No. 14 Virginia Tech loses second-straight ACC ROad game in Durham

By Jack Brizendine

Editor in Chief

January 19, 2024

DURHAM, NC — All Tech head coach Kenny Brooks could do was throw up his hands in disbelief.

Turnovers, some inconsistent foul calls and an injury to his star point guard left him with no answers in No. 14 Virginia Tech’s (13-4, 4-2 ACC) 63-46 loss to Duke (12-5, 9-2) on Thursday night.

“They [Duke] got extremely physical,” Brooks said to reporters postgame. “If you’re allowed to play that way, then kudos to them. Just a physical game.”

After jumping out to a scathing 13-1 lead through the first four and a half minutes of the game and holding Duke scoreless from the field for the first seven and a half minutes, Tech started to fluster.

Holding on to a 26-21 lead entering the half, the Hokies fell on the wrong side of an 8-0 run to begin the third quarter, losing Georgia Amoore for the night in the process, as she exited the game following being elbowed in the head while diving for a loose ball.

Brooks didn’t have any updates on the injury in the postgame presser.

Amoore’s early exit forced Tech to play true freshman Samyha Suffren for extended minutes in the second half. Suffren scored nine of the Hokies second half points, giving them a sliver of hope down the stretch.

She played a season-high 17 minutes, all coming in the second half.

Tech’s lead evaporated just three and a half minutes into the second half, as Duke’s Ashlon Jackson knocked in a shot to give the Blue Devils a 27-26 advantage. The shot was a portion of Duke’s 31-5 run through the end of the second quarter into the final stages of the third.

Duke led by 10+ points for the entire fourth quarter to seal Tech’s second-straight ACC road loss. The loss marks the first time Tech’s losing back-to-back games since March 2022.

The Hokies currently have four losses on the season, one shy of their total lost games last season. But similar to last year’s Final Four squad, this year’s team earned its fourth loss in January in Durham. Last year, the Hokies didn’t lose another game until late March. And Brooks is hoping this game can be a turning point again for this year’s group.

“[We’ve] got a lot of basketball left. Obviously every game is different. When you run into a game like this, when that’s the complexion of the game, you have to learn how to adjust and that’s on me. I need to come up with an offense that we just put our head down and roll and run to the basket. And if that’s going to grow the game, then so be it. But there’s a lot of basketball left.

“We were here last year and the same thing happened. We’ll go back and we’ll prepare. You just have to adjust, with this league it’s so tough, especially to win on the road. You can’t allow a game like this to really try to discredit what you’ve done or who you are. Things can change from week to week, so we’ll get back at it. Very disappointed in the outcome but there’s a lot of basketball left for us to right the ship.”

With 12 ACC games between now and the ACC tournament, Brooks’ team will have plenty of opportunities to turn the season around.

That journey starts on Sunday when Tech will host Clemson (8-10, 1-5)  at noon (CW).