1 Bad Team Down, 2 Bad Teams To Go

It's tough to get overly excited over a woodshed beating of Charleston Southern, but it's even tougher to get excited about possible wins over Maryland-Baltimore County and Longwood (if you're not from Virginia, the name of this college probably made you blush). So our next opponent that you can even get remotely pumped up about is Seton Hall on January 2. Next up is UMBC, who are a solid 1-9 with their lone win coming as a two point victory over American University. The Retrievers are the definition of terrible, so if VT doesn't win by at least 20 points, consider this game a disappointment. Fortunately, Tech is starting to show that they can obliterate the teams with lesser talent. Recent wins over VMI and Charleston Southern are games that the Hokies should have blown out their opponent, and they did in both games.

I think it's about time for some observations...

• To borrow a phrase from one of my favorite video games of all time, NBA Jam, Malcolm Delaney is heating up! He was 6-10 on 3-pointers in his last game and shot better than 50% from the field. He was also managing to hit tough shots that he was missing earlier in the year. That's a good trend and hopefully we will continue to see more of it. The 7 turnovers against CSU is just plain awful, but I know Greenberg has already explained this to Malcolm. Heck, Malcolm probably already explained it to Malcolm.
  
• Dorenzo Hudson is getting better. He's still not shooting well from the outside, but he's doing a much better job of taking the ball to the basket and seeing what's there. It's also nice to see him convert some of his free throws. These are good signs because it took him longer into the season to get to this point in 08-09. Delaney and Jeff Allen can't be the only scoring threats on our team.
• Victor Davila took a step back in the last game... against guys much smaller than him and quite inferior to him, he only managed 5 points and 2 rebounds in 25 minutes of play. That's just not good enough. The 2 blocks are welcome additions, but he's too good of a post player to sit back and let the other team work him down low.
• Jeff Allen seems to be doing a good job of taking what the other teams give him. In the last game, it was the basketball. The other team gave him the basketball 5 times because they weren't expecting his long arms to get in the way. I am just hoping we'll get to see more smart play from him because his biggest obstacle is his own mind.
• It seems like one of the freshmen is always stepping up lately to give us a good game. It was Ben Boggs against Iowa and VMI, it was Erick Green against Penn State, and it was Manny Atkins against Charleston Southern. These guys can all be good players for us in the future and can contribute useful minutes this season. I am feeling more and more comfortable with Erick Green running the show when Delaney is resting.
• JT Thompson is also coming alive right now. He was completely dominant against CSU, putting in 5-6 shots for 11 points and grabbing 9 rebounds in just 20 minutes of play. He will need to show that same kind of effort against ACC opponents who will be much larger than him. Moreover, he will need to continue to hit his mid-range jumper like he did in the last game.

I am pretty amped about January, but we've just got to get through some boring games in December before we can see how much this team is truly progressing.