SC Upstate Spartans (1-1)
At
Virginia Tech Hokies (1-0)
Cassell Coliseum
7pm, ACCNX/ESPN+
🇺🇸 Military Appreciation Night 🇺🇸🆚 USC Upstate🕖 7PM ET🏰 Cassell Coliseum📺 ACCNX🔗 https://t.co/Ypqs6c7UWE pic.twitter.com/9EVEuF0cmM— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) November 8, 2024
Television
Bailey Angle, PxP
Mack McCarthy, Analyst
Kendal Williams, Sideline
Radio
Zach Mackey, PxP
Mike Burnop, Analyst
Learn a little more
Hokies face off against the SC Upstate Spartans after beating Delaware State to start the season. Hokies fans got an initial look at a much more athletic roster that clearly still has some gelling to do.
Tech showed the highs of what is possible in the beginning, jumping out to a big lead making outside shots and creating turnovers. The tide turned a bit in the later parts of the first half as the Hokies went cold from the floor, allowing the Hornets to climb back into the game.
The biggest factor in the Delaware St game was free throw shooting. The Hokies left 11 freebies off the board.
📸🫨🫨🫨See 🫵 Friday: https://t.co/4gN2QzDnON pic.twitter.com/aT4cPzMMe7— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) November 6, 2024
Tobi Lawal though had a nine of eleven night at the line enroute to a career high 23 points. His high flying acrobatics on both ends were only tempered by some turnover issues.
Big Dawg Tob 🐶 pic.twitter.com/5wpMBQp5CN— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) November 5, 2024
SC Upstate comes in 1-1 on the season after losing their season opener 97-66 to NC State. They got their first victory 103-70 over Piedmont. Clearly a team that can score so the Hokies must avoid cold streaks. The spread on this game is 24.5 points so clearly Vegas expects the Hokies to run away with it.
The Spartans have two players that dominate scoring in guard Mister Dean and forward Nic Book. The two have averaged 39.5 ppg between them. The other starters are guards Chico Johnson, Karmani Gregory, and forward Kanye Jones.
This is a very young team in terms of top contributors. Four of the six are freshmen.
Fairly poor outside shooting team but be prepared for guard Carmelo Adkins to put it up pretty frequently. Their main focus is getting inside on dribble penetration. Shooting though outside of Dean, Book and Johnson is fairly low percentage wise.
It appears Coach Young is going with the same starting five as game one. I do anticipate everyone playing if the Hokies build a sustainable lead.
Hokies Starters
Brandon Rechsteiner
G, #7, 6-1 190
6.0 ppg 1.0 rpg
Jaydon Young
G, #3 6-4 205
13.0 ppg 3.0 rpg
Jaden Schutt
G, #2, 6-5 205
9.0 ppg 4.0 rpg
Tobi Lawal
F, #1, 6-8 215
23.0 ppg 8.0 rpg
Mylyjael Poteat
C, #34, 6-9 260
14.0 ppg 5.0 rpg
SC Upstate Starters
Mister Dean
G, #5 6-6
19.5 Pts, 6.0 Reb, 0.0 Ast
Nic Book
F,# 8 6-8
12.0 Pts, 9.0 Reb, 0.5 Ast
Chico Johnson
G, #24 6-3 180
9.0 Pts, 1.5 Reb, 1.5 Ast
Out Injured
Kanye Jones
F, #1 6-4 170
8.0 Pts, 3.0 Reb, 2.0 Ast
Karmani Gregory
G, #11 6-1
7.5 Pts, 3.0 Reb, 3.0 As
6th Man
Carmelo Adkins
G, #4 6-4
8.5 Pts, 4.5 Reb, 1.0 Ast
Comments
Let's go.
Hokies!
Mister Dean and Nic Book totally sounds like a children's short story.
Hokies....
Lucky so far Upstate turning it over a bunch or would be down double digits already
...and now we are.
We do not look good.
Really ugly passing so far. Shooting clearly bad but alot is the passing putting guys in bad spots.
cant see it tonight - i dont have e$pn+ and its not on my go to streaming site. ESPN.com doesn't even have live score, stats, or gamecast.
Weird it's right on the front page of the app for me.
Yeah...it just showed up on mobile but not on desktop. Weird.
I guess I'll just watch the gamecast now.
Amazing what happens when you take the ball to the rim
23% overall and 0% from outside. Sure way to lose to any team.
