Mens Basketball: Virginia Tech (8-7)(0-2) at #6 Louisville (14-2)(2-1)

Television
Regional Sports Networks - Wes Durham & Mike Gminski

I believe in the DC area its going to be on ESPN Channel 702 for Xfinity users. May have to do some channel surfing to find this game. Also can check WatchESPN to see if its available.

Radio
Virginia Tech IMG Sports Network - Bill Roth & Mike Burnop
Also available on:
Digital: Hokies Xtra & TuneIn

The Hokies are coming into arguably their hardest stretch of the season, four games, four ranked opponents. As if that wasnt going to be tough enough, they get to start that stretch with what will likely be a pissed off Louisville Cardinals team. Louisville suffered their first ACC loss to UNC on Saturday by one point in which they led by 13 with about 8 minutes to play. We get to play against one of our former signees in Motrezl Harrell, who will likely have a monster day with JVZ out of the lineup.

Harrell(#24) comes in averaging 15.5 ppg and 9 rpg, outscored only by teammate, Terry Rozier(#0) so far this season, who is dropping in about 17.5 ppg from the point guard position.

Rozier is joined in the backcourt by guard Chris Jones (#3), who is averaging 13.2 ppg.

Rounding out the scorers in double digits brings us to Wayne Blackshear(#25) who throws down 12.9 ppg for the Cardinals from the small forward position.

After these four Cardinals though it is a precipitous drop in scoring average, with the next player putting in an average of 4 ppg. This may be the Cardinals greatest weakness if the Hokies can find a way to keep one or two of the key four from scoring, then they may stay in this game. This is going to be a tall task, especially defending Harrell around the rim. He may only be 6'8 but he has all the mean streak we could hope that Pierce eventually develops. He can overpower other bigs that are ACC ready which is something we lack.

Our shooters will have to be on against this team, as Louisville's current average margin of victory is 73-56, or 17 points. The betting line on this game was at 25 this morning when I looked. If there is one thing that Virginia Tech does well, its shoot from outside, where we are currently ranked 12th in the country in 3PT% at just over 40%. We will need those long balls to stay with this high powered offense.

One area of surprise is that Louisville is not exceedingly dominant on the glass, so if our bigs can stay out of trouble and establish themselves down low, we might be able to keep Louisville from having multiple chances on the offensive end. Another area where these two teams are surprisingly similar is at the Charity Stripe. Louisville comes in with a dreadful 65% from the line to go up against our vastly improved 61% (alot thanks to JVZ being suspended) so dont expect Louisville to run away with the game at the line. They have a hard time getting to the line, which was really evident on Saturday, where they only shot two free throws in the last ten minutes of that game against UNC. This could be critical to coming back against this team, if we can play lock down defense while scoring on our offensive possessions.

Hope, dreams, and Merry go rounds, but I just cant see us getting this upset. Louisville is at home, they are likely angry and Pitino wont let them fall into a trap game since they face Duke after us. The Cardinals may lead by double digits early and will probably maintain that lead throughout.

Virginia Tech 51- Louisville 74

Hopefully the Hokies prove me wrong.