Hokies Take Down Louisville For First ACC Championship
By Carter Hill
Editor-in-Chief
March 5, 2023
Kenny Brooks has slowly, methodically built up Virginia Tech women's basketball. Now, the Hokies are ACC tournament champions. (Virginia Tech Athletics)
GREENSBORO, N.C. - Prior to Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks taking over as the Hokies’ head man just days following the conclusion of the 2015-16 campaign, Tech had sustained a collection of disappointment, dismay and mediocrity, at best, over the past 10 calendar years.
Flash forward seven seasons later, and the heralded Hokies’ head man has since taken Tech to three consecutive NCAA Tournaments, six straight postseason berths and last but not least, a coveted first-ever ACC tournament title.
And with Tech’s (27-4, 14-4 ACC) 75-67 victory over Louisville (23-11, 12-6) on Sunday, the Hokies accomplished just that, winning their third game in as many days to take down the Cardinals inside the Greensboro Coliseum earlier this afternoon.
“I’m so proud,” Brooks said postgame. “The resiliency that these kids showed throughout the year, the support that we got from Hokie Nation all year long. I knew when these kids came and they committed to us, I knew eventually that we were going to be playing for different things, and they proved me right.
“We said we’d be here. We said we would be here, and we never wavered. It didn’t matter who we were playing, and we proved that we were one of the elite teams in the country. I’m so excited.”
“Our team just wanted it so bad, and we knew we were going to win it from the start,” said star point guard and the tournament’s Most Valuable Player Georgia Amoore. “We were all saying we were going to win it, and we all just had to believe and give every single ounce of effort.”
The Hokies were paced by a game-high 25 points from Amoore in 40 minutes on the floor, and used a solid 20 points from two-time ACC Player of the Year Elizabeth Kitley to help lead the way for the Hokies offensively.
Tech shot a notable 44% (22-of-50) from the field in the eight-point triumph, and although the Hokies went just 6-of-20 (30%) from three-point range, the maroon and orange made 25-of-27 (90.5%) of their shots from the charity stripe, and held Louisville to 37.3% (25-of-67) over the course of the contest.
“Normally you can talk about this or that, [that] somebody stepped up … but they all did something very special,” Brooks said. “These kids, they’re on a string. They’re connected on both ends of the floor. We’re not just an offensive team, we’re a defensive team, and defense wins championships.”
That it does.
Tech also kept Louisville star guard Hailey Van Lith in check throughout the duration of the afternoon, and limited the Cardinals’ leading-scorer to just 12 points and 1-of-5 (20%) from beyond the arc.
“We felt like we have four kids that could do a really good job on her,” Brooks said. “She’s a prolific scorer. They [Louisville] go through her. She’s going to get her attempts. We wanted to just make it difficult for her.
“I thought we mixed it up. We started Kayana Traylor on her and KT is fast, getting over screens. And then we went to a situation where Cayla King was guarding her, and her length bothered her. … I don’t think she really got comfortable with all the looks that she got, and we wanted to do that by design.”
The Hokies additionally narrowly outrebounded the Cardinals, 35-34, dished out 11 assists and restricted Louisville to just three makes from downtown in the first three periods of play.
Tech also saw a well-balanced scoring affair from its starting five. Boston College transfer Taylor Soule added 13 points on the afternoon for the maroon and orange, while the Hokies got nine points out of Traylor, and saw both King and D’asia Gregg put up four points on the offensive end for Virginia Tech.
The Hokies controlled the pace, too. With the game knotted up at 14 midway through the first quarter, Tech surged out to a 7-0 run to finish the frame. Brooks’ team never trailed the rest of the way, and never truly felt threatened by a dangerous Cardinal team.
Sure, in the end, the day concluded with the program’s first ACC championship in its long-winded history. But for many involved, there more so was a feeling of culmination as yet another brick was encrusted into the foundation of Tech women’s basketball.
“[The championship] is so good for Virginia Tech and the women’s program,” Amoore said. “It’s so good for Coach Brooks. He’s my Coach of the Year. He always will be.
“He's done so much for us, so much for the team. Just look at the program. Like it's just on an upward trend, and I think it's really solidified what he's doing and it's solidified Virginia Tech as a legit contender. And I'm super proud of that because we deserve the respect.”
“We came in here, and I think my first year we were preseason No. 13 in the ACC,” Brooks said. “To build it, it took a lot. We had to build it from the ground up. We had to change the culture.
“It [the culture] isn’t for everyone. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s for everyone. But these kids, if you buy into it and what we're doing and believe in it, things like this can happen. These kids bought in, they understand it. Their legacy will long live at Virginia Tech.”