The Roanoke Times | File 2007

Virginia Tech guard Kat Barbour, who averaged 15 points per game last season as a freshman, has left the team.

The parking lot beside Cassell Coliseum was full of students and parents loading boxes and odd bits of furniture into waiting SUVs on Wednesday afternoon.

The coliseum doors were propped open allowing the pollen-laden breeze to whip down the halls. In the midst of the springtime, last-day-of-exams bustle, the squeaks of rubber on hardwood filled the back gym as the Virginia Tech women's basketball team took a break from spring to bring back basketball season.

The Hokies get 10 days of practice this spring to prepare for a 10-day trip to Greece and Italy to play a little bit of ball and do a lot of goofing off -- or, um, educational sightseeing -- beginning next week.

"It's been very low stress," Tech coach Beth Dunkenberger said. "There's a lot of enthusiasm, you know it's only for a short time and, hey, we're going to Greece and Italy. Who can't get excited about that?"

The Hokies, who went 15-15 overall and 2-12 in the ACC this season, will make the trip without rising sophomore Kat Barbour who has decided to leave the team. Dunkenberger said Barbour has finished the semester and will leave Virginia Tech in good academic standing, but like all scholarship transfers, she will have to sit out a season before she can play for another school.

Barbour averaged 15 points a game in 26 games and was named to the ACC all-rookie team, but she also missed time to a shoulder injury and a suspension. She played in 10 conference games, averaging 12.1 points a game.

"She had trouble adjusting to the distance from home," Dunkenberger said. "I'm glad she continued to focus on her academics. She's got such a great opportunity that basketball has given her. It's what I want for her. Maybe changing schools is what she needs to get that."

Two Hokies, rising redshirt senior Brittany Cook and rising senior Laura Haskins, will graduate Saturday, but will return to play next season. Haskins took just three years to earn her undergraduate degree in business.

Dunkenberger also announced that she has hired former Appalachian State star Angela Crosby as an assistant coach and recruiter.

"She has great ties," Dunkenberger said. "She's from South Carolina. She played in North Carolina. She coached in Tennessee. She coached in Georgia. She has ties in regions that we want to be in."

Crosby fills the vacancy that opened when assistant coach George Porcha was fired in midseason after working for less than a year.

She played for Appalachian State from 1990-94 and became a coach there after graduation. She was an assistant coach for Tennessee-Chattanooga for four years (2000-04) and then moved on to Memphis.

Crosby left Memphis in 2007 and spent last year as assistant dean of students and registrar at Whitefield Academy in Northwest Atlanta, where she was the JV volleyball and varsity girls' basketball coach.

"She was a phenomenal player at Appalachian State," Dunkenberger said. "As a recruiter, she's outstanding. They won four straight championships at Chattanooga and their coach, Wes Moore, will tell you she had a lot to do with that. ...

"She has a strong sense of character, a high sense of values and she will recruit to those same values."