The Opposite of Clutch

Well, I think we all know what happened yesterday, but for anyone who was stuck in a well, Virginia Tech lost in overtime to Purdue 58-55. The game was extremely close, with a lot of back and forth in the second half. This was an extremely disappointing loss for the Hokie fan base as a win would have strongly helped their bid to the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. Frankly, I'm having a tough time keeping this post from being too negative. Let's just get a few of the many negatives out of the way first.

• Malcolm Delaney really struggled, going a career-worst 2-18 from the floor. Look, he had a bad game. That happens. Does it usually happen to this sort of dramatic degree? No. But it happens and I'm not going to pin this loss on Delaney. The biggest reason VT lost this game is they missed way too many easy put-backs, layups, and free throws. It just seemed like our team was cursed. This is definitely an area where having JT Thompson would have helped, but that's the breaks. A smaller reason for losing the game, and I can't believe I'm saying this because I love the guy, was Seth Greenberg's coaching. He apparently didn't call timeout to call up a play on our last possession of regulation time. The play he drew up for overtime seemed to have one option, Jeff Allen, and when he wasn't open the next option was for Delaney to dribble around and try to find a shot. In a game where Delaney is 2-18, I really don't want the guy taking this final shot. He has never proven to be a clutch player in his entire career, nor has any other player on this team. Instead, this team is the opposite of clutch. They always choke on the pressure of a big game.
• I see our team having trouble with skilled big men all season. We don't have good depth, and at this point none of our bigs are good on-ball defenders. JaJuan Johnson is a nice player, but we made him look like the surefire Player Of the Year. Maybe Cadarian Raines can be our lock-down post defender by the time the ACC slate rolls around, but right now there's nobody.
• Although 'Zo Hudson played better than in the UNLV game, he still is not back to his old self. To me, it feels like he is struggling with confidence issues again. Where is Seton Hall again when you need them?
• VT hasn't exactly murdered their chances to get into the NCAA tournament, but they definitely took a large baseball bat and gave their chances a savage beating. The only high profile game left on the schedule is Duke, and they look like world-beaters right now. However, the possibility of a win against the Blue Devils is still there and would assure us of an NCAA tournament berth if the Hokies can win a decent number of conference games. It would be very unVT to miss out on the bubble fun during the NCAA tournament Selection Sunday... I'd hate for that to happen.

Okay, let's move on to the good... let's try to keep a glass-half-full mentality going here, people.

• Victor Davila had his best game as a Hokie. It's hard to explain how well he played because his stats weren't THAT impressive. He was 6-8 from the field for 12 points, and he added 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. The reason that I was so impressed is because he did this against JuJuan Johnson, who is an excellent post defender and shot blocker. Victor really scrapped and fought for rebounds, and although you sometimes longed for him to have the same hands as Jeff Allen, if Davila did catch the ball he looked very dangerous with it. He played with a lot more confidence than I've ever seen from him. Hopefully this will be his "light switch" game going forward where he realizes he's good enough to compete with the other big guys in the ACC.
• I really liked what Tech got out of Erick Green. He didn't shoot as well as you would hope, and you can probably attribute some of that to the calf injury he's still getting over. What I liked about him was that he was a reliable ball handler against defenders who were really hounding our guards, he defended exceptionally well, and he definitely caused several turnovers for Purdue with smart play. He had a couple drives to the basket that yielded good results... one was a wrap-around pass to Raines for an easy layup, and the other was a drive that got cut off, so he went up with a short floater that dropped in. He also got himself to the free throw line 3 times in 21 minutes, and hit all 3 shots. He's rounding into form nicely.
• Jeff Allen was on the floor for 41 minutes! And it's all because he kept his fouls in check. He played very well, but I'd love for him to can the 3-point attempts... unless the shot clock is about to go off and he has no other play.
• Terrell Bell grabbed 11 rebounds and was hustling all over. He's still not an offensive threat of any kind, but he's a player who is necessary to have to be successful. He was a big reason why E'Twaun Moore only had 9 shot attempts. Honestly, at this point I think he's the only senior that I'm going to truly miss next season.

Hey, I'm trying hard to still keep the faith for this season. I have definitely learned that this group of seniors, even if they make the NCAA tournament, doesn't have a chance to make the Final Four, let alone the Elite Eight. What they do still have is a chance to improve. They still have a chance to compete for the ACC regular season title. They have a chance to win the ACC tournament. They have a chance to get into the Big Dance. All of those dreams are still alive, and if I abandoned all hope now... well, I just wouldn't last very long as a fan of Virginia Tech and all Cleveland sports teams.

Suck it LeBron... you're going down tonight.