Television/Internet
ESPN3 - Andrew Allegretta & Mack McCarthy
Radio
Virginia Tech IMG Sports Network - Adam Witten
Also available on: Hokies Xtra & TuneIn
One thing of Note for Students: Tech plans to have televisions set up at the game so that the Football game can be watched on TVs while also having people attend the basketball game. Two for one kind of opportunity.
The Hokies come in on a winning streak, soundly beating both UMES and Liberty. This third game should be more of the same as Appalachian State should not be much of a challenge. The Hokies will likely be led in scoring this game by their shooters with the considerable size differential Tech should have at the 1-3 positions. Buzz may decide that this is a good game to work the ball into the big men to create offense but that will likely wait until Tech has established a significant lead.
Appalachian State comes in with a new coach and quite a few new players this season so they are working through many of the same growing pains that Tech is but with a lot less talent on the roster. Their roster is kind of odd, one with quite a few players at 68 and 69 to play the post positions but their guards and small forwards appear to be 6 and under.
They are led by a trio of players so far this season, starting with Senior Forward Tommy Spagnolo(#15), who comes in averaging 13 points and 9.5 rebounds per game so far. Junior Guard Frank Eaves (#21) is also averaging 13 points while contributing 3.5 rebounds and 2 assists. Chris Burgess(#10), the Junior Point Guard, is averaging 10 points, 3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and appears to be the lone threat to score from behind the arc. After these three players this team falls off dramatically on time and scoring. All three of these guys play 30 or more minutes a game so if one of them were to get in early foul trouble it would make it difficult for the Mountaineers to compete. The Mountaineers appear to play quite a few four guards and a big set similar to Tech, as many of their big men are new to the program and appear to still be developing.
I expect that early in this game Tech will have its guards drive to the lane to try to get Appalachian State in early foul trouble. Once in the lane, they will either score or kick out to wide open jumpers. Tech should have at least a double digit lead at the half and should be able to cruise in the second half, allowing plenty of playing time for Beyer and Johnston in this game.
Projected Final Score: Tech 85, Appalachian State 47
Comments
Why would they schedule basketball and football games at same time? Anyhow, I will be watching both.
Unfortunately thats the risk that all colleges run now that so much of the decision making about times for all sports is left to the networks. Its odd in that ESPN controls both of our schedules but I imagine its two different chains of command at ESPN making decisions about which games will bring in the most eyeballs.
Whit isn't stupid enough to do this on his own, it has to be network-related
Hands of stone so far for the Hokies. Ugly start to the game.
Sloppy, sloppy basketball.
Not sure what Buzz is doing with the player rotation. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. In the second half we have got to make some change to limit their offensive rebounds. They had 11 in the first half that led to 16 points. Eight turnovers is too many as well. This was the first time I was not impressed with how this team came out to play. App State seems to want this game more than our guys.
Our big men are in foul trouble again. I almost think the way App State is playing we are better off having both of them in the game together, rotating Henry to get them rest so that we change the rebounding situation.
Same App State team that got blown out by Furman and Ohio...
I am a current student at App and I'll tell you that no one is feeling particularly optimistic about the team this year. Hope the Hokies pull it together for the second half, but I don't think ASU is better than the past 2 teams we have played.
I tried telling you guys.
Damn. Had a chance, but couldn't close. Scored a whole lot more points in the paint than I thought we would.
WELP
Go women's soccer.........loss to App State and tied with Wake in football.
good thing we don't have any games today. Nope. Hokies not playing any sports today. I look forward to getting off our 6th bye week and getting back into action Friday.
Hey, volleyball is having their senior night against GT here in a couple hours.
I unfortunately am going to have to watch this again before I comment on how bad this game was. Especially going into the first games away from Cassell. Not as bad as the egg the football team laid but that's semantics.
The biggest thing I believe to take out of this game should be we don't have enough talent yet to be out hustled by anybody. First two games thing that stood out was the hustle and intensity, this game hardly any in comparison. Buzz needs to stress that to his young players.
The stat that stood out to me was that App State has 9 more possessions than we did- due to lack of rebounding on our end. Say we get those 9 possessions and score on 33% of the possessions (reasonable), we get about 6 more points and win this game. Rebounding is killing this team. I thought for the most part we got all of the shots we wanted, we just weren't hitting them in the first half.
