If they finish top 5 in D this year (currently sit #2) Penny will join Pitino (7 straight years), Tony Bennett (4 straight years), Bill Self (3 straight) and Ben Howlett (3 straight) as the only coaches in the last 21 years to have three straight top-5 defenses.

I think Memphis' switching and pressing could be a concern and I think (it's far easier said than done) it has been shown that like many offenses, Mike Young can be greatly disrupted by teams that can make them use clock before starting a set or switching to blow it up. In the ACC this year FSU and Duke would be the teams that could maybe do that.

On the whole I thought there were a lot of positives for VT and the negatives weren't anything shocking: depth, especially at PG could be a concnern, this team plays some mismatches defensively but is guarding their tails off in spite of it. I think the red flag if you had really really high ambitions for this group would be the lack of improvement for Aluma playing for a coach who does a great job getting players better and having gone through the draft process - if that's the guy who this team leans on that's not encouraging if you're talking about winning the ACC.

Right now I think this looks like a team that is a borderline top-25 team that can certainly run into some matchups problems but fortunately will see few of them in the league. I'd guess a top-3 ACC finish because it's a solid group with a good coach and the league is down and I think it'll lead to a solid seed for NCAA tourney (5 maybe?). Going beyond that depends heavily on matchups.

If people want to question the future of the talent on the roster I don't think there's currently any reason to concern and VT is doing a great job recruiting. If there's a weakness in the program going forward it's the reliance on one guy to carry a MASSIVE amount of the recruiting burden. So far Mike Young has hit two homeruns with Chester Frazier followed by Mike Jones. It isn't crazy to think that Mike might not be at VT long (might be headed to Norfolk next year even) and I think there's a lot at stake continuing to hit homers in that spot.