A Season to Remember

(This article originally appeared on www.hokiehaven.com.)

In the blink of an eye, Virginia Tech's 2007 campaign has graduated from a special one to a permanent, hands-down, no-doubt program changer. In beating North Carolina 81-80 Tuesday night, the Hokies became just the third team in history to win at Duke and Carolina in the same season. Tech won at North Carolina for the first time in eighteen tries, the first time since 1966, but despite the gaudy statistics, Greenberg's Gang did something far more important.

Every element of Tuesday's matchup favored the Heels. Carolina boasted more star athletes, higher-ranked recruits, more height, an undefeated record at home, a National Coach of the Year, and the revenge factor, wanting badly to equalize a loss to the Hokies earlier in the season. Virginia Tech would have taken no shame in losing Tuesday, and would have come off the expected loss with a high ACC finish, a great NCAA tournament seed, and a chance to finish the year with 20+ wins, a feat not accomplished in these parts for a long, long time.

But the expected wasn't good enough.

In rallying to victory in a game there would have been truly no shame in losing, the 2007 Hokies, led by the ACC's most valuable player, Zabian Dowdell, branded the future of their program with a fortitude and bravery that can't be taught, found or recruited. The spirit of champions can only be forged in the fire, and now every member of this team has it.

I honestly don't know how many teams in college basketball history have beaten three top-5 teams in the same season, or beaten two of those teams on the road, or had all three of those teams from the same state.

I don't know how many teams in ACC history have come from winning just four conference games to controlling their own destiny on Valentine's Day.

Those stats are not what this season is about anymore. Turning a program around isn't easy. Plenty of programs have mini-turns every year, momentary, two to three year bursts in performance that eventually regress. To truly turn a program, a team has to have three things:

1. A head coach that is no mere flash in the pan, that has built a program from the ground up, and won not by recruiting one dynamic class of athletes, but by teaching the game of basketball.

2. An experienced group of leaders that can impart the lessons of losing on their teammates in times of trial.

3. One standout win that says to the conference and the nation: We had every reason to lose this game, but we won because we are here, and we know what it takes to stay here.

Hokie fans have known for awhile that their team had the first two components. Tuesday night, they got the third. Now the question is, where will they go from here?