NCAA Basketball: Indiana, Illinois, Virginia Tech, Maryland headline Sunday Mailbag

Does Virginia Tech have the toughest December schedule in the country? – Matthew (@hokiesmash_ASD)

I have not looked at everyone’s December schedule but I know that the Hokies do have a tough schedule and there are some others with a very tough stretch in the month. Nebraska for example plays Michigan, Auburn, Kansas State to close out the month. The Hokies do have an extremely tough schedule that gets harder because of the way some of the teams they play are playing.

Virginia Tech still plays Cornell, at Dayton, St. Bonaventure, at Duke, and at North Carolina to close out the month. Those last four games are brutal, and if Virginia Tech wins two of those games it would be excellent and would put the Hokies in a position to make the NCAA tournament. Already this month Virginia Tech has beaten Maryland on the road and lost to Wake Forest in Blacksburg, Maryland projects to be worse than Wake Forest right now so that was a win they had to have.

Dayton is playing fantastic basketball right now and it would be a surprise to me if the Hokies won that game. St. Bonaventure is really good but is going to be playing without their star Kyle Lofton for that game so the advantage goes to the Hokies. At least with the Duke and North Carolina games the Hokies can get those two teams out of the way early and potentially knock one of them off. Likely that won’t happen but neither of those will be a bad loss. Virginia Tech is still in a great position to make the NCAA tournament they just need to avoid the terrible losses.