Photo Credit: Matt Gentry of the Roanoke Times via Virginia Tech Athletics
After Virginia Tech pulled out some close results this week, they moved up four spots in this week’s AP Poll to #16.
Virginia Tech jumps 4 spots to #16 after wins against Duke and Wake Forest last week. UVA is the only ACC team ranked ahead of the #Hokies for now https://t.co/lPQ4XZwDXU
— Tim Thomas (@TimThomasTLP) January 18, 2021
This past week started off with an impressive 74-67 victory over the once #19 ranked Duke Blue Devils in Cassell Coliseum. Then the Hokies were able to collect their first ACC road victory of the season by taking down the Wake Forest Demon Deacons 64-60 on Sunday night.
Tyrece Radford was the leading scorer in both matchups for the Hokies last week after his 18-point performance against the Blue Devils followed up by 20 points against the Demon Deacons.
It’s a pretty quiet showing for the ACC in this week’s AP Poll as only three teams are ranked in the Top 25 with the Virginia Cavaliers being the highest ranked at #13, the Hokies at the #16 position and the Clemson Tigers sitting at the #20 position.
The Louisville Cardinals and Duke were the only two programs to drop out of this week’s rankings after they suffered conference defeats. Those two plus Florida State landed in the receiving votes category.
Despite being the second-highest ranked team in the ACC, when it comes to the KenPom rankings, the Hokies are listed as the fifth-best within the conference. Virginia (#7), Florida State (#23), Duke (#25), and Louisville (#31) are all placed above the Hokies as of January 18th.
Coming up for the Hokies this week will be matchups against two of the northern-most ACC programs. Virginia Tech will take on the Boston College Eagles on Wednesday at Cassell Coliseum and then will travel up to Syracuse to take on the Orange at the Carrier Dome on Saturday.
