And yeah, its gone better than I wouldve expected to this point. I think people need to realize there are going to be bumps in the road along the way, and there are things you cant see coming (like Diarra) but you can plan for to minimize the effects of (which they have).

There are going to be bad matchups. There are going to be bad shooting nights. There are going to be huge upsets and total letdowns. None of those things are an indictment of any player(s) or coach(es), its just the life of basketball.

Football has a tendency to make it feel like a total season is lost after a few losses. Baseball teams are a World Series frontrunner if their team ONLY lost 60 games. Basketball is somewhere in the middle, but its a long season and losses aren't indicative that there's anything inherently wrong with the players or the system. Virginia Tech has historically been very very good at football, and basketball has been an afterthought, so a lot of VT fans apply their VT football fandom to basketball and they live and die with every win/loss.

The goal here is even more long-term than this season. With Diarra out, VT could realistically return their entire team next season. Next season is the opening of a window for VT to play at its highest level. The bulk of the roster will be Juniors and Sophomores with key 5th year seniors mixed in. So VT does not need to be better than Penn State in early December 2020 to accomplish their goals. They need to be better than Gonzaga/Kansas/Duke/whoever it may be in March/April of 2022.

You get there through a process. It takes a long time. VT will never be the program recruiting one-and-dones. So their best shot is to have an experienced group with a style of play that is hard to prepare for and a roster that can sustain the bumps in the road. Both are being done, but arent designed to look pretty immediately. Theyll look a lot better when their window opens, and theyll be ready. Everything Ive seen suggests as much.