Hokie Hoops Central: ACC Tournament Cal (13-18)
vs
Virginia Tech (13-18)
430 pm
Spectrum Center
ACCN
TV: ACC Network
Wes Durham (play-by-play),
Cory Alexander (analyst)
Jim Boeheim (analyst)
Radio: Virginia Tech Sports Network in Blacksburg 93.1 FM and 105.9 FM.
Zach Mackey play-by-play
Mike Burnop analyst.
Streaming: ESPN.com/ESPN mobile app.
Live Audio: HokieSports.com/HokieSports mobile app.
Live Stats: HokieSports.com.
Virginia Tech will face Cal in its first-round game of the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament. The Hokies and the Golden Bears are set to square off for the second time this season.
Their first meeting was a 71-68 Hokies victory on the West Coast. Four Hokies finished in double figures, led by Jaydon Young off the bench with 14 points. Cal on the other hand only had two double-digit scorers but got 24 points from Stojakovic.
The Hokies had a 42-23 halftime lead but nearly blew it. Lawal and Poteat had early foul trouble in the second half which cleared the way for Stojakovic to help Cal mount a comeback. The comeback was also fueled by the Hokies patented scoring droughts. They had two 3 minute droughts and then a nearly 5 minute drought in the second half. Then the Hokies had 5 critical turnovers in the last four minutes allowing Cal to close the gap. Stojakovic missed a three at the buzzer that would have sent it to overtime.
This and their next two games are toss ups and really come down to which version comes out of the locker room IN BOTH HALVES.
Hokies would need to win the tournament to gave any post season play but that's a super tall task.
Comments
Let's Go!
HOKEIS!!!!!!!
OR HOKIES, EVEN
Obviously can't spell nor paying attention to what I typed.
Poteat should have been at the line at the end.
Halftime, and only five comments?
Tell me we've checked out without telling me we've checked out.
More I have been working.
34-31 VT at half.
I just woke up.
Go back to sleep
No points in the second half. So bad.
Here we go...four+ minutes scoring drought.
Bullshit foul and should have been offensive so no free throws
Poteat called for a foul when he had position and got the rebound. If the dude draped on his back gets hit in the face, that's his fault. Such a BS call
Over the back much?
No one turns it over like us. No one.
14 for 21 from the line
1 for SIXTEEN from 3
Why why why would Reich take that 3?
Edit: he redeemed himself.
Honestly amazed we are even in this game with how we are shooting from the line and from three.
Can't make that shit up...so embarrassing
Absolutely unbelievably bad
Also absolutely 100% a foul on Cal
Jesus christ
Should have been two fouls on Cal against Lawal there
How is that not called? Was textbook
Burnham with the dumbest play one could even imagine.
Dude lost the ball in the air
Terrible fucking approach. So awful
Laughable possession there. Laughable inbound. What in God's name is CMY doing?
Times like these I wonder if CMY is the X's and O's legend everyone says he is lol
Go right at their bigs with 4 fouls
Should have taken a timeout from Cal
What a bullshit foul call
It was our fault for being in position and getting ripped into the Cal guy.
What in the world does the ACC have against us? It's amazing how every time the calls start going against us. What did we do to hate us in all sports? I can't recall a single time it felt like the calls went our way (and I'm a very level-headed, realist).
That game with any other refs than ACC and the Hokies win in regulation. I was only able to watch the last minute and overtime. So many one sided bad calls, I even heard the announcers calling and that was a travel by Cal as they awarded a basket.
That's my point. But it's in every sport. What did we do?
Bail on the ACC as soon as possible.
...stepped out of bounds.
Was clearly shoved by two guys.
WHY DO WE NOT USE TIMEOUTS ON BAD INBOUNDS?!
We are unfathomably awful in end of game situations.
Doing everything to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory
Yeah having Rech go to the corner is terrible
Double block. ...call phantom foul
Neither VT player fouled him. He leaned into Poteet.
Just laughable.
Ugh can't even manage a shot
Welp
We haven't scored a point in 2OT.
Failure to take it right into Sosshoko to get him out of the game. No excuse. He has had 4 fouls for 10 minutes now
Did we honestly think this would go any other way?
At least they are putting me out of my misery.
Line closed as Cal -2.5...so it's not like we were favored.
Lawal has to dunk that
Burnham successfully blocks out Lawal there. He has put on a disaster class this game.
If Lawal could have finished even half his takes game would have been over a long time ago
Cal with 28 points at the line
No offensive foul for double arm shoved to Schutt
Well here's to next season hopefully! Awful way to end things but this season has been awful in general ugh.
Sorry guys. Totally my fault. I did my best to ignore this game until I saw it was in double overtime. Flipped over to radio to listen and nothing positive happened from that point on.
Just as easy to blame me. I turned it on with a minute to go when I got home from work.
Not that there should have been any sort of expectations for the season coming in, but the last two weeks or so of the Season really left a bad taste in my mouth.
Couldn't beat UVA, then follow that with an embarrassingly bad loss to a horrible Boston College team, did everything we could to try and give back the Syracuse win, and then made one of North Carolina's worst teams in memory look like NBA All-Stars.
And to end with giving another game back to a really poor Cal team by completely bungling the end of game scenarios.
No one should have expected much from this team offensively, they really just aren't that talented. But when you have a team with that makeup, ball security and making smart decisions have to be absolutely paramount.
The fact that at the end of the year we were still so poor in both doesn't say great things about CMY.
