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Well Hokie Nation, hopefully Buzzketball got a good wakeup from the loss to Alabama State. The lack of off ball defense was critical in keeping the Hornets in the game and if they play the same way against Jacksonville State, we could see the same kind of results. The Gamecocks are shooting 46% through three games while putting up 87 points per game. They have four players scoring in double digits and eight total players putting up six or more points per game. This is another guard heavy roster with the ability to hit open shots. The perfect recipe for disaster if Tech plays like it did last game.
That said, Jacksonville State comes into the game 2-1, with a loss to Central Michigan and wins over Fort Valley State and Oakwood. Don't worry if you haven't heard of a couple of those teams, because neither had I. These aren't quality wins by any stretch of the imagination. Oakwood has a total of two games against Division I opponents this year. Fort Valley State is a Division II school with a handful of D-I opponents.
They likely haven't faced a single player that would be considered a solid bench player in the ACC, but just like any good shooting team, if you leave them open, they are going to score. The Gamecocks RPI usually hovers around the 300 mark out of 351 teams.
The Gamecocks seem to rely on one person from each class right now, most heavily on Sophomore Guard Malcolm Drumwright (#21) 6'2, 165 Lbs who so far this season is averaging 17 PPG and 5.2 APG. He is shooting 40% from outside and 93% from the free throw line. This is the player that will have the ball in his hands late looking to put us away if we let it come to that.
The other option for the Gamecocks coming down to crunch time will be Senior Guard JaQuail Townser, (#2) 6'3, 195 Lbs, who is putting up 13.3 PPG and 3.3 APG, while hitting nearly 47% from outside the arc and 88% from the charity stripe. These two players will play the traditional guard roles in this four guard and sometimes five guard set for the Gamecocks.
Playing more of a wing role, and relied upon to play big is Freshmen Guard Jared Hamilton, (#13) 6'4, 190 Lbs. He has come in this season and contributed 14 PPG and 9 RPG. It will be critical that we put a real big man on him and force him to foul early and often in his hybrid wing role.
The last guard in double digits so far this season is Junior Guard Erik Durham, (#15) 6'4, 190 Lbs, who also is seen as a hybrid wing type player, contributing 11.3 PPG and 5.7 RPG.
The "big men" on this roster seems to be a combination of three or four guys that range from 6'6, 200 Lbs to 6'11, 227 Lbs. None of these bigs are averaging over 20 mpg right now, the closest being Freshmen Forward Christian Cunningham, (#31) 6'6, 200 Lbs contributing 7 PPG and 4.3 RPG. It would seem the one big they want to have out there is Senior Forward Jeremy Watson, (#32) 6'7, 200 Lbs but he cant seem to stay out of foul trouble. Hopefully Tech takes advantage of that tendency and puts him on the bench early.
I would hope to see us abuse the Gamecocks in the lane, continuously feeding the ball to Leday, Blackshear and whomever else is down low. Our guards are big enough that they should also be able to drive their way to the hoop against this much smaller roster. I really hope Buzz takes advantage of our height/weight discrepancy and puts this game away early. I also hope that Buzz slows this team down a bit in offensive transition to cut down on the unnecessary turnovers we saw last game. We threw away at least five possessions on transition passing. Focus on controlling possession, getting the ball into the hands of open shooters or a big man that can create a high percentage shot in the lane. This will limit the number of possessions for our opponent while also scoring more consistently on our own possessions. While we have the speed on the roster now to run with a team like this, it would be better in my opinion to force the Gamecocks to slow down, making their mistakes all the more glaring and helping these young Hokies learn to trust themselves and each other.
On defense, we do not want to get into a shooting battle with this team. We need players to stay on their assignment and have a hand in a shooters face, contesting each shot. Our bigs have to make sure they get proper backside position to cut down on the offensive rebounds allowed. Too often against the Hornets we allowed much smaller guards and forwards to get easy put backs because all of our lane presence shifted to the shooter side.
Lastly, we need our returning players to remember who they are, especially Bibbs and Hudson. Getting 64 points from our new players was great but we wont be successful long term if the rest of the team isn't contributing. A combined 9 points from Hudson, Pierce and Henry over 29 minutes played is just not going to get it done.
And after all that is said and done, we hopefully wont have to discuss the free throw line again real soon. 25 of 40 is completely unacceptable. We know it, they obviously know it and hopefully they address it tonight with improvement.
This is another game that the Hokies should be able to build a double digit lead in the first half and control the tempo of the game from there. The key word there being "should", as we have unfortunately seen too often over the past four years of Tech basketball, the Hokies seemingly always have the ability to lose these type of games. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt with the Alabama State game and figure that Buzz will have been on these guys mercilessly about defense over the last few days and the Hokies will come out ready to play ball. Final score is Tech 75 – Jacksonville State 65. If the scores start going higher than that, all bets are off because it will mean that Tech failed to play defense.
