It was a tag team effort last night, and Virginia Tech lost to the duo of North Carolina and The Men In Stripes. UNC used Ed Davis' inside presence to keep VT out of the lane and Will Graves & Larry Drew2 used a late flurry of 3-pointers to defeat the Hokies. The referees used ticky-tack fouls, phantom fouls, and no-calls to keep Tech down and out. It was a back and forth effort run with admirable precision by both UNC and the MIS. Remember the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial where the referee pretends to be reviewing the play but is really asking the people at the bar what to do, and the fans ask him to extend the game so everyone at the bar can enjoy more wings and drunken debauchery before the game ends? This game was kind of like that, except the fans at the bar are all wearing Tar Heel baby blue and they don't want to stay longer, they want the ref to give their team the win. The game was a lot closer than the 78-64 score indicates, which is a shame... VT led for most of the first half and for a short while in the second half before going ice cold from everywhere, including the free throw line, and getting no help from the refs when they drew contact on drives to the hoop. There was a point late in the second half where VT was down by five points and Ed Davis "blocked" a shot from Cadarian Raines that had already hit the backboard before Davis touched it. By rule, that is goaltending and should have been 2 points for the Hokies. Instead of getting 2 points, the block triggered a fastbreak for UNC where Will Graves hit a 3 and then another 3 from Drew2 put UNC far enough ahead to waste time and sit on their lead the rest of the half, forcing VT to foul. Referees should never be the focal point of the game, but these refs were intent on forcing the direction of play. It seemed as though they had decided that VT could get fouls if the Tar Heels fouled away from the hoop (in one-and-one situations), but never on drives to the hoop or other fouls in the lane. On the other hand, every little touch and bump that we had against UNC would be called a foul no matter where it happened. I guess I am done talking about referees... I just hate when they factor into the outcome of a game. They're supposed to be invisible and even the pro-UNC Comcast announcers were pointing out their errors that were in favor of Tech. I promise that I am not being a sore loser here... this really happened.
Zebras aside, you can blame the rest of the loss on cold shooting from the Hokies. Dorenzo Hudson was 0-6 from the 3-point line and looked like he had zero touch on his shot. To be fair, he was trying to earn free throws on a lot of his misses, but the refs weren't helping him by making the correct call. None of the other Hokies really helped out with outside shooting either. Even taking out Hudson's piss-poor effort from outside, the rest of the team was only 4-12 from deep. VT on the whole played incredible defense in this game, Hudson included. Jeff Allen made life miserable for Deon Thompson, who is definitely one of UNC's top two players if not their best player. However, Thompson and company also held Allen to just 4 points for the game. It seemed like he got blocked every time he went up with the ball. The Hokies just didn't seem to realize that you can't fade away from a shot-blocker like Ed Davis. He's monumentally gifted in that department and you always need to go straight into a shot blocker rather than away from one. Davis owned the paint in the second half. VT got Deon Thompson to foul out late in the second half, but the damage had already been done by that point. There were times in this game that I was so frustrated either with the refs or with VT's play that I visualized throwing my beer bottle at my 46" flat screen. But then I kept visualizing myself sleeping on the couch that night and shelling out $2,000 for another TV and decided it probably wasn't worth it.
The Hokies got pantsed in front of a raucous crowd at the Dean Dome, but there is still some good news, in two parts. First, this is not a game that VT was expected to win, so the loss doesn't hurt our NCAA tournament resume. Secondly, I think you can expect a more competitive finish when the Tar Heels visit Cassell Coliseum on February 4... mostly because it will be a home game for VT, so the referees should at least call the game even in that one. Also, UNC seemed to feed off of their crowd late in the game when Graves and Drew2 were hitting dagger three-pointers, so they won't have that advantage in our house. VT has Miami on Wednesday at 7pm in Blacksburg, so let's hope our crowd will be extremely fired up for Tech's ACC home-opener! (The word "home-opener" just made me giggle... just thought I would share).
In the meantime, Hudson should practice his BEEF. That's Balance (square yourself to the hoop), Eyes (keep them on the hoop), Elbow (square your elbow straight up and down, in line with your knee), and Follow-Through (make that hand look like you are waving Confederate soldiers off to war with your handkerchief).
2 comments:
I read last night that Hudson and Bell combined for 33 shots, and Delaney and Allen combined for 18. We will win zero ACC games with a box score that looks like that.
The refs were awful, sure, and probably impact the game to a certain degree. The most disappointing thing to me is that we seemed to take a step back offensively in this game. Delaney was handcuffed in the second half, and no one else could step up to fill the void. We had shown signs of being able to do that in earlier games, but not yesterday.
In my mind, Miami is close to a must-win game for us. Beating Florida St in Tallahassee is a tall order, and starting 0-3 in conference play won't be good for the team's confidence. Fingers crossed.
nice post.
i don't really have a problem with the ticky-tack fouls UNC got on their offensive end. that's the stuff i usually attribute to home team advantage and the refs appeasing the crowd, and i hope, like you said, we get some of the same in b'burg on feb 4th.
the problem i had during the UNC game 2nd half was the non-calls on the hokie offensive end. it's common in college basketball for the home team (or highly ranked national favorite like a UNC) to get a few ticky-tack calls when they have the ball, yet normally the refs do at least still call the *legitimate* calls the favorite committed on the underdog. the ommision of these calls is what bugged me in the VT/UNC game. when there's clear contact that negatively affected a shot on our end, they still have to call those - and the home team favorite will still end up with a few more free throws because of the aforementioned ticky-tacks on their end. in the UNC game, 2nd half run by UNC where we couldn't hit a shot, our players were trying to get out of it properly, driving to the lane and trying to create, get some confidence back, and at worst get a couple free throws.
the missed goal tending call had to just be a whiff by the officials. there's no way one could have seen that and let it go. right?
as for a problem i saw with the hokies, and this might not be an ongoing thing, maybe just a thing in a game where they went cold against a top 10 team on the road at their house and getting no help from the officials, they made the extra pass TOO MUCH in the second half. i don't know if the guys who had shots from ~10ft just had zero confidence, but there were too many good shot looks passed up by guys trying to thread the needle for one more pass. if your offensive set has gotten you to the hip uncontested at 8-10ft, you take that. rarely will your extra pass at the location get a better shot, as the rotating D will either tip your pass (UNC common occurrence) or the rotating D who was late to you at the 8-10ft shot is now on time to block/contest the layup from the other side of the lane (UNC common occurrence).
and all that being said. it was *at* UNC and it wasn't an expected win as you said, but i'd at least like to have a fair shot (officials) and go out with our best players making good plays and just losing because we got beat (not the entire team losing the ability to hit the broad side of a barn).
and now with even all that said, miami *was* ranked before they came into the 'burg wednesday. :)
if we can knock off FSU saturday that would be two top 25 wins in a week and would put us at 14-2. that would have to garner a couple votes.
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