That's it... it's go time!

The VT men's basketball team is in action again tonight in a do-or-die game against Clemson at Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson, SC. I suppose I am being a little melodramatic here, but it's just so much more fun to follow your team in the NCAA tournament rather than the NIT (which is where we are likely headed). This Virginia Tech team is good enough to beat anybody in the ACC on any given night, but will they pick themselves up off of the mat after 3 straight losses and play with the winning attitude you need to make an upset possible? I predict that we will. I'm going to go ahead and call this upset... the Hokies can do it, especially if we abuse the Clemson full court trap the same we did in the first quarter of our game in January. The Hokies lost that game after giving up an 18-0 run in the second half. I'm betting something like that won't happen again, although I also believe Clemson will shoot better as a team at home. Terrance Oglesby, Clemson's best sharpshooter, was not good against the Hokies in Blacksburg, but at the same time KC Rivers had what was probably his best game of the season. I don't think Rivers and Trevor Booker will be quite as hot in this game, but I also don't think Oglesby and Demontez Stitt will be quite as cold. Clemson abandoned that full court trap in favor of a regular half-court defense in the second half, and the Hokies looked entirely unprepared to play Clemson in the half-court... I think that will be different this time around.

I liked the intensity that Malcolm Delaney and Hank Thorns played with in our last game against FSU, but will that continue tonight? Why the heck not. The Clemson guards aren't likely to make or break this game... it's going to be how well we can defend KC Rivers and it's going to be how well we can defend Trevor Booker. Diakite, Allen, Witcher, and Davila need to keep Booker and Raymond Sykes off of the offensive glass. Clemson grabbed 20 offensive rebounds against the Hokies in our last match up, which is absolutely pitiful. Tech managed just 12. The Tigers have a low-post beast in Booker, but Jeff Allen is every bit as good as Booker, and he needs to play with that attitude. They are very similar in size and ability and should really cancel each other out, but Booker played better in their last game.

The question tonight... who else will step up for the Hokies? You can bet that the Big 3 will be in full effect tonight, but somebody else has to have a good game to help out VT. If Clemson doubles Allen, it could very well be Diakite who gets in the double-digits. He has shown a reliable jumper from about 12-15 feet out. He also is doing a better job of getting himself into position for easy slams when Allen gets doubled. Now if only his hands weren't like blocks of ice. I would like to see Seth Greenberg start Terrell Bell in this game in place of Dorenzo Hudson, and give Bell some serious minutes. Bell is an excellent rebounder and should help us keep Booker from killing us down there. JT Thompson has really regressed this season for whatever reason, and I'm wondering if it's not because he is more suited in playing as an undersized power forward rather than as a wing player. He doesn't seem to get involved in rebounding the basketball when he's playing on the wing, and that's unfortunate considering the prowess he showed last year in following up shots for easy put-backs. His tentativeness might be due, in part, to the fact that the referees are being extremely tight with him this year. He gets called for more touch fouls that anyone else in the ACC, and I am sure of this. I have no stats at all to back it up, you're just going to have to trust me. I've developed a saying along the same lines of "Germans love David Hasselhoff," and it's "Refs hate JT Thompson." I say it at least once per game after Thompson gets called for a ticky-tacky foul. I'm pretty sure there is a conspiracy among the referees to be really tough on Thompson this season.

If the Hokies lose tonight, I don't think I will be too upset... my goals for this team have been lowered quite a bit over the past week and a half, but if they manage to steal a win on the road, I will probably still be reserved since we need more than just one win... we need 2 more after that to get from the NIT tourney to the NCAA tourney. I think two ACC wins and an ACC tourney win gets us onto the bubble. Another ACC tourney win gets us into the Big Dance. Winning 3 of the next 4 regular season games would also get us into the Big Dance, but that's almost unthinkable. Go Hokies! You can do it! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.