That was a master class in how to lose a basketball game. So frustrating on so many levels. Peak for me probably was the turnover at the end of OT. Clear midcourt with 20 seconds left, and they didn't even get a shot off. Beyond embarrassing
As much as I think the refs really bungled that sequence at the end of regulation, I guess it's fitting that we lost the way we did all season. Too many turnovers, long scoring droughts, not getting consistent play from the top guys, etc, etc.....
It was another situation where I am just wondering why CMY isn't using his timeouts at the end of a game. We have very limited floor leadership/experience so why not call a set play? I got lit up last time on here for bringing this up because we went on to win but this time it bit us. That being said... the refs were all time awful. Like... suspiciously awful.
I'm so glad this season is over. So frustrating.
Better luck, better team (I hope) next year
Twas a fitting end to the season we had
Hope things can get better
Let's get the way-too-early starting lineup predictions for next year going haha. I'm gonna say:
PG: Hammond (Rechsteiner transfers)
SG: Young
SF: Johnson
PF: Lawal (we pony up some NIL money)
C: Wessler (he cooks in the gym all summer and comes back to average 15/10)
Other prediction: Jones transfers because CMY highly-touted freshmen curse duh.
If this is what we trot out in 25-26.. you are again fighting to make the ACC tourney...
While I never underestimate player growth, especially from freshman to sophomore year, I agree this team wouldn't be an ACC contender lol. Hopefully we get at least 2-3 ballers from the portal to save our butts.
The last 9 seconds of regulation time, through the 2 OTs to the end really summed up the Hokies basketball season perfectly. Several opportunities to win. Several blown opportunities.
Several really bad calls by the officials.
Total fucking joke on every level. Can't execute a simple in bounds play to seal the game in regulation. Then can't fucking execute ANOTHER in bounds play that middle school teams execute to basically seal it in the first OT. Then get run off the court by the 15 seed in double OT. 19 fucking turnovers. Total fucking joke- embarrassment. If you are going to travel to charlotte and play the last place team, why not fucking go down there to win? Fucking joke. NIL and all that shit doesn't matter when the ball is tipped. We can't fucking execute 2 basic inbounds plays to win a fucking game and survive another day. I'm a Mike Young guy, but that was a fucking farce. A joke.
Well my questions on how the hell CMY does it were answered some yesterday:
Mike Young on what was missing with this year's team:
A lot was missing,'' said Young. "A lot was missing. Just call it what it is. They're great kids and a pleasure to work with. We got to get more talented, and we are going to, quick.''
Mike Young on fixing issues with roster through the transfer portal:
"It better be,'' Young said. "It better be. I'm not living through that again.''
Sad and frustrating end to a sad and frustrating season. We have some ok players, but we don't have an ok team.
Wessler tries hard, but has so far to go I have a hard time seeing him anywhere but the bench without some way to be able to hold onto the ball when he gets it and as tall as he is, someone needs to teach him to jump. Don't fault his effort, though, he always hustles and plays as hard as he can. Hammond is a work in progress, for sure, but has an upside and is just a freshman, after all. Lawal is an enigma to me. I can't figure out what he's doing a large portion of the game, then he flashes serious talent, gets the announcers all excited as they tout his leaping ability...then disappears again for long stretches.
Sad and frustrating, this year's Hokies.
No P4 level PG or center on this team this year. Little depth. If Schutt was good, Duke would have kept him. Much like Tyler Nickel- OK players, not winning ACC players- else they would still be at blue bloods. Rech is a backup type/G5 type player. Lawal is a good acc level wing, Hammond might be serviceable, Burnham looked exactly like he was- a mid major player with little athleticism. Roster needs a total overhaul. Keep Lawal- everyone else can be improved upon.
I see Rech as on par with Storm Murphy, and we won an ACC Tournament with him (and better supporting talent).
Murphy was a much better ball handler. And played alongside an elite defender and great shooter in Catoor and legit 3 position guy in Mutts. Darrius Maddox would be the best player on this team, and he came off the bench on that team.
But would Rech with that supporting cast still win the ACCT? I think so. My point is, with a better supporting cast, he would be enough.
I don't have stats in front of me, but Rech's turnovers stats have to be higher than Storm Murphys, based on my memory.
Young portaled over Rech once, and I bet he does it again.
Also, I see Poteat making it in Europe or Asia. His touch inside is pretty good. That combined with his body size n strength is sellable there.
Now that the season is over and we can take an honest look at things....
Man that was some of the worst basketball I've seen out of VT since at least the James Johnson years, but it felt more like the Ricky Stokes years. Lots of heart, but the talent was just nowhere near good enough for the teams we were playing against.
I know we're planning to open up the NIL wallet for basketball going forward, but at a certain point I think that things need to improve beyond just that. The Cassell renovation needs to happen. We need to do something to make Cassell a more modern facility that isn't something that makes recruits wonder if the money is really worth it to play here. We need a facility for the fans that isn't bottom barrel in P5 quality for the overall experience. The whole aura of the program is in the gutter right now, and that has to change
Prior to last nights game, Cal had lost 6 in a row and couldn't beat a top HS team. We get a critical rebound with a 2 point lead with 9 seconds left and can't inbound the fucking ball. They hit their first shot in an hour to tie it to go to OT. That was an absolute shit team we lost to. The last place team in the bracket, that we had 2 easy chances to beat and we lost the fucking game. Fire whomever draws up inbounds plays that HS teams executes- fire that guy today and get a better fucking inbounds coach. Also get some fucking guys in here or continue to lose to dogshit Cal.
Not sure if it is a designed play on the inbound pass when being full-court pressed, but if it is then whoever decided our PG should just run to the corner of death and stand there should probably just be fired.