Virginia Tech's coaching staff knows that there's plenty of turnover coming to the hoops roster this offseason. Mike Young lamented it in his pregame press conference for the NCAA Tournament game against Texas, noting that three of the key players (Keve Aluma, Storm Murphy, and Justyn Mutts) were grad-transfers in their final year on the court in Blacksburg.
There's a really good core of recruits coming in, with PG Rodney Rice and C Patrick Wessler leading the way (while wings Darren Buchanan and MJ Collins are going to be very good pieces in time, too). But the Hokies only had 11 recruited scholarship players this season, so there's room for another addition... and the most obvious place for such a player is the Transfer Portal - and of course looking at playing-time projections for some of the returning players, there may be outgoing transfers, too.
One player to keep an eye on is Eastern Michigan center Mo Njie
He was a three-star recruit who at one point had Dayton and Xavier offers, but ended up at EMU where he just finished his freshman season. He developed into a starter very quickly in his lone year in Ypsilanti, and got just under half the available minutes all season. He's a traditional big: rebounding, shot-blocking, and two-point finishing are what he provided to EMU. As you may expect with such a player, a year in college adjusting to the level of play (and an up-transfer in level) could mean he takes another big step forward.
That has the Hokies poking around, but BYU, Pitt, and Tulsa have also reached out since Njie entered the Portal, too. One to keep an eye on, particularly if the Hokies lose any of the existing depth, or feel like it'll take a little bit of time for Wessler to be ready to contribute.
There's a really good core of recruits coming in, with PG Rodney Rice and C Patrick Wessler leading the way (while wings Darren Buchanan and MJ Collins are going to be very good pieces in time, too). But the Hokies only had 11 recruited scholarship players this season, so there's room for another addition... and the most obvious place for such a player is the Transfer Portal - and of course looking at playing-time projections for some of the returning players, there may be outgoing transfers, too.
One player to keep an eye on is Eastern Michigan center Mo Njie
He was a three-star recruit who at one point had Dayton and Xavier offers, but ended up at EMU where he just finished his freshman season. He developed into a starter very quickly in his lone year in Ypsilanti, and got just under half the available minutes all season. He's a traditional big: rebounding, shot-blocking, and two-point finishing are what he provided to EMU. As you may expect with such a player, a year in college adjusting to the level of play (and an up-transfer in level) could mean he takes another big step forward.
That has the Hokies poking around, but BYU, Pitt, and Tulsa have also reached out since Njie entered the Portal, too. One to keep an eye on, particularly if the Hokies lose any of the existing depth, or feel like it'll take a little bit of time for Wessler to be ready to contribute.
