Friday, February 5, 2010

It's Always Fun To Beat The Heels!

I don't care who you are, if you are not a North Carolina Tar Heels fan, then you absolutely love beating them. It doesn't matter that UNC is a middle-of-the-pack caliber team in the ACC this year. It's always nice to get a win against a team that regularly pulls in several McDonald's All-Americans every year. Fortunately for Virginia Tech, this batch of All-Americans isn't NBA-ready yet. They have a lot of growing up to do. John Henson had his best game of the season, but he wasn't terribly impressive. He had a lot of open dunks that came from poor rotation on Tech's part. David Wear had a nice game offensively, but he still looks over-matched against seasoned vets like 'Zo Hudson, JT Thompson, and Terrell Bell.

With all that said, UNC shot the ball better from the field last night. The keys to this win were the 9 extra possessions the Hokies gained on turnovers and the futility of the Tar Heels from the foul line. Once again, the ACC referees embarrassed themselves with another poor showing. The fouls were definitely not being called evenly as VT attacked the rim just as much as UNC and our boys' efforts were not rewarded at the same level that North Carolina's efforts were. Drawn charges for UNC were blocking fouls for VT. Body contact at the rim turned into fouls against VT, but no-calls for UNC. The students, the announcers, our coach... everybody seemed to know that the calls were poor except for the people making them. Cassell Coliseum was loud last night, and maybe we can partially thank the referees for that. I got a text from my friend Dave that read, "Is it possible for me to be more upset with the refs?" I think everyone watching that game felt the same way.

Foul trouble plagued Virginia Tech for almost the entire game. Malcolm Delaney, Jeff Allen, Terrell Bell, Victor Davila, and JT Thompson all had issues at one point or another. Delaney had to be pulled after getting his 4th foul with 12 minutes left to play in the second half. He came back in with 7 minutes left and never picked up a 5th foul. That's incredibly good work from Malcolm Delaney. Jeff Allen seemed to use much better judgment with his fouls in this game and when his outside shot abandoned him, Jeff did the smart thing and pushed the ball towards the rim. I thought it was an outstanding game for Virginia Tech on a night when no one (besides Hudson and Davila) was shooting the ball well particularly well. VT ramped up their defense in the second half to create turnovers and grab offensive rebounds, and those extra possessions evened out the poor shooting effort. VT also made 18 of 22 shots from the foul line... another key stat in the win, especially considering our usual propensity for suck at the foul line.

My only criticism from last night... feed the post! Davila was feeling it down low, hitting 3-4 and looking very confident in his post moves. Instead of continuing to get the ball to him and forcing UNC to double team, our guards decided to continually swing the ball around the perimeter and look to the high post where Allen and JT Thompson were setting up. The best (or worst depending on your viewpoint) example of this was a play where Davila had posted his man deep down low, a few steps from the basket. Delaney had the ball on the wing and could have easily fed Davila, but instead Delaney decided to drive the ball right into where Davila was posting. I'm not sure if he thought he could use Davila as a screen for his defender or what, but it didn't work, Davila lost his post position, and Delaney was forced to pull the ball back out and swing it around the perimeter. Like I said though, that's my only criticism. You can't fault the shots for not falling, but you can fault the types of shots we took, and we settled for a lot of long 2-pointers.

Now everyone needs to take a step back and remember that this UNC team isn't all that good this year and this win doesn't mean too much. A win against Clemson on Saturday would actually be better for our NCAA tournament resume. Clemson is #35 in the RPI right now, and a top-50 RPI win is always helpful to the resume. The thing that should make you a little nervous is that Clemson has had a week to prepare for VT, but Seth Greenberg will only have about a day and a half to prepare his team for Clemson. That's a tall order, particularly when you consider Clemson's unique full court trap. Teams would usually like several days to prepare for that trap. However, the Hokies handled the pressure from the trap so well last season that Clemson was forced to abandon the trap (and came back from 20 points down to win the game... grrrrr). Delaney and Hudson have had plenty of practice against the trap, but Erick Green is one guy who could use more time with it. We also don't have Hank Thorns back this season, and he was a big reason why the trap was useless against us (even if he was a complete non-factor once that trap was broken). Tech tends to play well in games with a quick turnaround like this one, so I am going to keep my fingers crossed.

In other news, Richmond is getting ready for another snow storm. Let me tell you just how unlucky we are here... it now will have snowed here 3 times this winter. The first two were over a foot of accumulation each time. The one today/tonight is supposed to be at least that bad. Every one of these snow storms has arrived on a Friday. So I haven't missed a single freaking day of work!! COME ON! What kind of bullcrap is this? If it's going to dump snow on us and force me to bust my hump shoveling all of it up, shouldn't I at least get to miss a day of work here and there?

Complete BS. I quit.

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