celebrated Senior Day with an 82-63 victory over Wake Forest.

Senior Day Dub‼️

🤝 @cmgleasing pic.twitter.com/9KIA992pZr
— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) February 21, 2026

“For me, it’s just any other game,” he said afterward. “The blessing was that my family was watching, but it’s just any other game.”

That balance — gratitude without distraction — defined both his afternoon and, in many ways, his career. Lawal has quietly averaged 11.9 points and 8.8 rebounds this season in 19 games; the forward missed nine games from late November to early January after suffering an ankle injury that required surgery.

On Saturday, Virginia Tech opened with purpose, sharing the ball and playing through contact. Six players scored in double figures, paced by Neoklis Avdalas and Lawal with 17 apiece. The Hokies turned the ball over only five times. The offensive rhythm was sharp, the ball rarely sticking. Lawal saw it as a reflection of what head coach Mike Young emphasizes daily.

“Move the ball,” he said. “That’s what Coach preaches all the time. Move the ball, and that’s what we did today.”

Lawal’s fingerprints were all over it, even beyond the stat sheet. He finished plays at the rim, sprinted the floor in transition and anchored a defensive game plan built around discipline.

“We were just trying to get them to catch every time, to make them feel uncomfortable,” Lawal said. “Just understanding the scout.”

There were imperfections — as is the case with every game — but the collective edge stood out. After back-to-back losses to Florida State and Miami, the Hokies resisted the urge to dwell.

“It’s always the same mindset,” Lawal said. “Don’t feel sorry for yourselves. We’ve got a job to do. They’re in our way, and we have to move them out of the way.”

That mentality is personal for Lawal. He shouldered responsibility for rebounding lapses in recent games.

“That starts with me,” he said.

Even when discussing teammates, the focus drifted back to accountability and aggression.

Asked about Avdalas’ effectiveness attacking pick-and-roll coverage, Lawal pointed to practice habits.

“That’s what I see from him every practice,” he said. “He just has to stay aggressive. When he’s aggressive, we’re much better as a team.”

The same praise flowed when the conversation turned to guard Tyler Johnson, who may return soon. Lawal’s face lit up.

“He’s a dog,” he said. “That’s my guy. He does everything. The energy, the defensive intensity, being able to get a stop. We don’t keep people on an island, but we can keep him on an island and he’ll be perfectly fine.”

Lawal rattled off Johnson’s impact — rebounding, shooting, sprinting to the corners and making the right play — as if ticking through a mental checklist of what winning requires.

That is where Lawal’s value often lies: in the connective tissue. He talks about collapsing a defense and kicking out, about sharing the workload so no one grows selfish. In his eyes, against Miami, execution slipped. Foul trouble limited him.

The honesty reflects a group aware of its ceiling. Lawal believes the Hokies can compete with anyone in the league — and in many games, they have. With four one-score losses against Wake Forest, Stanford, SMU and Miami, Virginia Tech stands in a position where it could have been 22-6, with an 11-4 record in league play.

Lawal and the Hokies square off with No. 16 North Carolina next on the road on Saturday, Feb. 28, at 8:30 p.m. ET (TV: ESPN2).