Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A little late, but...

You want a post about that craptacular Duke game? Okay, you got one. Sorry for the lateness (lateitude, laterocity, lateration... I don't know) of this post, but for one I couldn't get into a mood to write about a loss where we went down 20-5 right at the beginning of the game only to climb back in and subsequently crap the bed in the last few minutes, and secondly I have more-or-less been snowed in the last couple days. That doesn't ever happen in Richmond, VA... we are more known for intense, debilitating humidity than blizzards, but it snowed upwards of 10 inches two nights ago.

Now without further a-dudes (ahhahahahaha!), let's get to the game. This was an ugly one... the Hokies committed an absurd number of turnovers in the first half, which helped Duke get up to a 16 point lead at one point in the first half. Tech had 12 turnovers in the first half alone... that's more than enough for a whole game. I think that perhaps the players decided to play with a little Crisco rubbed all over their hands because apparently it wasn't hard enough playing against Duke. Also, it seems that any time you touch a Duke player when you have possession of the basketball, it's an offensive foul. By my count, there were 7 charging fouls called against the Hokies in that game, which sounds a little excessive to me. Do we really play that out-of-control? Not likely. Now, I could definitely go with a partial blame of this loss on the referees because they gave Duke the calls that Duke typically gets, but this game was lost by the Hokies inability to keep the basketball. You just can't hand the ball over time and time again to a team that shoots as well as Duke.

Tech finally got back into the game in the second half through some hot shooting, good defense, and offensive rebounding, and they even managed to tie the game at 58-58 with six minutes left in the game. However, the refs and Duke proved to be too much in the end, and Virginia Tech didn't help matters by getting a bunch of late fouls against one of the best foul-shooting teams in the ACC (which they really hadn't done at all during the game up until this point). Call it inexperience. Call it stupidity. Whatever it was, it contributed to a loss against a team that the Hokies really needed to beat. VT now has two chances to get a win and keep themselves in the NCAA tournament picture. Those games are this Wednesday against UNC at home, and Saturday against Florida State in Tallahassee. A win against UNC would go farther than a win against Florida State, but both teams are top-25 in the RPI right now, so either would look good on our resume. Wins against both will cement us as locks for March Madness. A single win will get us into the bubble talk, but we'd probably need at least one ACC tournament win to go along with that to feel safer. Strangely enough, if you read Joe Lunardi's Bracketology link on ESPN.com, you will see that the Hokies climbed up from the #11 position on Friday to a #10 seed on Monday, despite losing the game to Duke. Either the close fashion in which we lost the game (where we had a legit chance to tie at the end when Jon Scheyer traveled with the basketball, but it was never called), or else enough of the other bubble teams lost to keep us in a good position. I think one of the factors that is helping us stay on the bubble is the fact that 3 of our 4 best wins (Clemson, Wake, and Miami) were on the road, and similarly 2 of our 3 worst losses were on the road, and the 3rd loss was on a neutral court in Puerto Rico. We have no bad losses at home, and the committee likes to see that. Lunardi is extremely accurate when it comes to his bracket projections and rarely is off by more than one team when all is said and done on Selection Sunday, but even he admits that the Hokies probably need to beat UNC to stay in the field, so let's hop to it Hokie fans and support your boys on Wednesday! As far as predictions, I think that we're going to have a rough time with Hansbrough tonight because nobody on our team can defend him. I could also see someone like Danny Green putting up a large number of points because Vassallo won't do a good job of containing him. Honestly, Danny Green's game is very similar to Vassallo's and I think AD would get more looks from the NBA if he were playing for UNC and shooting as many open shots as Green gets, but alas, Vassallo probably won't get drafted. Malcolm Delaney is due to bounce back after shooting just 2-12 against Duke, especially if we get Hank Thorns back from illness for this game. Losing our only other ball handler was devastating for Tech and that game against Duke might have been very different with Thorns being in for most of the game. Then again, Elliot Williams and D-Bag Paulus (as our fans were heard chanting) might have combined for 30 points against the much smaller Hank Thorns. Who knows. All I know is this game tomorrow night is a big one, and I will be glued to the TV for the whole shebang*.

*I was extremely surprised to learn that the word "shebang" is present in blogspot's dictionary. You could also substitute the words "relieved" and "impressed" for "surprised".

No comments: