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rawest00: The ACC tournament win was awesome, particularly considering UNC and Duke are both in the final 4, and Miami made it to the elite 8. Interesting that many indicated this was a "down year" in ACC hoops. The recruiting for this year is likely done with an excellent class. How do to view the impact of winning the tourney carrying over for the immediate future - both HS recruits and transfers?

Basketball recruiting happens on such a different timeline in comparison to what we're used to for football (though the gridiron is trending in the same direction), where the majority of relationships are so long-standing that on-court success won't be felt for a couple years... and it has to be fairly consistent to really make an impact on the recruiting trail. Any individual year can be seen as a bit of a flash in the pan by the time a player has three or four years to build relationships and evaluate success.

On the bright side, an individual basketball recruit is potentially much more impactful than a single football recruit (five-star quarterbacks aside, but even those end up being one of 11 guys on the field for half the snaps), so all it takes is one player to have his eyes opened from a successful season to really be program-changing. If there's a top 2023 player out there who's now more interested in VT because of the season, that's a win.

Your second point gets to the much more potentially impactful part: the transfer portal. Barring returns from Keve Aluma and/or Justyn Mutts - which head coach Mike Young raised as a possibility last week - the personnel-related items that can change the program's fortunes in the short term are going to revolve around players transferring from other programs. The typical kind that would be specifically helpful are the guys who played at a mid-major, blossomed into better players than recruiting services and coaches expected as high school prospects, and are looking to get to the level they've shown themselves capable of performing at. Since those are inherently guys who are thinking in the shorter term (since they have already started college and know more specifically what they're looking for - and most of them are looking for a chance to play on a bigger stage - and they have less eligibility remaining in the first place), a one-year run of success can be more impactful.

VT is monitoring the portal, but with only one foot in and one out until situations for potential sixth-year returns are resolved.

cmmcclu: Do you have any perspective on where VT stands competitively on NIL and how that might effect recruiting. Is the current staff making that a priority? How do these large NIL deals work? Who is giving the money? I thought NIL was for the players to make money off of sponsorships and jerseys and stuff. What are the players doing in return (other than playing for the school)?

The second part of your question sort of gets to the heart of the first: NIL deals allow players to capitalize on their Name, Image, and Likeness (legal rights that, until the past couple years, they'd essentially waived their authority over as a condition of playing in the NCAA) from third-party businesses. From a technical perspective, the schools aren't - and really, can't by-rule - be involved in these transactions directly. What they can do is work with their university's compliance departments to make a conducive atmosphere within the athletic department's sphere of influence. Having friendly relationships with the economic community in the city, region, and state are also helpful.

From those perspectives, Virginia Tech started a little bit behind. The previous coaching staff was more worried about getting the on-field work done to save their jobs (ultimately unsuccessfully) rather than having the energy to focus on items downstream. The current coaching staff is smart enough to prioritize NIL matters, but it takes time to build relationships - and build out staff to manage some of those relationships, whether with the players themselves to make sure they know what is and is not allowed under the NCAA and legal restrictions, or with university compliance, and even with the businesses that are going to be directly involved in the player transactions.

There are some movements around the state - including soon-to-be-announced initiatives from former Hokie athletes - to help VT take advantage of the NIL implications of being famous enough to take advantage of a student-athlete's own NIL. Whether that's expanding upon the offensive line's deal with the area Mission BBQ franchise, student-athletes being paid spokespersons for media companies, or more traditional advertising opportunities, VT won't be left behind. But it's largely out of the direct hands of the Athletic Department and coaching staff (by design).

BigHokieFan: Seems that during practices that all of the players are very engaged and are extremely competitive, CBP has said he expects attrition at some point (my guess is once they see how low they are on the depth chart). So my question is who do you see that peaces out? How will it impact overall locker room (moral, competition etc)

I always think it's unfair to look too closely at specific players when talking about future attrition (unless and until something other than playing time looks like a reason for departure - whether consistent injury, legal issues, a public statement, or something else). They're in control of their destiny up and until the time they decide to leave the program.

However, it's always important to start with position groups that are going to make for tough playing time, and particularly for spots that have upperclassmen who aren't seeing the field - with younger players already pushing through. Running back is one such example:

That's a crowded depth chart, with Holston and King returning as major contributors, Thomas coming back after a season in which he broke out midyear, and a couple intriguing underclassmen. We've already seen some attrition here with the announcement that Tahj Gary would enter the Transfer Portal, and it wouldn't surprise if others who haven't seen the field in two-plus years wanted to find better playing-time situations, as well.

