The Virginia Tech men's basketball team kicked off a daunting four-game stretch against ranked opponents with a 78-63 loss to the No. 6 Louisville Cardinals Tuesday night. Don't let the 15 point deficit fool you: the Hokies (8-8; 0-3) were never in it. Louisville (15-2; 3-1) came out of the gates with incredible intensity, muscled their way to a 17-2 lead after seven minutes, and never looked back.
It was a tall order for this [insert young/undersized/shorthanded comment here] team; heading on the road against a talented Louisville squad looking to bounce back from a gut-wrenching 71-72 loss to North Carolina over the weekend.
A week ago, the hope was a spunky Hokies team could catch the Cardinals sleeping, with Tuesday's tilt sandwiched between marquee games against Carolina and Duke. Following the Tar Heels' stunning comeback win on Saturday, there was little chance Louisville would look past the Hokies.
For much of the first 30 minutes, the Hokies looked like a 16-seed going up against a top-ranked traditional power. The Louisville frontcourt bullied the Hokies in the paint to create easy scoring opportunities against the considerably undersized Hokies lineup. Cardinals center Mangok Mathiang dropped 10 points in the first twelve minutes of the game, using his incredible reach to hold the ball up and away from the Hokie defenders in the low post.
The Hokie defense struggled mightily to stop the Louisville high-low offense. Defenders continuously collapsed on former Virginia Tech commit Montrezl Harrell in the high post, providing him open kick-outs all over the floor.
"Mangok [Mathiang] played extremely well," noted Louisville coach Rick Pitino. "Montrezl [Harrell] didn't force the issue, he kept passing the basketball — lot of good things."
Despite entering Tuesday's game shooting a paltry 26.2% from distance, the Cardinals went 10-25 (40%) from three against the Hokies thanks to far too many open looks. Terry Rozier and Wayne Blackshear paced the Cards with 16 and 15 points, respectively, shooting a combined 7-13 from three-point range.
In many ways, it felt like more of the same from this Hokies team. Torched from three; dominated in the paint; and continually back on their heels.
Rick Pitino is no dummy. He has coached against Buzz Williams for the last 6 seasons, going back to their days in the Big East. After Louisville's practice on Monday, Pitino noted:
"Virginia Tech is Marquette. Our fans should be very familiar with Virginia Tech because they're exactly like Marquette. Buzz has some size, but he believes that to win a game he has to have what he calls, 'paint touches.' He's still coaching his team the same way and they're still very tough to go up against."
Pitino knew going into Tuesday's matchup exactly what a Buzz Williams team brings to the table, and he combined that knowledge with the Cardinals' athleticism to hound and disrupt the Hokies from the opening tip.
The Hokies repeatedly tried to get the ball into the paint, but seemingly every time one or more Cardinals defenders was waiting. Louisville's active hands and aggressive defense caused a great deal of disruption, and Harrell and Mathiang had a number of ferocious blocks that surely got in the Hokies' heads.
Give the Hokies credit. After falling behind by 15 points, they continued to play hard and repeatedly challenged the bigger, stronger Louisville post players. The Hokies did a much better job boxing out and rebounding the ball, finishing the game with a minus-7 rebounding margin despite a sub-par shooting performance and a clear size disadvantage.
Much maligned freshman center Satchel Pierce was given the start in place of Shane Henry and showed some surprising grit, battling hard to finish with 6 points and 4 rebounds (all of which occurred on the offensive end).
Fellow freshman Ahmed Hill had a fantastic game, leading all Hokies in minutes played (34) and finishing with 14 points and 7 boards (4 offensive). He nailed a pair of corner threes and had a couple of tough finishes near the rim to provide great energy in what could be a turning point for the up-and-down wing.
Adam Smith hit 5 of 7 three pointers for the second consecutive game en route to a 19 point performance that led all scorers. Justin Bibbs quietly added 15 points, 11 of which occurred in after halftime.
The silver lining is that while Tuesday's loss was humbling, there were some bright spots and a number of teaching moments from which to build off of.
"We've got to get a lot better, a lot tougher, play a lot harder," said Williams after the loss. "In all the ways they're good, those are all the ways that we need to improve."
The Hokies return home for four days before traveling to Chapel Hill to face No. 15 North Carolina on Sunday evening. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:30 and will be broadcast on ESPNU.
Comments
I'm not sure if Buzz was just experimenting with it, but the 3-2 defense with Pierce at the top of the key seemed like a bad situation waiting to happen, and it did happen early on. He surprisingly didn't pick up any fouls from the quicker guards, but Louisville exploited the lack of size in the paint against that set up. Pierce just wasn't quick enough to rotate back down into the paint.
That defense seemed okay with Bibbs in the middle, but we can't get away with our only true big defending the 3 point line.
We're gonna need lots of offense if JVZ is continuing to sit, because it doesn't seem like Pierce is enough to be our only presence in the paint. That being said, I like this lineup going forward:
1. Wilson
2. Smith
3. Hill
4. Bibbs
5. Pierce
Sure woulda been nice to have Harrell in our backcourt
frontcourt
At this point, if Harrell wanted to play guard, I would take him
team
The biggest thing I'm taking away from this is that we looked like a tournament team!
Sounds good to me, someone go get some Mission Accomplished shirts!
Didn't we stuff those inside old couches an ship them to [Morgantown/College Park] for incineration?
look at the bright side we played Louisville closer then Duke played Miami.
Great recap- spot on re: the kick-outs for the threes... but I'm not sure where the 'much maligned' Satchel Pierce comment comes from. Freshman post players are a test of patience and he's really showing some good ability and competitiveness early on.
