Nashville, TENN--Wednesday night will mark a homecoming for Vanderbilt wings Tyler Nickel and MJ Collins.

Vanderbilt travels to Blacksburg on Wednesday to face off against Virginia Tech in the ACC/SEC Challenge. Nickel and Collins both transferred from Virginia Tech to Vanderbilt this offseason and played significant roles for the Hokies last season.

Nickel doesn't feel as if the Hokie fans in attendance will greet them with smiles, though.

"I’m not expecting a warm reception for me or MJ," Nickel told Vandysports over the summer, "but we’re definitely excited about that game."

Nickel and Collins were two of the six players that left Virginia Tech last season as a mass exodus of sorts. That's string of departures as a whole, not necessarily Nickel and Collins', have been speculated to have been related to Virginia Tech's lack of basketball funding.

Nickel averaged 8.8 points per game last season while Collins threw in 7.4 points a night. Virginia Tech has struggled to replace the pair as well as the four other transfers and is ranked 233rd in the NET as a result.

What Virginia Tech can't have taken away from it as a result of a losing season is its atmosphere, though. Nickel remembers that fondly.

"At Tech it’s a little more intimate, smaller arena," Nickel said. "Usually known as a football schools, but then you get in there and it’s packed and everybody gets to jump to the Enter Sandman and all that so that’s a different vibe but a really cool one."

Nickel and Collins will now experience that environment in a different way, as teammates.

When the pair went into the transfer portal in the spring, they quickly decided that teaming up again would be a path they'd like to follow moving forward. Collins didn't know much about Vanderbilt or first-year coach Mark Byington, but Nickel led the way.

"TNick actually told me more about [Byington] when we were both in the portal," Collins said. "I looked for him, he looked for me."

"When I found out he wanted to transfer, obviously me and him are close so we definitely wanted to play together and I love playing with MJ so as soon as I saw that I knew that he wanted to come here," Nickel added.

Nickel and Collins have been instant contributors for Vanderbilt in their first seasons as Commodores. Nickel has been a double-figure scorer while Collins has averaged 7.0 points and has given Vanderbilt some of his best outings in its biggest games.

Now the pair will have a chance to give Vanderbilt its first road win under Mark Byington in a quote-unquote revenge game.