Hidden behind the smoke emitting from the dumpster fire that was Virginia Tech football's loss to Wake Forest, the Hokie hoops team had a disappointment of their own last Saturday. Virginia Tech basketball (2-1) lost its first game of the season 63-65 to Appalachian State.
Let's get a few things straight. The Mountaineers are not good. They lost to Ohio University and Furman by an average of 22.5 points. This is not an acceptable loss by any measure. That being said, a loss like this would be much more devastating to a team that had realistic preseason tournament expectations.
However, we knew early on there would be bumps in the road, and it was impossible to figure out which teams would provide the challenge. This is a young team, and young teams sometimes come out slow or just play a game where they miss shots that they often hit. Buzz Williams' crew did both of those things on Saturday.
Tech was down by twelve at the 9:16 mark in the first half and had to continuously battle back from there. Though it wasn't all bad, this game illustrated what could go wrong when this team's flaws are highlighted, the primary one being the rebounding problem.
Real quick before OT: Tech w just 50% Def Rebs today. Team usually wants 72-75 % range— KipTJam (@KipTJam) November 22, 2014
Defensive rebounding percentage is pretty simple as far as advanced stats go. It's the percentage of rebounds a team grabs on the defensive end against the total number of rebounds available. Virginia Tech had 19 defensive rebounds, App State had 19 offensive rebounds. Rebounds are always subjective to the bounce of the ball, but a defensive rebounding rate of 50% is not a decent number. I know this team is small, but that can't be used as an excuse when they play another team that consistently played three guards.
Personally, I like to break down rebounding like this:
- 25% defensive scheme. Where are people crashing from? How far away from the hoop are your big men? Etc.
- 15% measurables and athleticism. Often times the big, athletic center is bound to come up with more rebounds than anyone else.
- 60% effort. It may sound cliche, but often times grabbing a rebounds (especially an offensive rebound) is an effort play. It's who can get to the ball just a split second quicker, who can block out their man throughout the rebound.
Post-game, many of the comments made by both Buzz and the players revolved around effort. Buzz saying that his team didn't play hard enough from start to finish, Devin Wilson saying that the team simply came out flat and was outplayed. I wasn't able to watch the game live, but it's all I could think about while watching the ESPN3 broadcast. Tech was a little sleepy, not operating at 100 percent, and paid the price for it by getting out-rebounded 27 to 42.
A big part of the rebounding issue was foul trouble between the two centers. Buzz said after the first game of the year that Joey van Zegeren and Satchel Pierce had to play 40 minutes a night combined. While they did that against Appalachian State, it probably wasn't quite the split that Buzz hoped for.
JVZ was only able to stay on the floor for 18 minutes, and his lack of floor time is a huge concern for this team. You could argue that Tech still had a hard time grabbing boards even when he was out there, but I would say that van Zegeren's presence on defense allowed Tech the chance for rebounding opportunities. His length forced many missed shots near the hoop, and it was up to his teammates to close out the possession with a board.
Pierce is a little more developed than I feared before the season, but is still sometimes behind the play on defense and can be found in no-man's-land. While Pierce can hold his own, I wouldn't be comfortable playing him more than 12 minutes a game. That is enough for him to have some effective post touches on offense, allowing him to show his soft touch around the basket, but not enough to allow his slow feet and positioning to be exposed by the opposing team.
One positive thing that I noticed about van Zegeren over the last two games, which was also acknowledged by ESPN3 broadcaster Andrew Allegretta: Joey has gotten mean. I'm not saying that he's gotten a little tougher, I'm saying that he has a permanent scowl and looks to mix it up down low, at times to his disadvantage. Personally, I love it. Against Liberty you could see him drive the Flames' big men crazy as he bodied them up in the post.
Just think about where he was two years ago, a skinny post player off the bench who had trouble finishing around the rim. Now he's probably an average finisher, but he's not going to get pushed around by anyone. It's the kind of streak of toughness that this team will need, and hopefully it spreads to others.
If there's one last thing that we should all take from this game it's just that bad shooting nights are going to happen. Tech went 11-30 (36.7%) in the first half, missing open shots from just about everywhere on the floor. Malik Mueller had a horrible shooting night individually. He didn't hit a shot from the field and watched four of his six free throws rattle out for misses. The team shot 3-17 from deep, which is probably not going to happen again (though it does help explain why Buzz loves getting the ball into the paint).
This wasn't a good loss, but if the team can grow from it there are valuable lessons that can be learned. The team's next game is today in Cancun against Northern Iowa, and I'm excited to see how they recover from this recent setback.
Comments
Its easy to overlook this game, and for the large part, performances like this over the course of this year, because this team is just so young. The difference between this squad and the ones we would see under Seth or James, is that the team should learn from these games, get the proper coaching to legitimately improve from year to year so that, when the 2016 season rolls around, we're a sound team positionally, we at least attempt to out run everyone, and we're hitting those FTs. I wouldn't say that if Buzz himself hasn't proven what kind of a quality coach he is during his tenure at Marquette by actually taking players that had hiccups and completely correcting them. You don't make the Sweet 16 2 times, the Elite 8 once without being a damn good coach who can get the most out of players consistently.
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.
Is this the ball handlers taking site too early in an offensive set, or the bigs not forcing their way into rebounding position against a smaller team? I didn't watch the game, so I don't know how physical it was being played down low
Its a combination of problems. Quite a few times in this game, they would come down the floor on a fast break and instead of driving to the basket against even numbers, they would kick to an open look in the corner but with no one under the basket in the event of a miss. While I dont necessarily have a problem with players taking open shots, its essentially either make it or give it back to the opponent, which is tough, especially on a fast break.
Other times, it was when the sole big man would go up to the arc to set a pick and the ball handler would either roll around the pick and shoot, or pass and that player would shoot with no one off ball having rolled to the lane to be in a position to rebound. We already are giving up size on the boards when a team plays more than one big and we continue with our four guards one big sets so our guards need to be proactive to be at an inside position to have any hope of getting a rebound.
Another problem we are running into is that even when our guards get position, the refs have been very lax to call over the back when an opponents bigs reach directly over the heads of our guards in the lane so even with position we still are losing quite a few rebounds. Either way, 23 second chance points is unacceptable and we will lose more games than win when that number is north of 15.
About the team being flat, Cassell was more dead than usual, which was probably a double whammy of students being out of town for break AND the football game being on at the same time. No students, no cheerleaders, and much less alumni made for a kind of almost practice like atmosphere.
It sucked.
That is always what it is like though. Should be news that over break it will be empty.