When was the last time this squad even won a game? Seems so long ago.
EDIT: sorry, but the Appy St and Rad debacles are just completely unacceptable and reminiscent of when Greenberg was coach (his teams ALWAYS dropped one or 2 games they were supposed to take care of). I long and pine for the day/season when they will no longer drop those games. I feel it's a continued blight on this program and that we can't advance fwd unless we "wrap dat shit up." End rant. Beat tarholes.
Believe me, I'm as upset as anyone about a few of our, uh, less dominating performances. I even went so far as to piss off a solid chunk of the readership after the WVU... is game even the right word? We're gonna see some ugly basketball for the rest of this season at least, but if anyone can "wrap dat shit up," as you've so eloquently pointed out, it's Buzz.
Greenberg and Johnson era.
The team will naturally get better playing all these powerhouses in a row early in the conference sched. I feel like once we play teams on our end of the standings these early shallackings will pay off. That is, if the team doesn't get overly frustrated and confidence and chemistry don't fall apart.
I agree, but my hope is that they can keep one or two of these games close. That would help build/maintain some confidence. They need to come out of this four game stretch without the team morale hitting rock bottom.
How was the intensity from the Hokies at tip?
Going down 17-2 could say they weren't ready to play but could also mean they were completely overpowered and outclassed. Not being ready to play is a huge peeve I have with coaching so hopefully it was just Louisville playing like the #6 team in the country.
Honestly, the Hokies looked ready to play. The score was tied at 2 until about the 17:00 mark, before Louisville put the pedal down. The 15-0 run was partially a result of some sloppy play from the Hokies. They looked a little skittish from UL's energy.
I fully recognize we are probably going to lose the next three games in a row. As long as the team is in the games and trying hard I am not going to be bothered by the losses this year. Buzz and the team are young and learning to play as a team. But I will admit, I will be very disappointed if we go winless in the ACC. We showed against Syracuse that we are capable of playing with some of the better teams in the ACC.
sorry, I haven't been paying attention...
what's the latest on JVZ?
I haven't heard anything new. I truly thought he would be back by now. Has he even returned to practice???
Being suspended indefinitely does tend to keep one from practicing. Bottom line, prepare to go the rest of the season without him. If he comes back then you'll be pleasantly surprised and if not, oh well. I don't know what happened but players don't get suspended indefinitely for nothing. I'm sure that whatever it was Buzz made the right decision and I hope he stands by it.
I went to the game last night. A few quick and easy thoughts.
First, basically most people in the arena felt bad for us because we were simply outmatched in every way possible.
Second, everybody was very complementary of Buzz and told us to stick with it.
Third, as my first live look at Buzz's team, everything you see about them working hard and playing with good effort seemed to be true, whether it was early or when they were down 27. Made me feel better. My goal was to lose by less than 20.
I'd love to go to a game there one day. Looks like an awesome arena. Sounds like you were around some friendly folks.
Yum Center is a pretty sweet arena, yeah. I work right next to it so it's become a regular but cool thing. I was sitting with several Hokie alums that got tickets together, so there was that. And then Louisville people are generally friendly for the most part. It was a mellow scene because it was a good team playing a bad team with everybody knowing what the outcome should be. Not really much opportunity to even talk stuff, you know?
The bright side: Chris Clarke was nominated as a McDonald's All American today.
That's exactly what I was thinking while sitting up there in the stands...give it a few good recruiting classes. Getting the best prospect in-state helps.
Not to be a Debbie Downer but apparently being nominated for the game isn't as exclusive as you would assume. In fact all three of our commits and Levi Cook, who is another possibility for this class, have all been nominated for the game. The state of Virginia alone has 20 nominees. Now hopefully one or two of our commits get selected for the game as that would be a far more exclusive group of players.
http://www.mcdonaldsallamerican.com/content/aag/en/MediaCenter/2015-game...(Boys_Girls)%20FINAL%20as%20of%201.14.pdf
How many of our past commits were even nominated to the game though? My guess is few.
Everybody from last years class was nominated.
http://epkzone.com/2014allamericangames/media/2014_MCDAAG_NomineeList.pdf
Devin Wilson was nominated from the 2013 class
http://www.mcdonaldsallamerican.com/content/dam/allamerican/pdfs/2013_No...
I was thinking more the pre-Buzz classes, but I wasn't very clear about that. I'd expect most of the recruits we pull now will be nominated moving forward which I doubt was the case pre-Buzz.
Buzz may have a couple next year that are not, but thats because he has several offers out to kids that are from Canada due to exposure on the AAU circuit.
If they're anything like Steve Nash, that's probably ok.
I know he has an offer out on 2018 PG Jonathan Kabongo but I can't remember the other ones in earlier classes than that?
He has offers out to 2016 PF Edward Ekiyor. He had also offered 2016 SF Dillon Brooks, but apparently Brooks found a way to reclassify to the Class of 2015 and signed with Oregon. I think there is a third offer out with the class of 2016 but I cant seem to find the specifics on it. They are all from the AAU squad called Canadian Ballers.
Except that watering down the huge impact of Clarke committing by lumping him in as just another kinda good recruit gives absolutely zero credit to Buzz & staff for the huge success they've already accomplished in recruiting.
Yes, lots of recruits get invites to the McAllStar game, but Clarke is a huge get for us. That is NOT to be ignored.
I also would be shocked if Joey comes back, I believe he is gone for good. Several offers out by Buzz for more 2015 recruits, I believe we will see several others leave but time will tell.