Haaaa, what a great pun. I hope you enjoyed reading it about 50 times more than I enjoyed writing it. Let's move on... the Campbell Camels are in Blacksburg today and will be the first victims to enter Cassell Coliseum this season. Make no mistake, they're just not very good. They are fresh off of a 19-11 season which included wins over nobody of note, and they lost a substantial portion of their talent from last season. Their leading scorer and rebounder, Jonathan Rodriguez, is graduated and gone. They do return both of their starting guards in Atlantic Sun (yes that's a conference) Defensive Player of the Year Junard Hartley. They also return a decent shooter in Lorne Merthie, who led the Atlantic Sun conference in 3-point shooting last season (something like 45% from behind the arc). Hartley will not attempt to score... he'll mostly drive and kick amassing some good assist totals, and that's all his coach really wants him to do. If Merthie is shooting well, the Camels can put up a bit of a fight because Hartley's driving often pulls Merthie's defender, leaving him open for jumpers. The other players on the team aren't really worth mentioning... one or two of them might get all amped up and have a great game, but I'm not expecting much from anybody.
The crowd in the Cassell tonight needs to be loud and intimidating. The Camels are used to playing in front of tiny crowds at their home court, so a thundering crowd in Blacksburg could easily disrupt their game. My prediction is that the Hokies will not blow out this team like they should. VT just never seems to play well early in the season. In 2009, VT beat Brown by 14 points in their opening game, but the game was closer than the score indicates with a terrible Brown team staying within 5 points until about the last quarter of the game. In 2008 the Hokies beat Gardner-Webb by a mere 3 points at home. In 2007, Tech managed to eke out a 5 point win at home against Elon. For whatever reason, this group of players just doesn't shoot well right out of the gate, and I would love to see that change tonight. This is a team that VT should beat by 20+ points, and any other result will be a letdown.
Look for the Hokies to get Victor Davila and Jeff Allen involved early. Campbell's post players are not very good and should have a hard time handling our bigs. The Hokies really need to work the ball around in the half-court set to try to get high percentage shots... I'll be severely disappointed if our offense in the first half consists mostly of Delaney and Hudson shooting contested jumpers.
I'll also be looking to see what happens when VT's bench players are in the game. Our bench players should DOMINATE their bench players given the disparity in talent. JT Thompson lit up the Cambell bench for 17 points on 8-12 shooting last year. Jarell Eddie could probably do the same thing if he comes in with confidence. I'd really like to see Erick Green and Ben Boggs play well enough that Greenberg only needs to play Delaney for 32 minutes or so. He played 35 minutes last season, and that just shouldn't be necessary against a team this inferior to the Hokies.
The last thing I'm hoping that I DON'T get to see tonight... does Victor Davila stay in during crunch time? That's a question I would rather have answered against Kansas State because if it gets answered tonight, that means that the Camels are toe-to-toe with the Hokies in the final minutes (haha, another camel toe pun!). But that question is still out there... last season Seth Greenberg would usually opt to play JT Thompson in the final minutes instead of Victor Davila. Will Greenberg choose to play a smaller lineup late in games with either Erick Green, Manny Atkins, or Jarell Eddie getting playing time instead of big Vic? Hopefully we won't find out until Tuesday.
As for now... guard the Cassell tonight, Hokies!
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