Spooky Spiders

Tomorrow night, the VT men's basketball team will take on the Richmond Spiders. This is the final non-conference game of the regular season for the Hokies, and is a literal must-win. U of R is not a quality team and will finish the year without an invitation to post-season play. Despite an 8-6 start to the season and a 1-0 start to Atlantic-10 conference play, the Spiders do not have a win against anyone of note... they have beat the teams they are supposed to beat and lost to the teams who were supposed to beat them. The Hokies managed to drop their matchup with U of R last year, which was a game that I attended here in Richmond. The Hokies really struggled to find quality shots in that game, and they bricked the open looks that they did have. This is a game that VT really needs to dominate because this opponent's talent is certainly inferior to the talent of Tech, but something tells me our guys will be scraping out a close victory yet again. The Spiders' leading scorer is David Gonzalvez, who I only slightly remember from the game last year (really none of Richmond's players stood out to me, so the fact that we lost ended with me trying to drown myself in the nacho cheese I had purchased at halftime). Gonzalvez is an excellent shooter, hitting 50.5% of his shots (that's pretty high for a 2-guard), including 42.9% from the 3-point line. He averages better than 16 points per game and also manages to pull down 4.6 rebounds per game. Gonzalvez will play mostly at shooting guard, so expect to see Dorenzo Hudson, Terrell Bell, and JT Thompson guarding him for the vast majority of the game. Richmond has a 6'10" forward in Justin Harper who doesn't rebound very well for his size, but the Hokies will have to follow him out to the 3-point line because he shoots an excellent 44.6% out there, and he's not shy about jacking up a shot from that distance as half of his field goal attempts on the season are 3-point attempts. The Hokies should really crush this team in rebounding margin because the Spidey's forwards and center do not get on the boards. If there was ever a game for Jeff Allen to come out of a slump, it would be in this game because he could seriously rack up about 10 offensive rebounds if he's motivated.

Here are some things I would like to see in this game:
1) More time with Hank Thorns at point guard and Malcolm Delaney at shooting guard. Delaney can free himself up easier for shots when he is running off of high screens from the SG spot, and we got to see him hit some wide open looks from those situations in the Virginia game. It's tough to play Thorns a lot when he's being guarded by taller opponents, but Richmond's PG is only 6'0" so that's not a huge advantage on Thorns.
2) I want to see JT Thompson crashing the boards after a shot, both on offense and defense. He is too good of a rebounder to have another game with zero boards like against UVA, and historically he's our best player when it comes to following up shots for easy putbacks.
3) Better play from Jeff Allen all over the court. He needs to be more aggressive going up for a shot, and he needs to get in better position for rebounds. There were points in the UVA game where I thought we were better off having Lewis Witcher in the game instead of Jeff Allen. I never want to feel that way again.
4) The team needs to figure out how to play defense. It seems like we either get a good number of turnovers, or else we hold the opposing team to a low shooting percentage. We need to be able to do both since they're the trademark of a Seth Greenberg team. Davila is still a big liability on defense, and his offensive game has taken a hit in ACC play... it'd be nice to see him progress a little in both areas within the next few weeks.

Here's a question, why aren't more teams nicknamed "The Spiders"? Wouldn't you say something like 90% of people are scared of spiders to some varying degree? They're disgusting and terrifying, but instead colleges like to opt for nicknames like "the cardinals" or "the volunteers". What kind of weak crap is that? I don't remember anyone ever saying, "Sweet Lord, we need to get out of the house! There's a cardinal in our kitchen!" I don't remember any pedestrians running away in hysterics as a Red Cross volunteer hands them a pamphlet about giving blood. I guess you could say the same about "the hokies" so maybe I should just keep my mouth shut, but my point is that I would have thought more teams would be nicknamed "the spiders" simply because they're legitimately frightening... unlike a terrapin (read: turtle).