Comments
For God Sake, just play some damn defense....
they have a 93% free throw shooter? So basically that guy will drain more FTs than our entire team...
Its early in the season, but so far he is 13-14 from the stripe. Last season, both he and Townser shot above 80% at the line.
This is so spot on- great work
"I also hope that Buzz slows this team down a bit in offensive transition to cut down on the unnecessary turnovers we saw last game. We threw away at least five possessions on transition passing. Focus on controlling possession, getting the ball into the hands of open shooters or a big man that can create a high percentage shot in the lane. This will limit the number of possessions for our opponent while also scoring more consistently on our own possessions. While we have the speed on the roster now to run with a team like this, it would be better in my opinion to force the Gamecocks to slow down, making their mistakes all the more glaring and helping these young Hokies learn to trust themselves and each other."
I also hope we get passionate Buzz instead of laid back Buzz, sometimes players need a kick in rear to bring out the best. Last week we didn't seem to have a lot of fire.
39-1 here we come!
Bucky transferred to Austin Peay?
I was waiting for someone to point that out
Well here's the good news:
We played Alabama State close, who played UAB close, who played Auburn close, who played Colorado close, who played Iowa State close.
So we're essentially a top 10 basketball team right now.
Any chance there's a stream out there?
Not sure, are you not able to pull the WatchESPN website?
I don't have a cable or satellite subscription. I thought you had to have one to access it.
Edit: I was able to sign in with my Sling tv subscription and will be watching. Thanks for the idea Rob!
You may be right. Usually the streams are through shady European sites. Be careful using those.
Game starts in 30 minutes, hopefully someone can keep some good notes of the first half for me, as I will be at the pool with my kid teaching her how to swim.
Robinson starting at point tonight over Seth Allen. Message sent?
Thanks for the write up on the opposition. I saw last Saturday's game in person, so it'll be good to drink a beer and scream at the ESPN3 feed with you guys and gals tonight. Just like last season....except hopefully with a W and less terrible defense.
Still missing FTs
Henry makes a great move to get to the basket, then completely air balls it. Just, ugh.
LeDay looking good again.
Free throws are going to be the death of this team.
Here at the game, Hamilton reminds me of Nerlens Noel(prob just the flattop). Idk about Blackshear, he looks a little lost and maybe a bit out of shape?
Buzz was just LAYIN into the team in the huddle during the timeout
Well....this is not how I had hoped things would start out.
Slop. Slop everywhere. Not very disciplined on either side of the court right now.
My god. Seth Allen is explosive but he cannot hold on to the ball. In all fairness, no one on the team can right now. It's really frustrating to watch.
It almost feels for me like he's trying to do too much.
JSU is throwing up 3's as if Reddick is coaching them, yet our defense fails to get a hand in their face.
Finally starting to rotate well and clamp down on D. Had a couple of solid possessions there, and now we're now winning. That's not a coincidence at all, right?
60 minutes into the season and I'm not impressed with Allen.
I think he's pressing.
I agree. You can tell the talent is there. He just needs to relax and let the game come to him.
Same here. His shooting is bad and so far he has been a turnover machine.
Got online to catch the last few minutes of the half.. for like a 10-0 VT run, not sure how J State was ahead, maybe took our guys a little while to settle in
Observations:
There's little doubt Clarke is our best player.
We do not value the ball. Anyone have the turnover count?
Too many guys trying to do the same thing (mainly, driving through traffic and either turning it over or putting up a terrible layup)
9 according to the ESPN boxscore
Awful transition offense, abysmal free throw shooting, not the defensive effort you would expect after last week. All against a team that went 5-11 in the Ohio Valley Conference.
The rotation of the ball on offense is as abysmal as the defensive rotation tonight.
not a very good team right now.
JSU didn't shoot a single free throw in the first half and are still in the game. They have been content to jack up threes and we have been content to leave them open. Did better towards the end of the half though.
I tuned in when it was 33-31 J State, had no idea what was going on to that point.. this seems to explain it
Tech out rebounding the opposition by a wide margin? At least one thing has changed for the better so far.
Leday and Robinson need to get back in now! Sucks to lose a double digit lead instead of extending it. Allen is explosive but makes you scratch your head at times.
Make. Your. Free. Throws. Please.
Have I totally missed it or is Big Satch not been in the game at all?
You're right, I haven't seen him either. I was really hoping he'd make a big jump forward this season.
Robinson's ball distribution has been as good as advertised.
That dude is a baller for sure.