Team is gonna get steamrolled in ACC play for the 2nd year in a row. Disappointed, not surprised
Yeah idk how good the bottom half of the ACC is, but I think it's going to be a pretty rough year too. This team gives me "Mike Young year 1" team vibes, except we don't have a Landers Nolley player who we can throw it to and trust to create a decent look.
Schutt just got hit in the face twice with no whistle
That was brutal to watch but very similar to first half in game one. Game one was just the opposite order, Hokies ran out early but then fell apart. Tonight ugly early with some better ball last eight minutes.
I really hope Schutt can give us like 10 ppg this year. We need his shooting!
Am I the only one who actually thinks this team has pretty good upside?
First 10 minutes we refused to take anything but jump shots, and there was a lid on the basket. But this team is athletic and plays hard on defense. I see at least 9 or 10 guys who do at least something well, they just need to sort out how they work together on the court.
Too streaky and inconsistent against two teams that should be VERY inferior. Vegas had this as a 24.5 point spread and there was a moment early I thought the spread was going to end up reversed. Even being a "new" team the Hokies should be running these guys out of the gym. If they play like this in the ACC it will be a 5 win or less conference season.
You can see talent there but just ugly execution for about ten minutes.
I think they're pretty athletic but in both games they've looked kinda sluggish on defense to me, especially on the perimeter.
Like you said though I think the upside is there, just not sure if it will all click this year.
Refs sure are whistle happy in second half.
Seven fouls in less than 3 minutes.
Make it Eight
Refs have to pick one...can't be a shot and a foul on that one. Both feet were on floor when he barreled Schutt over. Some BS that was an And 1
So the band moved down (which pleases me). Am I understanding right that the corp now has dedicated room every game where the band was? I can dig that.
Tonight's Military Appreciation Night so not sure it's permanent
Right on. Thanks.
Burnham actually blocked that ball cleanly and they upgrade it to a Flagrant 1 ...the replays were crystal clear.
It certainly didn't meet any criteria for a flagrant.
Burnham is a scrappy dude. He brings good energy and hustle off the bench.
Play Ryan Jones....
Hopefully he's not "highly ranked but needs time to develop". Was really hoping he can have an instant impact with his size and talent.
Sometimes it feels like it's more Mike Young loyalty than on ability. Jones got back to back buckets when he finally got in last game. Had two rebounds too in a minute on the floor.
Had plenty of chances in the last five minutes to play him but nope 🙅♂️
No reason any key players should still be on the floor.
It's going to be a long year.
We shot 50% from the field, 38% from 3-pt range, and 77% from the free throw line. We had 6 players in double figures, were effective offensively inside and outside, and had 7 turnovers.
If you only watched the first 6 minutes, you'd think we were trying to miss jump shots. But we outscored them 91-58 (+33) after that. Besides the black hole to start the game, the team actually played very well.
I was not able to see the game so, the conclusion I can come to after reading through this thread is that this is horrible good news.
I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, but I'm finding this team much more watchable than the last two VT men's teams. Poteat looks like Baby Shaq, Lawal is an athletic freak who so far is good for at least one or two "wow!" plays a game, and we seem deeper than the last two seasons. Are we better? I don't know. But I've enjoyed watching both games.
We got down 16-2 (not a typo) last night, and it was pretty cringy to watch. But I actually think it was a great thing from a team building standpoint. The players kept their cool, picked up the intensity and slowly-but-methodically steamrolled SC Upstate (who by the way, did not look like a garbage team to me) from that point on.
And FWIW, even when we were down 16-2 (again, not a typo) ESPN's Gamecast still had VT with a 71.2% probability to win, which I think is kind of funny.
Rodney rice - 26 points in the first half tonight.
Coulda gone all weekend without hearing that. Thanks for nothin'.
Huh, just reading this thread and not checking the score I assumed we lost. Turns out we won by almost 20 points. Interesting.
They were losing majority of the first half. Down by as many as 14 if I recall. Believe it was 16-2 at that point. Kind of like the ladies last night, they couldn't get any perimeter shot to go in. They shot like 3 of 12 from outside in first half with nine turnovers. The three made came in the last four minutes of the first half.
Even the second half, they didn't pull away until about 10 and a half minutes left. Up to then it was a two to three score game. Hokies came in favored by 24.5 so didn't beat the spread.