Hokie Hokie Hokie Low

I'm not sure I even have the strength to talk about that Boston College loss on Saturday. If the Hokies lose one more game on a last-second play, I might have to start watching HGTV and the Food Network just to take some of the drama out of my life. I can handle watching a cake deflate. Watching the Hokie basketball team deflate is much more devastating. Maybe you disagree, but I am still reeling from that Rakim Sanders put-back with .4 seconds left on the clock. How could nobody box him out? How did nobody have position to grab that rebound when it looked like we had the inside track? It was an ugly game all around and the only Hokie who brought his game face for the entire 40 minutes was Jeff Allen. Allen had a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds, not to mention a sick-nasty dunk in the second half where he followed up a missed Malcolm Delaney layup with a monstrous jam. Poor shooting plagued the Hokies, particularly in the first half where they only hit 27% of their shots from the field. That's absurd for an ACC team to shoot that poorly. Luckily, the Hokies were playing good defense and the Eagles were missing shots as well, so Tech went into halftime down just two points. The second half would look entirely different, with neither team playing inspired defense, the Hokies shot 52% from the field. The Eagles, however, shot just as well from the field, so Virginia Tech did not gain an advantage from the hot shooting. On paper, this was an even game with the Hokies committing 3 fewer turnovers than the Eagles, but BC had 2 more offensive rebounds than VT and shot 8% better on their free throws. The officiating was awful, but it went both ways so I will not complain about that. I guess it really did come down to that tip on the final play being the difference.

AD Vassallo had a terrible first half where he wasn't even remotely involved in the offense, only to follow it up with a stellar second half where he scored all of his 21 points. He also grabbed 5 boards. Malcolm Delaney was fairly consistent, putting up 18 points and dishing out 5 assists, although he did turn the ball over 4 times. The real problem (yet again) was that none of the other Hokies outside of the big 3 showed up. Allen, Vassallo, and Delaney combined for 62 of VT's 66 points. UNBELIEVABLE! You have to be kidding me, right? Our other lousy players only put up 4 points total? Yep, that's right. Hank Thorns had 1 point on a free throw. The other three points came from Dorenzo Hudson, who hit the first shot of the game for the Hokies fooling me into thinking that he might have a breakout game. Ha! That's laughable. He ended up going 1-5, and he missed some shots that your dead dog might have made. I'm giving Dorenzo Hudson until the end of this season to get his game up to snuff, or else I'm going to lobby for the incoming freshmen to take all of his minutes next season. Bring on Erick Green and MoMo Jones! Yes, you read that correctly... Lamont Jones goes by the nickname "MoMo". My brother used to go by the nickname "Mikey" when he was little, but he grew out of it... take a hint, MoMo.

And finally, let's touch upon where this putrid loss leaves us considering our NCAA options. They are slowly getting flushed down the toilet, much like the fresh steamer you dropped after eating all that Superbowl cuisine. Virginia Tech is now 4-3 in the ACC with 9 games left before the ACC tournament. We need, at the absolute minimum, 5 more wins. Now, you pick those 5 wins out of this lineup: NC State, GA Tech, @Maryland, @UVA, FSU, @Clemson, Duke, UNC, @FSU. The future isn't looking so bright anymore, is it? You might want to put those shades away. We "lucked" into a really tough ACC slate this year and it looks like the Hokies will have to steal a win or two that they weren't expected to win in order to get into the Big Dance this year. I am still keeping the faith... this team is certainly good enough to make it, but the supporting cast needs to step up a lot more than they did at Boston College on Saturday, where they more closely resembled a festering pile of cat poop. Even at his lowest point, I don't think Ron Burgundy would have eaten them.