Nice feed by Robinson.
We have to get this free throw shooting in order to reward the agressiveness.
I feel like Allen has just put up brick after brick after brick.
This team will drive me to drinking.
Football hasn't already driven you there and back again?
These are definitely still wet behind the ears. Still seeing a lot of bad habits theses guys brought from AAU.
Don't blow it. Don't blow it. Don't blow it.
Nice play underneath, gents!
Blackshear had some nice moves and was poised late. Leday has a good motor. Hamilton had some good minutes tonight too. Henry started strong on the offensive boards.
No Satch tonight that I saw. But man isn't it nice to have some depth?
By "depth" you mean "more than 2 big men on the roster", right? And yes, it's a nice thing to have now.
Good win! Make more free throws and we win by 20. Can't wait to see these guys in person. Looking forward to seeing our improvement over the season. GO HOKIES!!!
Good W. I think it was a better effort all around, but still they got to start making those free throws. Missing that many FTs when ACC play rolls around will sink you hard and fast.
Good finish to the game. I'm happy we got the win, but it's clear there's still a lot of improving to do. Our free throw shooting is god awful. If we were even average at FT shooting these first two games we are 2-0 (and this game is never really in question). We also had a lot of dumb turnovers, and in general just looked sloppy at times. It's to be expected with such a young group (with a lot of new faces in the rotation), and I think as our team gels it will improve.
Seth Allen is killing us right now though. I feel like he's been a bit of a ballhog, which is fine if he's making baskets and his free throws, but he's not doing either at all. Robinson on the other hand seems to do a much better job getting his teammates involved, or at least knowing when to drive in and get a basket and when to make the pass to the open man. To give credit to Allen though I did feel he ended this game on a bright note. He just needs to start making his shots and layups.
Leday I was completely wrong about. The dude can play. I was confused about the hype, as he seemed like nothing more than a role player on a medicore USF team prior to his transfer here. But he's made a big impact early, and plays efficiently which I like. Clark has been really good, Bibbs and Hamilton also had solid games. Blackshear started quiet but had some key buckets late in this game. Kinda curious as to what happened to Pierce. Has he fallen out of favor with Buzz? I was hoping to see him make a jump in year two, but he's barely been used.
We got out to our double digit lead with Robinson running the show. It quickly evaporated when he and Leday went out. Our offense appeared to have no flow with Allen running the point with guys standing around. Allen seems to take a lot of shots and drives early in the shot clock without working the ball around. I'm sure we'll see improvement from him over the season. Heck, he's been anxious to get back out after sitting out, so I can understand a little bit of the rust. I just hope he is playing the 2 and we have Wilson (heal up quickly please) or Robinson running the point from here on out. Our transition offense appears to end in a turnover almost 50% of the time which I'm sure we'll clean up as the season goes along. It was great to see us beat these guys on the boards! Looking forward to seeing these guys in person on Saturday!
Random side note that the TKP community can help with (I've already tweeted @ Whit).
For yet to be explained reasons, the ticketing office has decided that the student standby line is no more. Now if a student either forgets to enter the lottery or decides to go the day of the game the only way to enter is to pay $10. Never mind the fact that there were easily a 1,000 open student seats tonight.
We need Cassell loud and full and its absurd to me that we're turning away students who want to attend the game. If enough people ask the athletic department about this maybe we can get the policy changed back.
Not to mention the lottery closing times are kinda wack. Ain't nobody gonna be at the game on Saturday, and the lottery for it ended on Tuesday at midnight. I was interested in going as my family is coming up for Frankfest but not if I gotta pay for another ticket. Kinda silly if you ask me. I would think at least by Wednesday at midnight would give the ticket office plenty of time to distribute tickets to the right people.
It looked empty on ESPN3. I was embarrassed when the announcers called it a good crowd. We are a football school. I would not want to play for a school that made that bad of a home crowd showing if I could go where people would appreciate me. Out of all the bad basketball I saw last night this bothered me the most. Whit should at lease do something to help it look good on TV. I know its a team I've never heard of on a Wednesday night, and I did not get off work early to drive to Blacksburg to watch it, and we have been bad recently, but that looked really bad on TV.
I need to buy one of those cheap season tickets and then just walk down to a better open seat.
I think the incentive program will help out with this some, but there are always going to be those students that just grab a lottery ticket, scan it, and then leave without ever even attending the games, just so they can gather as many points as possible. I agree with your point tho, and coming from a guy who loves watching basketball, it is definitely disappointing at times. Especially the fact that most students I know have little to no work due this week right before Thanksgiving break.
don't know what students you know haha. I have three exams this week. #engineerlife
I had two papers and an 800 word response due in four hours
I did not think it was a student fan problem, the shots of the student section were the only ones that showed good support. I think it is likely too many of the money donors with seats up front did not go to this game. As for getting incentive points, at UNCheat the student ID is scanned when attend the football or field hockey and other lessor sporting contests so you can credit toward getting Ball tickets. Based on the way things looked on TV we need to change who sits where so we look decent on TV and can give the players a better atmosphere.
