Virginia Tech Basketball To Play South Carolina In Charlotte In 2023-24

MJ Collins will have an opportunity to play in a familiar city, as will Patrick Wessler, in 2023-24. (Jon Fleming)

On Tuesday, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reported that Virginia Tech basketball will play South Carolina in Charlotte, N.C. in the 2023-24 season.

As part of a doubleheader with Virginia and Florida, the Hokies and Gamecocks will meet on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023 in the Spectrum Center. The Veterans Day matchup will be the 32nd all-time between VT and USC, the first since Dec. 5, 1997 in the Pepsi/Harris Teeter Challenge in Charlotte. USC won that game by one, 74-73.

Virginia Tech is 13-18 against South Carolina. 19 meetings came as conference foes – 16 in the Metro (VT was 10-6) and three in the SoCon (VT was 1-2). November will be the sixth neutral site contest between the two programs. Tech is 2-3 in those opportunities; its last win was in 1960. Here’s the full list:

Dec. 5, 1997, Charlotte, N.C.: USC 74, VT 73
March 11, 1988, Memphis, Tenn.: USC 92, VT 81
Dec. 22, 1960, Salem, Va.: VT 106, USC 75
Jan. 2, 1953, Wytheville, Va.: USC 69, VT 66
Jan. 12, 1951, Roanoke, Va.: VT 68, USC 64

Under first-year head coach Lamont Paris, South Carolina is 10-17 (3-11 SEC) this season. Like the Hokies, the Gamecocks also played in the Charleston Classic in TD Arena in November, going 0-3. As of Tuesday, USC is 225th in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings and 243rd in the NET rankings. 

Paris knows Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young well. He was the head coach at Chattanooga in the Southern Conference from 2017 to 2022 and faced Young four times (all games Young won).

Charlotte is a familiar home for the Hokies. They’ve played football games, whether they be ACC Championships or bowl games, at Bank of America Stadium. And in the 2021-22 season, Young and Virginia Tech played in the Spectrum Center against St. Bonaventure, an 86-49 drubbing. Charlotte is also the home of Tech freshman Pat Wessler, and fellow freshman MJ Collins, who is from nearby Clover, S.C., played high school basketball just outside of Charlotte (with Wessler) at Combine Academy.

The Charlotte doubleheader is the second piece of non-conference scheduling news for 2023-24 that’s been released. On Dec. 13, Rothstein reported that Virginia Tech will participate in the 2023 ESPN Invitational in Orlando, Fla. Boise State, Butler, Iowa State, Penn State, Texas A&M – led by former Tech head coach Buzz Williams – and VCU are the other participants. A team from the MAAC will join as well. And, should Tech Hunter Cattoor stay for an extra season, the Orlando native will have the opportunity to play in his hometown.