Virginia Tech Men's Basketball falls to Penn State 58-61

The Virginia Tech men's basketball team has four fatal flaws: having only one reliable big man, defensive rebounding, free throw shooting and turnovers. All of which came back to haunt the Hokies in the final 20 minutes of their 58-61 loss at Penn State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Everything was going according to Buzz Williams' plan for most of the first half. Tech was getting great play in the paint from Joey van Zegeren, forced a ton of Nittany Lion turnovers through ball pressure and played at a tempo that created transition opportunities.

The troubles the team had earlier in the season weren't an issue. Every single player boxed out well, which lead to clean rebound chances for JVZ, Justin Bibbs and Ahmed Hill. For the most part everyone played within themselves, didn't force anything and let the offense flow through the post. By doing that, Tech's first turnover in the game was at the 1:44 mark in the first half.

Everything was going well, and though the Hokies went into the half trailing by three, it was easy to feel good about their chances.

Then the second half happened.

The Hokies gave up 10 offensive rebounds and turned the ball over seven times in the final frame. They struggled to hit shots as Penn State extended their half court defense, which put them on the wrong end of a 19-2 run at one point in time. van Zegeren picked up his fourth foul with just over 10 minutes to go in the game, which left Tech devastatingly undersized for stretches of game time (Shane Henry had to play center by the end of the game).

To their credit this team fought until the bitter end, despite not having a thing go their way. Hill had a chance to send the game to overtime with a three-ball, but it (fittingly) rattled out at the buzzer.

Though the game was quite disappointing compared to what it could have been, I'm not going to write in much more detail about the negatives. We know exactly what this team struggles with, and those things will be problems all year. What I'd like to focus on are the signs of progress that the team exhibited and how they can grow going forward.

Obviously, the first place to start is with the big man down low. Joey created a huge mismatch with the Nittany Lion post players, dominating close to the rim. His wingspan made him tower over his defender at all times, and his favorite hook shot could barely be contested on the block. The most underrated part of van Zegeren's night, however, was what set him apart from Penn State's big man.

If you watched the game you probably didn't realize, but there was a seven footer on the opposing bench as well. Jordan Dickerson was by far the biggest player wearing black and pink on Wednesday, he's listed at 7'0", 240 lbs, yet only played 16 minutes because he couldn't keep up. The pace was lively for the majority of the game and it simply wore the big fella down quickly. JVZ, on the other hand, excelled with the tempo. He got his touches in the post, but was also moving extremely well. He was slipping off of screens and even put the ball on the deck and drove to the hoop a few times.

Fouls will always be an issue, but JVZ is the perfect compliment to a small lineup. He can move well enough to defend other undersized units while also exposing them on the other end. His big problem is obviously free throw shooting, where his 0-7 performance was a disastrously sour note to an otherwise huge night.

Before all you go to the comments and hit me with a "practice more free throws!!!", I think we have to acknowledge that it goes deeper than that. For one, big guys' hands are often disproportionately large compared to the basketball, which makes free throws a struggle for post guys. Secondly, he's doing what you would want mechanically, and if you look closely you can see him break down each step in the free throw shooting process. He lines up his hand on the ball, sets his form and let's go an often good-looking shot. They just don't often hit the mark.

For all of the great advantages that Joey brings to the table, I'm not sure that he can close out games offensively if he can't correct his foul shooting.

On another positive note, van Zegeren wasn't the only person to make stuff happen in the lane. Bibbs showed a nice streak as a playmaker, Hill's cuts around the rim made the defense sweat and Devin Wilson did a nice job creating shots. He may have only ended the day with 3 assists, but there were plenty of open shots that simply didn't go down.

I'm still not sold on Jalen Hudson as a secondary ball handler, but he played defense like a banshee on Wednesday night. If that's a way that he can channel his athleticism, he'll always have a roll on Buzz's team as a primary defender and secondary playmaker. That's not a bad spot to be in as a freshman.

You could tell that this team wanted to get out and run, and at times they did. Hill is a menace filling the lane on a fast break, and I'll start to feel robbed if we don't see at least one transition dunk from him a game. The best part of playing small is that practically every player on the floor can grab a rebound and start a fast break, which in theory should ramp up the chances to run.

The only snag to that is sometimes the young guns are too eager to play fast. If they try to get out too quickly, they'll forget the most important part of a fast break: the rebound. Sometimes, in their haste, everyone will start to leak down the floor only to see their man grab a rebound. It not only gives the opposing team a second chance, but it also limits their chance turn up the tempo. We saw this a few times against Penn State, and they paid the price for it.

This game was incredibly frustrating, and I feel for all of you who finally got the chance to watch a Hokie hoops game on something other than a computer screen. Despite solid stretches of play,they ended up showing their youth and then made some mistakes that cost them the game.

The good news? Tech won't often shoot 38.5% from the floor, some of those shots will eventually fall. Let's just hope that it will happen sooner rather than later, and that this defeat is yet another building block on which this young team can learn.

That may be too positive a take to have after a loss, but with a young team like this I'm not really sure we have much of a choice.