You are on point. Basketball is a possession driven sport. The other team is going to score points, and there is no doubt about that. Maxing our amounts of possessions is crucial. Rebounding and generating turnovers are the obvious ways to do this. If we are going to be out rebounded (which looks like will be a common theme) then we need to generate even more TOs to make up for it.
Here it is I thought all the missed free throws was the reason we lost.
Learning lesson kind of game. Forget the result, build on and learn from the mistakes, and move on.
We were always going to have wtf losses this year. This is one of them.
I have remembered Nov. 22nd for a different reason, we can add now this is date football team lost to WF and basketball to App. St. Damn
Ok I watched the game a second time, which was pretty painful.
1. We were miserable at the Free Throw Line again and we didnt get there nearly enough in a game where we had an actual size advantage at most positions. Tech went 55.6% from the line (10-18), which also falls short of meeting Buzz goal of 20-25% of points from the charity stripe. (15.8%) We again missed the open end of 1-and-1's on more than one occassion (two times). App State didnt fair much better, going 11-18 at the line themselves. Shooting even a respectable 72% in this game gives us three more points, which would have been good enough for the lead.
2. Our relying on the outside shot cost us this game. The guards settled way to often for a three point attempt rather than penetrating the lane against smaller competition. We shot a miserable 17.6% (3-17) from outside the arc on the game. App State was able to outshoot the Hokies from behind the arc at 31.6% (6-19). I made it clear in my pregame writeup that one of the keys to this game was taking the ball to the basket and we just didnt do it nearly enough in this game. This was the strategy that both of App State's two previous opponents had used to deliver the knock out blow and it should have worked for us.
3. Buzz may have underestimated this opponent, speaking primarily to the lineup's that he was rotating, especially in the first half. The starters were not in enough to establish much of a rhythm and the mass switches disrupted any flow on the court that the Hokies had, especially early on. This gave App State the confidence that they could compete and ultimately win the game.
4. The Hokies had no answer to Frank Eaves in the second half. Eaves led App State in scoring and most of it came in the critical end of the second half. He scored 19 points, 18 in the second half, and 7 of App States last 9 points. Too often we allowed him to penetrate across the lane and then one of our big men would get whistled for the block when he would cut to the basket halfway across the lane. My biggest problem with this is that Eaves was in foul trouble and could easily have been put on the bench if our guards had driven the ball at him. His fourth foul came with over six minutes remaining in the game, before he scored 9 of his 19 points. Thats the second time this season that this team has failed to focus on a offensive opportunity to press against one of our better opponents in foul trouble which allowed them to stay in the game. Coaching staff should have been on top of this better.
5. Possessions: We still didnt hit the 80 possessions that Buzz is looking for, finishing with 68 for the second game in a row. The difference between this game and the last was primarily our shooting percentage, going 44.6% from the field as compared to 61% in the last game. Shooting 44% from the field will be more normal than not though as the season plays out so fixing how we take shots and approach the basket becomes all that more important. The root of the issue was taking too many shots with no one in position to rebound and our inability to rebound on the defensive glass. I counted at least 14 jump shots taken with no one within ten feet of the basket. This essentially meant that it was a make or lose possession shot. We missed 9 of these shots. As for rebounding, App State managed to get 15 offensive rebounds, providing them with second chances on almost 20% of their possessions.
6. Points off turnovers and second chances: App State scored 17 points off turnovers and 23 off second chances. Thats almost two thirds of their scoring created either by our giving them the ball or our inability to rebound defensively. In comparison, we only scored 16 off turnovers and 5 off second chances.
This is a young team, still learning how to deal with different challenges, especially on the defensive end. Buzz is going to need to work to designate one of these guard positions to be responsible to provide down low assistance in regards to rebounding to prevent some of the easy second chances. Too often, all our guards jump out to run up court before we have secured possession. At least one of the spots for guards has got to be designated to assist down low.
The big men in foul trouble issue is going to rear its ugly head all season if Bibbs and Henry cant be relied on in more of a power forward role this season. Buzz definitely needs to find some balance though where Henry or Bibbs are always on the court with one of the big men. Too often the big men have no backside help and are getting called for ticky tack blocking calls as guards drive the lane. Its not ideal but it is the reality we have right now with how this team is composed.
Definitely not how I envisioned this game going, especially with how App State had looked prior to this game. Too many wasted opportunities cost Tech this game. I pity the staff here that had to watch the Wake game again, after how difficult this game was to watch.