Collegiate Times

This year’s senior class — Malcolm Delaney, Dorenzo Hudson, Jeff Allen, Terrell Bell and JT Thompson — should have a lot to be proud of after this season.

If the No. 21 Hokies' year goes according to plan, this year’s class will graduate as the winningest group in Virginia Tech men’s basketball history.

Yet that plan already took a hit when Thompson suffered a season-ending ACL tear in mid-September. He will redshirt this season and come back to play his senior year during the 2011-2012 season.

"We have a great team and great senior leaders and I believe we are still going to go as far as everybody predicted us to,” Thompson said. "I played a nice part in what this team had but we have more players that are going to be able to put more than what I brought.”

Missing the season will be especially tough for Thompson since he won’t get the opportunity to play alongside his cousin, Hudson, during their senior season.

"It's hard because JT and Dorenzo are connected at the hip,” said head coach Seth Greenberg. "We lost probably the best sixth man in the league in JT. He's basically a sixth starter."

It is now up to the remaining four seniors, all of whom are starters, to garner their first NCAA Tournament berth.

Greenberg surprisingly would not consider the season a disappointment if this year’s team does not make the tournament, despite all of the returning talent and experience.

"We can't control what goes on in that room. We can't control other people's perception. We can only do our job,” he said. "If this group graduates the winningest group in the history of Virginia Tech, a winning record in the ACC and averages well over 20 wins a season, should they walk out of here thinking they were failures?"

The players have quite a different attitude about not making the tournament.

"Last year was a failure to me. We broke a record for wins but we didn't do what our goal was and when I don't reach a goal that is a failure to me,” Delaney said of a season in which he was a first team all-ACC selection.

Allen believes the season could not be considered a success if the team does not make the NCAA Tournament.

"That's what we are playing to get to. We're tired of the NIT,” he said. "The NCAA Tournament is a big stage. We're seniors and that's the stage that we need to be on."

This senior-laden group believes its three years of experience playing together will make the difference.

The Hokies will be led by their starting point guard Delaney.

"Obviously when you have one of the elite guards in the country on your roster that’s a good place to start,” Greenberg said.

After declaring for the NBA Draft in March, Delaney received a lot of feedback from teams about what his game was lacking and how to improve.

"My main focus is being a better leader and getting more people involved,” he said.

"I feel like he is making better plays with the ball and seeing plays before they happen. He is a better vocal leader right now,” Hudson said.

Delaney compared this year’s seniors to his experience from high school when he began with a group of young guys he grew up with. That group stuck together and won the league championship his senior year.

"It's special when you have been with a group of guys this long and have been able to play so many minutes together,” he said.

Allen is very confident this team will put together a special season.

"There's going to be a couple bumps in the road but we have been through it before so we should know what to do,” he said. "We are practicing harder. This is the last year here for the seniors and obviously what we have been doing over the past three years hasn't been working to get to the tournament."

High expectations and a tough schedule await this “grizzled” group during the 2010-2011 campaign, but the Hokies don’t lack confidence or experience.

“We know what it takes to win,” Hudson said.

A version of this article appeared in the Nov 12 issue of the Collegiate Times.