Ben Hammond has 12 steals in two games. Last season, the entire Virginia Tech men’s basketball team averaged 6.4 steals per game.

That gap is where both wins came from. Virginia Tech beat Coppin State 88-54 on Tuesday and Mercer 96-67 on Thursday. Coppin State turned it over 24 times and Mercer 18, and the Hokies scored 54 points off those giveaways while allowing 22 off their own. That 32-point edge is just over half of their 63-point combined margin.

Neither opponent will be mistaken for an NCAA tournament team. Coppin State finished last season No. 363 in the NET and Mercer No. 184. The first real test comes Tuesday in Sioux City against Iowa, which reached the Elite Eight in March.

The pressure is real, and Hammond drives it

Virginia Tech is forcing 21.0 turnovers and making 10.0 steals per game, up from 12.0 and 6.4 last season. Part of that is the schedule. Part of it is a 1-2-2 press that produced many of Coppin State’s giveaways.

The biggest part is Hammond. The junior guard had a career-high seven steals in the opener, one shy of the program record. His 20 points, eight assists, and seven steals made up the first such line on college basketball’s opening night since Davidson’s Stephen Curry in 2008.

He added five steals against Mercer and became the fourth Hokie with five or more in consecutive games. The others are Zabian Dowdell, Rod Wheeler, and Stephen’s father, Dell Curry, who did it twice. Hammond also has 12 assists against two turnovers.

Jaylen Curry fixed the turnovers in 48 hours

The Oklahoma State transfer scored 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting in his debut, but he had six turnovers and one assist. Eighth-year coach Mike Young called the turnovers “disgusting.”

Against Mercer, Curry had four assists and zero turnovers in 30 minutes, and the whole team turned it over just four times.

However, Curry went 4-for-15 against Mercer and is averaging 16.5 points on 10-of-24 shooting. The Curry this team needs scores like he did Tuesday and takes care of the ball like he did Thursday. He hasn’t done both on the same night yet.

The returners are still scoring most of the points

Young brought in 10 newcomers this offseason, eight of them being transfers. Still, Hammond, Amani Hansberry and Tyler Johnson, the three rotation players he kept from last season, have scored 96 of Virginia Tech’s 184 points.

Hansberry has been the most efficient of them. The senior forward is 15-of-24 from the field with 39 points and 14 rebounds, including a career-high 23 against Mercer. He’s starting at the four next to San Diego State transfer Miles Heide, who is 5-for-5 from the field.

Johnson has been the best thing off the bench: 21 points and 16 rebounds, six of them offensive.

What Coppin State and Mercer couldn’t tell us

Two habits will cost more against better teams. The Hokies have committed 41 fouls, and opponents have shot 51 free throws. Both opponents also scored more after halftime: 51 points combined in the first half and 70 in the second.

Iowa is the first opponent that can test all of it. Ben McCollum led the Hawkeyes to their first Elite Eight since 1987 in his first season, and they’re 2-0 this year. Young is 9-11 at Virginia Tech against power-conference teams outside the ACC, and the Hokies went 5-10 away from Cassell Coliseum last season.

Tip-off at the Tyson Events Center is 7 p.m. ET on FS1. If Iowa takes care of the ball, Virginia Tech will have to beat an Elite Eight program in the half court, and two games haven’t shown whether it can.