The ACC Network was occupied, its scheduled showing of the ACC opener between Duke and Georgia Tech delayed by a rivalry game within the state of Virginia. UVa, ranked #21 in the nation at the time, traveled
to Virginia Tech to engage in the 162nd meeting between the public universities dating to 1915.
By the time the 2 PM game at Blacksburg was over it was halftime at Durham as the Hokies and Cavaliers played into overtime, then overtime for a second time and then for a third.
Several players excelled, especially Virginia Tech freshman Christian Gurdick, a 6-10, 260-pound West Virginia product who had 19 rebounds and 17 points, and sophomore teammate Ben Hammond, who scored 30 along with five assists and no turnovers in 42 minutes. Hammond, a 5-11 playmaker, was 16-18 at the foul line, one more conversion than UVa attempted.
“He was the difference in the game,” said Virginia’s first-year head coach, Ryan Odom, who previously served as a Seth Greenberg assistant at Tech for seven seasons.
Neither team shot well. Odom’s Wahoos, who entered the game leading the ACC in 3-point accuracy, missed 35 of 45 from long distance.
Virginia Tech, playing without starters Tobi Lawal and Tyler Johnson, won its fourth overtime outing in four tries this season. That’s the most overtime games by an ACC team since NC State engaged in four, winning three, in 2024. It’s also the most ever in a season by a squad from Virginia Polytechnical Institute and State University. (Bill Brill, the late dean of ACC writers, sports editor of the Roanoke Times, and Duke alum (Class of 1951) for whom the Cameron press room is named, delighted in calling the school simply VPI.)
Last year 13 ACC teams engaged in a cumulative 16 overtime games, 11 in conference. This season there were 15 OT games through the end of December, the Va-VT contest the only conference OT so far this season.
Boston College already is a painfully close 0-3 in overtime in 2026, including an embarrassing opening defeat at Florida Atlantic and an 11-point home loss against LSU in the ACC/SEC Challenge. Win those three games and BC is 10-4.
The ACC team that’s gone the longest without having a game extend to an extra session, for better or for worse, is Duke.
The only time the Blue Devils engaged in an overtime contest in four seasons under Jon Scheyer was in February 2023, when they lost 62-69 at Virginia. The experience was a bitter one for Duke, as officials deflatingly failed to award a pair of free throws to Kyle Filipowski, clearly fouled while driving to the basket for what figured to be the winning points as time expired in regulation.
In fact, the last time Duke notched a win in overtime was a memorable escape at Chapel Hill on Feb. 8, 2020, when two missed shots by Tre Jones, one intentional and one serendipitous, helped the Devils to a 98-96 victory.
The first misfire was a free throw artfully flung off the front of the rim by Jones, who rebounded his miss and sank a long jumper to force overtime. The second, decisive miss was a Jones airball as time expired in OT, only to be put back at the buzzer by Wendell Moore Jr.
Several immortal Duke games went to overtime, marked by indelible individual performances, including home wins against UNC in 1968 and 1981, and NCAA regional final wins over UConn in 1990 and UK in 1992. Each game featured a memorable individual effort that, like Jones’, lives on in Duke and ACC lore: by reserve Fred Lind in ’68, Gene Banks in ’81, and Christian Laettner in both ’90 and ‘92.
| EXTRA EFFORT Overtime Games By ACC Teams, Last 3 Seasons (Thru 1/3/26) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 2026 | 2025 | 2024 |
| BC | 0-3 | 1-3 | 0-2 |
| Cal | 0-0 | 2-2 | NA |
| Cle | 1-0 | 1-3 | 0-1 |
| D | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| FSU | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1-0 |
| GT | 1-0 | 2-0 | 2-1 |
| UL | 0-0 | 1-0 | 1-0 |
| UM | 0-0 | 0-2 | 1-0 |
| NC | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0-1 |
| NS | 0-1 | 1-0 | 3-1 |
| ND | 1-0 | 2-1 | 2-1 |
| UP | 0-0 | 1-1 | X |
| SMU | 2-0 | 0-0 | NA |
| Stan | 0-0 | 0-0 | NA |
| SU | 0-1 | 2-1 | X |
| V | 0-1 | 0-0 | 2-1 |
| VT | 4-0 | 1-1 | X |
| WF | 0-1 | 0-0 | 1-0 |