Safety is another spot, not because of a super-crowded depth chart (though it's trending that way), but rather because you look at a guy like Ny'Quee Hawkins, who has tried to battle through several injuries in past years. If Hawkins can be fully healthy this year, that's outstanding! But if not, the coaching staff has done a good job back-filling the depth through the recruiting process, and the path of WR Jaden Payoute - who wanted to make sure he could live a normal life after his playing days, rather than continuing to have surgery after surgery on a damaged ankle to try to extend his college career - doesn't seem out of the question.

Of course, after a coaching change, there's potential for the depth chart to look completely different from expectations, and the relationships between players and a new staff may not be as strong to keep other guys on the fringes as invested as they may have been under the old guard. There are always surprises in these situations, and the 2022 Hokies will be no different.

DennisBane: The new football staff seems to have a lot going for it. We have seen and heard how they are going after in-state recruits, and can appreciate it. How long do we think it will be before we become better than average (8-10 wins plus) on a regular basis?

It shouldn't be long. In fact, I think the roster is set up for it already - and largely has been for the past 3-4 years, with mismanagement from the previous coaching staff being the only thing that really separated the Hokies from being pretty good. That mismanagement - whether at the quarterback position on the roster, or gameday decisions that cost VT as many as a dozen wins in the past four years or so - makes the feelings about the team much more negative than the reality.

With a better coaching staff installed (and yes, some of the difficulties of leading a team through a pandemic in the rearview mirror - issues that affected every team in the country, but a team like VT more so because the staff seemed to handle it uniquely poorly), there could be an immediate bump back into that range.

That said, this season may not get the full step toward an outstanding season right away. There are always transition costs, whether in personnel departures, guys not quite being ready for the system, or a coaching staff that's not quite prepared to handle the minutiae after dealing with big-picture program-building for eight months or so. If VT gets to seven or eight wins this year, that's solid, beyond that is overachieving.

In the subsequent seasons though, that should be the floor (or else the coaching change won't be considered the success it looks like it's fortunately poised to be).

rawest00: The football staff has been extremely busy with recruiting and spring practice. When can we expect to see dividends in securing 2023 recruits? Will the DMV impact be felt in 2023, or more likely 2024?

The first 2023 dividend may not be far off, and while I don't think that starts an avalanche, I do think that there will be a nice handful of recruiting wins by the time spring practice concludes. It won't likely be the guys who are going to end up as the class's highest-ranked, but a nice baseline for the class will be established, and with guys comfortably within the six-hour range the staff is prioritizing.

I also don't think there's too much of a hurry here. The staff is aware of where VT currently fits in the national pecking order, and there's some quiet confidence that the 2022 season provides access to a level of recruit that simply isn't interested in Virginia Tech at this time. Filling the class before having a chance to woo those four- or even five-star guys would be foolish.

In terms of recruiting success in the DC-Maryland-Virginia region, I think the staff's focus is to simply return to being a player there in 2023, after being all-too quiet in recent years. For 2023, that may not mean the five-star guys even give the Hokies an earnest look... but the staff wants players from the area, and will land some. If there's a three-star from Texas and a three-star from Baltimore-area powerhouse St. Frances Academy both interested in Virginia Tech, it makes much more sense to land the St. Frances kid, because you are building relationships for future top prospects to see Blacksburg as an option, in a way top kids from Texas almost never will have that interest (cc: previous coaching staff).

This class may well be more about laying groundwork for bigtime future success - with some major wins mixed in for the present - as it is about changing the landscape in the short-term.

ChargingRhino: What are the chances of landing Tyrell Ward from Dematha after decommitting from Xavier?

Ward's relationship with VT assistant Mike Jones - who was his high school coach at DeMatha before joining Mike Young in Blacksburg - will be difficult to discount. Those early relationships (see what I said above about hoops recruiting versus football) are important. Jones's in particular have helped the Hokies land Rodney Rice and Darren Buchanan in this class.

A big-picture look at the Hokies class and roster, though, is important here. If Keve Aluma or Justyn Mutts returns, there's not a ton of space left on the roster. If both of them leave (as seems most likely at this point, though not a guarantee), the needs on the roster are much more oriented around landing post players rather than a third wing in the class - to join a roster that already has good depth there.

And of course, when you look at a player of Ward's profile, the big boys are all going to come calling when he's back on the market, and some of them will have a better depth chart to sell (and while Ward would step onto the court immediately for the Hokies, this staff doesn't appear to be one that's shoving guys out the door to make scholarship space). Whoever hires former XU Director of Recruiting Jordan Brooks will have a major say here.

If the stars align and the Hokies have both the scholarship room and the recruiting resources to pour into a late run for Ward, they should have a shot here. But it's going to be a recruitment on a different plane than the Hokies have ever found significant success, relationships or not.

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