Looking over the game log and stats makes it clear this is going to be a very up and down season and if the defense and free throw shooting dont dramatically improve the ACC schedule is going to be brutal. They did manage to hold this team 25 points below their average but this is a bad team and we allowed them to hang around all the way to the last couple minutes. Havent seen much mentioned on Buzz other than an early timeout. What was his.demeanor like tonight for most of the game?
He was his normal animated self. Yelled at the refs a lot (who I thought were atrocious by the way - seriously one stopped play in the middle of one of our offensive possessions because he saw moisture on the opposite sideline. I have never seen that happen)
He looked frustrated with our play at times which is to be expected. Clarke - who started terribly and looked visibly frustrated - was briefly pulled 2 times early for Buzz to coach him up.
I haven't heard Buzz talking as much about paint touches. Is he still preaching those this season? 17 turnovers doesn't help you stay in games either.
I kind of get the feeling that Buzz is still focused on building his culture and is going to let these guys experience some bumps along the way in hopes that they bring more wins in the next few years when these guys are more experienced. It might be another long season, but I'm confident that Buzz is going to build us back up and have us in the top third of the conference which means we're dancing every year.
Now for the game itself.
Free throws. Free throws. Free throws. I don't know what the problem is. It must be mental because I can't fathom that a whole team of college players physically cannot hit free throws consistently. Cost us the game on Saturday and came real close to costing us the game tonight. We should have won by 20+.
This team has a tendency to get very selfish. I saw way too many one man offensive possessions tonight. I'm prone to chalk it up to a young team still learning how to play with one another but driving the hoop with 3 guys in front of you isn't the best recipe for success. Especially when we can't consistently hit free throws. The times when the ball got moving tonight most often produced good possessions. Got the defense moving and created open shots.
To me the best players on the team right now are Leday, Bibbs, Clarke (even though he was often culprit of above selfishness), Robinson, and a combo of Blackshear/Hamilton.
I'm thinking LeDay is a tweener. A 6'6" post guy. Limited face up game but works well 10' from the basket against teams without height.
Yeah gonna be one of those seasons I think
This team is gonna drive me crazy. Feels like Buzz is still trying to figure out his squad. Really itching to see Hamilton develop...so raw. Too many stupid turnovers. Too many missed free throws. You get that with guys that haven't played together more than a few months. Hudson as been AWOL. Most disappointing by far. Like what Robinson brings to the table over Allen at the PG. Allen can't play PG. Turnover machine. Leday has been a great suprise and Bibbs played well tonight.
These are the growing pains of a young team. Come conference, I think we'll have our 8-9 playing good ball. Not sure how relative that "good" will be for the ACC, but good ball for the team we have.
My initial thoughts while watching the game is that our defense is still really bad, and without some serious improvement we're gonna have a bad time come ACC games.
The two other issues that stuck out with me is how some players would drive the ball when it was 3-4 on 1. I know we have some talented athletes, but I was very frustrated with some of the decision making.
Finally the turnovers need cleaning up. Most of the happened in transition, and I don't know if it's players not paying attention or they're getting the jitters, but I think we had 10 or more and they helped keep Jacksonville state in the game until late.
Well we won, despite our best efforts. 17 turnovers and around 50% from the free throw line, two things that cannot continue if this team wants to win. Offense seemed to run to stall and there were too many quick possessions with one player trying to drive through an entire team. This young team needs to figure out how to play together soon or things will get ugly as the competition gets better.
I want to mention two things nobody has touched on because they're not related to on-court play. I agree with almost everything people have said so far.
1. Most of the players on the bench stood up for good plays but I didn't see Hudson or Pierce stand up when the rest of the team was standing.
2. Allen pissed me off all game with poor playing on both ends of the floor and a selfish, pouting attitude. However at the end of the game after the handshake line, Buzz headed toward the tunnel. Hamilton and maybe two other players started following him until Allen called them back and led the team through the high five parade. If he can bring that kind of leadership and team-centric mentality to the floor maybe he'll be ok.
Allen has been very disappointing so far.
But almost as disappointing as our free throw percentage. I simply cannot believe how bad we have been. They cost us the game on Saturday and came close to doing it tonight.
Allen didn't play in a single game last year.
Gotta think he'll be able to get his mojo back, yeah?