By Nate Warters

Published: March 23, 2008

BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech counted down Deron Washington’s top 10 highlights on its two large scoreboard television screens before the senior forward’s final regular-season home game March 4. With each passing play, the Cassell Coliseum crowd grew louder.
By the time the countdown reached Washington’s No. 1 play, his game-sealing block in last season’s win at Duke, the entire arena was full of noise.
They love Washington. He’s a fan’s dream, what with his rim-rattling dunks and athletic plays. And the NIT is giving the hometown Hokies faithful a little more time to enjoy one of their all-time greats.
Make no mistake: The Hokies would prefer to be playing in the NCAA tournament right now, but their NIT selection has its privileges. For one, they’re still playing while half the NCAA field has already been eliminated. Moreover, they’ve been rewarded at least two extra home games.
A win tonight against UAB would almost certainly give Tech, the top seed in its unnamed region, yet another game at Cassell Coliseum later this week.
Washington, a starter all four years at Tech, is excited to still be playing at home, even though he had his heart set on finishing his career with a second straight trip to the NCAAs.
“It’s real special to get a couple more games in Cassell, especially with this being my last year,” said the 6-foot-7, 210-pound New Orleans native.
The fans have really embraced the Hokies this year. They filled up Cassell Coliseum to near capacity for Wednesday’s NIT opening-round win over Morgan State. They didn’t seem to care that the NIT is considered a step down from the Big Dance.
Tech drew more fans to its NIT opener (9,628) than all but one of the tournament’s first-round games.
“It’s great,” Washington said of Tech’s fan support. “I’d rather have this atmosphere here than the atmosphere we had last year in the NCAA tournament (in Columbus, Ohio), because it’s your fans cheering for the whole game. You couldn’t hear nobody screaming at the NCAAs as much as you hear them here.”
It seems only appropriate that Washington gets this kind of curtain call.
He helped lead the Hokies to three postseason appearances, including a trip to the NCAAs last year, during his career. Before he showed up on campus, Tech hadn’t been to either the NIT or NCAAs in the previous eight years.
The Hokies have been more than respectable in the ACC since joining the league in Washington’s freshman season, going .500 or better in three of the four years.
Last season, they beat North Carolina twice and Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. And this year, they went 9-7 in league play and finished fourth in the final ACC standings after being picked to finish 10th in a preseason media poll.
It’s no coincidence that Washington’s tenure has corresponded with a revival of Tech’s program.
He is only the third player in Tech history with 1,300 points, 600 rebounds, 100 blocked shots and 100 steals in his career (Bobby Beecher and Bryant Matthews are the others).
“He came to Virginia Tech on a pipe dream,” Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. “We hadn’t had a winning season in the Big East. We were an ‘if.’ We were selling a vision.
“He helped us create a little bit of a culture. He came to Virginia Tech when it really wasn’t fashionable to come to Virginia Tech. He trusted us, and he bought in, worked hard, and he’s become in a lot of ways part of the face of the program.”
By drawing national attention — he has provided a SportsCenter No. 1 play on many occasions — Washington has helped popularize Hokies basketball.
As a high school player in Las Vegas, one of the few things freshman guard Hank Thorns knew about Virginia Tech was Washington’s array of dazzling dunks.
He turned on the television and saw Washington throw it down over Boston College’s Tyrelle Blair and saw Washington literally fly over the head of Duke guard Greg Paulus in last year’s win at Cameron.
“When I first started hearing about Virginia Tech, the first person I heard of was Deron,” Thorns said. “Back home, we didn’t really know his name at first, so everybody called him ‘The boy with bounce.’ He’s definitely grown on this program a lot and become the face, more like the franchise, of this program.”
Washington’s Tech career is nearing its end, but like last year, when cornerstone players Jamon Gordon, Zabian Dowdell and Coleman Collins called it a career, the program seems to be in better shape than when he joined it.
“I’m going to think about all the teammates I’ve had since I’ve been here, a lot of the big games we played, a lot of the upsets we had and the top plays I’ll always think about because people always talk about them,” he said. “There will be a lot of memories I’ll have once the season is over.”
He plans to keep playing when his college career is over. He’s scheduled to graduate in May with a degree in sociology, and he has hopes of making it in the NBA. If that doesn’t work out, he’ll follow in the paths of Gordon, Dowdell and Collins and play overseas.
“I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon,” he said.
Washington’s highlight reel isn’t close to being completed.