The iconic ESPN show, College Game Day, is coming Sunday to Blacksburg for Senior Day.
From the Sidelines
Marty Gordon
Virginia Tech’s women’s basketball team has garnered the label of “Queens of the Cassell” because of its success over the past few years.
The big change came last season with a trip to the NCAA Final Four. The expectations remain high and already the ladies are taking most of the headlines. Matter of fact, you might say they are grabbing all of the attention from the media.
While the men’s team is stepping backwards, the women are taking steps that no one could really predict.
The Virginia Tech women’s basketball team is ranked eighth in the latest AP Poll and coming off a sounding victory against Louisville with North Carolina coming to town.
The Hokies will be back home at Cassell Coliseum on Sunday, Feb. 25 for a 2 p.m. tip. That game can be seen on ACCN and will take the national stage with some special guests.
Ahead of Senior Day, ESPN announced College GameDay Covered by State Farm will broadcast live at Carilion Clinic Court at Cassell Coliseum on Sunday in advance of the game.
It marks the first time the iconic show will be ahead of a Hokie women’s game, making Tech the first-ever ACC school to host College GameDay on the women’s side, and just the second time ever in Cassell (Feb. 26, 2011; men’s side).
The show, which will be its third of five women’s basketball shows this season, will run an hour long starting at 11 a.m. ET that features Elle Duncan, Andraya Carter, Carolyn Peck, Holly Rowe and Chiney Ogwumike.
Throughout the season, State Farm has had a bus specifically follow the women’s College GameDay show all season long, and has also implemented a 3-point Challenge, entailing a select student competing for the chance to win $19,000. The selected student must make four 3-pointers from various locations around the arc in under 19 seconds.
On the court, the game is sold out.
The individual also keeps coming with Tech center Elizabeth Kitley, earning this week’s ACC Player of the Week honors. For the graduate student, it is her fifth time winning the award this season and third week in a row.
Kitley helped the Hokies to a pair of victories to push Tech’s win streak to nine games last week. The two-time Player of the Year scored 34 points against Duke and 26 at No. 18 Louisville, while shooting 76% from the field for the week. She also recorded double-doubles in both games taking her season tally in that category to 19.
With the road victory over Louisville, Tech owns the only road victories at each of the other top for teams in the league including NC State and Syracuse. Tech has won nine straight in ACC play in the same season for the first time ever.
Meanwhile the men are still scratching their way out of the bottom of the ACC. After a victory over UVA this week, the male-version of the Hokies slid back in the middle of the pack. There is still hope as fans will remember they came from the seventh seed just two years ago to the win the tourney.
But for now, it is the women that is selling out the Cassell and getting the national attention. Congrats to Coach Kenny Brooks and his team.
