Jack McClinton was shut down by Malcolm Delaney and the Virginia Tech Hokies finally managed to win a close game against a tough University of Miami (FL) team. The game went to overtime after Delaney failed to connect on the last shot of regulation. McClinton, a 47% 3-point shooter with range as far as you can imagine, started the game just 1-9 and couldn't find any space to shoot against Delaney, JT Thompson, and Dorenzo Hudson. Plus, I think he was wearing eye-liner. Delaney had a game-high 29 points on 9 of 19 shooting, and AD Vassallo was right behind him with 28 points on 11 of 20 shooting. The Hokies struggled to hit their 3-point shots in the first half going only 3-12, but went on to shoot 5-8 in the second half, and 1-1 in overtime to finish at a very respectable 43% from the arc. They also shot close to 50% from the field as a whole, which continues the Hokies hot shooting as of late. VT also won the turnover battle causing 11 turnovers while giving up 9, which seems to be a delicious recipe for success for Tech in the last couple games. Whatever it ultimately was that led to the win, the Hokies seem to be riding high on the saddle of... justice? No that's not right. Let's go with "winning and sportsmanship."
I had predicted that Vassallo would have a good game against Brian Asbury and DeQuan Jones. I was right, although he didn't unleash the inner beast until the second half. AD seemed to be trying to force shots in the first half, but in the second half he seemed to just go with the flow of the game and found himself open for shots in a lot of different places. He took advantage of smaller defenders and posted up McClinton and James Dews on a couple of occassions. With the lone exception of an ill-advised drive through about 3 Miami defenders where he ended up turning the ball over, Vassallo played the possibly the smartest game of his college career.
Malcolm Delaney is becoming such a predictable player, that you can pretty much pencil him in for at least 20 points and some great defensive efforts. Delaney had 3 steals and 4 rebounds to go along with that. Lately, he seems to be playing his best when Hank Thorns is in the game running the point. Hank did not have a good shooting night, going only 1-5 from the floor, but what he missed at the bucket, he made up for everywhere else. Thorns had 8 assists in the game and only 1 turnover. He also had 4 rebounds including a ridiculous offensive board in overtime where he skyed over two guys with at least a foot height advantage on him to grab the ball and reset the offense. Lewis Witcher also had a stellar effort last night going 3-3 from the field with some post moves that made me do a double-take. He pissed off the Miami fans when he swatted a Jack McClinton drive before it hit the backboard (they all thought it was goaltending, but replays show that they're morons). Witcher got into foul trouble though and had to sit for most of the second half, but I wouldn't say that he did anything wrong... he got jobbed on a couple of those calls.
Brian Asbury had the game of his life, which might make some people sad since it was in a losing effort, but I am not one of those people. Suck on that, Asbury! He'd been shooting a measley 14% from the 3-point arc on the season, but yesterday he found his stroke hitting 3-6, including the shot that eventually forced the game into overtime. Asbury also contributed with shots from all over the floor and a respectable defensive game where he blocked a few shots. Dwayne Collins also had a fantasic game for the Hurricanes, going 7-10 from the field and 9-12 from the free throw line. Not bad for a 58% free throw shooter. The Hokies just did not have an answer for him inside, and I have absolutely no idea why the 'Canes didn't just keep going to him in overtime. He was having his way with everybody... Allen, Davila, Witcher, and Diakite, it didn't matter. Miami decided that they were going to live or die by McClinton, and that was a good move for the Hokies.
Let's talk a little about what this means for VT's NCAA tournament chances. I would classify this win as "superb." This is a win, on the road, against a top-30 RPI team. That's not quite the resume booster that the win against Wake Forest was, but it's more like icing on the cake. This win continues my belief that Virginia Tech will make the NCAA tournament if we go 9-7 in the ACC. That would give us an identical record to last year, and although we did win an ACC tournament game against Miami last year, I think that our resume is good enough that we might not even need an ACC tourney win to get in the big dance this time around. The ACC as a whole is a better conference than last year... it is not quite as top-heavy. The committee will notice that on Selection Sunday. Also, our losses this year are not as bad as last year. Seton Hall just knocked off Georgetown, so our only bad loss seems to be against Georgia, but that was by 1 point in their arena. The Bulldogs have a current RPI around 217, and they have lost all 4 SEC matchups. They are 9-10 on the season. Seton Hall has an RPI on the wrong side of 100. Our other 3 losses are against Wisconsin, Duke, and Xavier, and the selection committee will not hold those losses against us. So we basically only have 2 bad losses this year. Last year we had 3 bad losses against Richmond (RPI 121), Old Dominion (RPI 133), and Penn State (RPI 155). The Georgia loss certainly looks worse than those losses, but I am hopeful that the Bulldogs will pull themselves back up to a respectable level like they did last year. A man can dream, can't he?
As always, you can watch the game film here. Enjoy that Delaney shot again where he sticks one right in McClinton's mug. What's that Jack? That coffee's a little too hot? Yeah, that's what I thought.
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