Buzzketball Central: #12 Virginia Cavaliers (18-5, 8-3) at Virginia Tech Hokies (16-7, 5-6) 630PM ESPNU

IT'S GAMEDAY! #BeatUVa Cassell 6:30 PM ESPNU pic.twitter.com/X14SsSIGO6— VT Men's Basketball (@VT_MBBall) February 12, 2017

GAME INFORMATION
Date/Time: February 12, 2017 / 6:30 p.m.
Opponent: Virginia
Site: Blacksburg, Virginia (Cassell Coliseum)
Radio: Virginia Tech IMG Sports Network
Talent: Jon Laaser & Mike Burnop
TV/Internet: ESPNU
Talent: Anish Shroff & Cory Alexander
Live Stats: HokieSports.com
Game Notes: Virginia Tech
XM: XM 81 (Internet 81)

ALL OF THE LIGHTS!Download 'Hokie Lights' in the App Store before tonight's game to join in our light show! #ThisIsHome pic.twitter.com/jHMR3faYp2— VT Men's Basketball (@VT_MBBall) February 12, 2017

Hokies have to stand up
Buzzketball has a lot on the line tonight in their clash with in state rival Virginia. Defending the home court is going to be essential to making an NCAA tournament run. Its only been 11 days since the Hokies were in Charlottesville being taken apart piece by piece. The 71-48 thrashing hopefully left a fire behind. UVA is trying to keep pace with North Carolina for a shot at the title and might be apt to look over the Hokies this second go round considering UVA has Duke and UNC twice in their next five games. They come in having beaten a shorthanded Louisville squad and having lost to Syracuse on the road. Their only other losses this season have been at the hands of the Cousins, Florida State and Pitt. The Pitt game I chalk up to a hangover after losing to FSU on a three with four seconds left. The Wahoos have wins over Iowa, Ohio State, Cal in their OOC slate and Louisville, Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College, Georgia Tech and Notre Dame in the ACC.

Finally a home game with some time to recoup their thoughts, sure to be a sellout in Cassell, the Hokies should have a high energy crowd to support their effort to upset UVA. The Hokies need to be ready right out the gate to execute their offense effectively. The Hokies have to be on target tonight, as we all saw how poorly they shot the ball last time out against the Cavaliers.

This will be the One Hundred and Fourty Fifth meeting between the Hokies and Cavaliers. Virginia leads the all-time series 90-54. As mentioned above, UVA won the last meeting 71-48.

The Wahoos are coached by Tony Bennett, who has been at Virginia since 2009. His first season the Cavaliers won 15 games and have progressively added to that each season until having two 30 win seasons back to back these last two years. Bennett has been a great success guiding UVA to four NCAA tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight last season. He also guided them to an outright ACC Championship both in regular season and tournament in 2014, while also being the regular season Champ in 2015.

Defensively, UVA uses the Pack Line Defense which is a high pressure, man to man defense that sags to the middle of the court. It is designed to prevent penetration by driving the basketball. The "pack line" is an imaginary line two feet inside the three point line that all defenders not guarding the current ball handler are never supposed to be outside of. The defender that is on the ball handler is expected to be up close, hand in face to create turnovers on the outside. One other critical aspect of this defense that is different than most is that it's designed to deny the baseline. Defenders are taught to position themselves to not allow any baseline penetration, relying on help defense to close down an adjusted drive to the center of the lane. At the top of the post, expect to see defenders attempt to position themselves somewhat in front of the opposing offensive player to prevent the easy pass to the top of the lane.

Offensively, the Cavaliers run what is called a Block Mover Offense on the other end of the court. This is a variation of the Motion Offense, allowing the primary ball handler at the top of the key to attempt to use a screen provided by one of two lane personnel near the top of the key. At the point of the screen, the ball handler decides either to drive the lane, kick out to an open shooter or attempt a down low pass to their second lane player, who usually moves across the basket down at the baseline block to create space for the driving guard. The defensive rotation is what drives the guard's decision making process as he assesses what is in front of him. The guard essentially has three options coming off the pick or can spin back out to reset for another play. The key for the Hokies will be to limit the times where we allow dribble penetration by Perrantes or allow a clean pass into the lower lane player for an easy layup.

What does that mean for the Hokies?

ALL OF THE LIGHTS!Download 'Hokie Lights' in the App Store before tonight's game to join in our light show! #ThisIsHome pic.twitter.com/jHMR3faYp2— VT Men's Basketball (@VT_MBBall) February 12, 2017

The Hokies are getting an opponent with a very similar offensive approach and in terms of size. Now they must find a way to beat the ACCs top defense. Last time out, the only two Hokies that had any success getting the ball to the basket were Allen and Leday. The rest of the squad was held way below their season totals. Almost all of that was from missed shots rather than turnovers and just the UVA defense being themselves. This game, the Hokies need to crash the ball to the basket much more than they did the last time out. UVA was able to play stellar perimeter defense last time because they didn't need to worry about being the help defense inside.

Get to 60 points on the night still applies. The Cavaliers are a meager 3-5 with their recent loss to Syracuse, who won 66-62. This will require finding open shooters and being able to get to the rim against the UVA bigs. One critical aspect to this game could be how often the Hokies are able to get to the free throw line. Last time out the Hokies managed to get to the line 20 times, putting in 15. It was their most successful method of scoring on the court all night. UVA bigs are not as athletic as some of the other competition so they are more apt to reach and foul rather than be able to block or disrupt shots.

The Hokies need to make an honest effort to limit points off turnovers and second chance points. They gave up 13 off turnovers and 18 second chance points in the previous game. The Hokies only created 8 points off turnovers and had 3 second chance points.

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Cavaliers Backcourt

London Perrantes (#32) 6'2, 197 Lbs Senior Guard is averaging 12.2 PPG, 3.1 RPG, and 4 APG. He is shooting 41% from behind the arc and 45% overall. London is their do everything guy this season. He is definitely their top defender and should be matched up with Seth Allen most of the evening.

Marial Shayok, (#4) 6'5, 196 Junior Guard comes in averaging 9.6 PPG, 2.7 RPG, 1.1 APG and 1 SPG. He is shooting 32% from outside and at the free throw line, shooting 77%. He is better known for his quick first step and ability to drive inside. So far on the season he is shooting better than 46% inside the arc. He has not had the best couple of games as all of his numbers are down compared to the last matchup.

Devon Hall, (#0) 6'5, 207 lbs Junior Guard is averaging 8.5 PPG and 4.4 RPG but in the last matchup he put up 17 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 assists. His shot outside the arc is going in at about 40% while inside the arc it drops in at to 45%. He is a terrific free throw shooter as well, hitting from the line at an 80% clip. Hall will likely be defending one of the baseline corners for most of this game.

Kyle Guy, (#5) 6'3, 165 Lbs Freshman Guard is averaging 7.6 PPG 1.5 RPG and 1.2 APG in a backup role across 17 minutes per game. So far this season he is shooting 46% from the field, 48% from behind the arc and 78% from the line. Considering how well he scores, he could see extended minutes this evening which will make for a wonderful competition tonight.

Darius Thompson, (#51), 6'4, 196 Lbs, Junior Guard is averaging 6.7 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 2.6 APG and 1 SPG. This is Thompson's second season with the Wahoos since transferring from Tennessee. He has gradually improved across almost every aspect of his game this season, and will likely take over from Perrantes next season.

Cavaliers Frontcourt

Isaiah Wilkins, (#21), 6'7, 225 Lbs Junior Forward was the wild card in our first matchup. He is averaging 7.1 PPG, 5.9 RPG, and 1.6 APG. Wilkins's interior scoring is at 52% and perimeter scoring is at 57% on very limited attempts but in the game against the Hokies, Wilkins scored 15 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal and 1 block. Just to round things out, he shoots just under 74% from the free throw line as well. Wilkins is the primary big operating the center of the UVA offense. This is the Step Son of Dominique "The Human Highlight Film" Wilkins.

Jarred Reuter, (#31) 6'7, 243 Lbs Sophomore Forward, Mamadi Diakite, (#25) 6'9, 214 Lbs, and Jack Salt, (#33) 6'11, 247 Lbs Sophomore Center combine to provide one more spot on the floor for the Cavaliers while also backing up Wilkins when needed. They combine for 13.5 PPG, 9.3 RPG, 1.4 APG and 2 BPG.

Names the Announcers will Butcher

Newest Candidate is Kyle ManBun Guy.

What to expect from Virginia?
The Cavaliers rely mostly on their defense to limit opposing teams scoring, as we touched on, they have only allowed opponents above 60 points in eight games this season. Those are the games they struggle in though.

Expect the Cavaliers to cause early turnovers by confusing the Hokies in terms of passing lanes and where the defense is coming from on the floor. UVA is excellent at back side help to keep the ball out of the basket.
Rebounding is also a huge key to Virginia's success this season. They slow the game down so much that they give up the 3rd fewest rebounds on the offensive glass and 4th fewest overall. Opponents average only about 20 rebounds per game against UVA. This doesn't translate to the Wahoos getting a ton of rebounds though as they are above 328 in offensive and total rebounds as a team.

They usually don't shoot often from outside but when they do, they have the best shooting percentage in the ACC from outside at 43%. Seems like a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

Perrantes drives the train, so if he isn't having a top performance than UVA is going to struggle.

UVA is allowing the fewest points per game this season at 53.7 on the fourth fewest shot attempts by an opponent in the nation. Such is the result when you have total team buy in to the style of defense that Tony Bennett utilizes. This is the epitome of selfless basketball, because many of these players in someone else' system would be putting up dramatically better numbers.

The Hokies

Tech needs to go fast again in this game. The standing around on offense has to stop or they will really struggle to find open shots against the Wahoo defense. This isn't a team the Hokies are likely to get tired since they utilize so many guards so being able to beat them down the court as often as possible is critical to their success.

Collectively the Hokies need to be able to step into three pointers to keep this defense spread out. If they are unable to do so it allows the Wahoos to do exactly what they want which is to pack the lane and make scoring down low that much harder. This is a case of team performance more so than any one shooter.

Score, just score, get to 60. Keep yourself in the game Hokies by hitting your shots like you have all season.

Highlight of the Miami Game

The Justin Robinson Technical Foul

In Closing
Whoever wins the pace battle of this contest likely wins the game. If UVA is able to slow things down and keep the score really low than the game plays to their strengths. If the Hokies can speed it up and keep Virginia off balance a bit than the Hokies stand a good chance of winning this contest.

Don't expect to get to the line but don't stop driving inside to add to the offense. UVA does not foul much so the Hokies must count on playing stellar defense to balance out this game. A telling factor to this game will be if either team can managed a significant difference in made free throws.

This is a lot closer to an absolute must win than the last matchup was. Two conference losses in a row has a big impact on that. This is a home game and they need to defend it. It still wouldn't hurt the Hokies to win to keep UVA off the top of the pedestal.

Hokies win 69-65 at the end of the game, leaving UVA looking up at the top of the ACC and a great rival win under their belts.

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