The game plan is largely the same for any team headed into a matchup — or better yet, a brawl — with a Bob Huggins'-coached team. Take care of the basketball and rebound, and you'll give yourself a chance to win.
Easier said than done.
The Hokies learned that lesson the hard way for a second-straight year on Wednesday as they committed 22 turnovers and were thoroughly dominated on the boards on their way to a 88-63 loss at a sold-out Cassell Coliseum.
West Virginia's vaunted defense entered the afternoon forcing 21.9 turnovers per game, the highest mark in the nation. The Mountaineer's intimidating style was on full display from the opening tip as they hounded the Hokies up and down the court with their trademark full-court press, forcing the young Hokies' guards into mistake after mistake.
The battle on the boards, much to the chagrin of head coach Buzz Williams, turned out to be more of a mauling than a battle. The Mountaineers — led by forwards Jonathan Holton and Devin Williams — managed to pull in 18 rebounds on offense alone while the Hokies hauled in just 24 in total.
It was somehow reminiscent of Tuesday evening's Russell Athletic Bowl, an offensive shootout that featured a quarterback-less Baylor team rush for an astounding 645 yards against a hapless North Carolina defense. The Tar Heels knew exactly what was coming, just as the Hokies did, but neither could do anything about it.
With Chris Clarke sidelined after undergoing surgery for a broken foot, Williams was forced to alter his rotation. The 2nd-year head coach appeared to want to go big against a physical West Virginia team as he started the game with both Kerry Blackshear and Zach LeDay in the lineup, but early first-half foul trouble to nearly all of the Hokies' bigs forced Williams to go small at times. Jalen Hudson, who figured to see more playing time after Clarke went down, played just 21 minutes as Williams opted to give Devin Wilson, Justin Robinson, and Justin Bibbs the lion's share of playing time in the backcourt. Hudson was productive in his limited time as he finished with 9 points, but the sophomore guard will need to make a concerted effort to attack the glass if he hopes to fill Clarke's void.
With Blackshear in early foul trouble, Satchel Pierce had an opportunity to make an impact against West Virginia's talented frontcourt. But aside from two easy buckets that essentially fell in the seven-footer's lap, Pierce was a non-factor and simply couldn't keep up with the athletic Mountaineers' bigs on either side of the floor. The story on fellow big Johnny Hamilton was largely the same, paving the way for Shane Henry to see more playing time in the second half.
The nearly forgotten Henry took full advantage of his opportunity as he tallied 12 points and 4 rebounds in just 16 minutes. Granted, much of Henry's production came when the game was already well out of reach, but Williams was undoubtedly pleased to see some semblance of energy from his frontcourt.
Zach LeDay pitched in 11 points and 9 rebounds, but the undersized big man clearly struggled with the inside presence of the Mountaineers and his offensive efficiency suffered for the second straight game.
Seth Allen played just 18 minutes after picking up his third foul with more than five minutes to play in the first half, but the junior transfer still managed to reach double-digit scoring for the ninth straight game.
A Few Quick Thoughts
After being dominated so thoroughly by a clearly superior team, it's tough to walk away with any real takeaways, but I'll do my best.
The absence of Chris Clarke was palpable. Clarke had been up-and-down through the first third of the season, but there's no questioning his value to the Hokies, especially on the glass where Clarke had averaged 7.4 rebounds per game. West Virginia clearly wasn't the ideal opponent to begin adjusting to playing without Clarke, but the Hokies will need to figure out how to replace the dynamic freshman soon as ACC play approaches.
Foul trouble really hurt the Hokies, but there shouldn't be any griping over the officials — each team finished with 30 fouls. Seth Allen picking up two silly fouls in the first half hurt the most, as the junior guard had been effective early in beating the Mountaineers off the dribble, a necessity to make a high-ball pressure team back off just a tad. Foul trouble in the frontcourt hurt as well, but none of the Hokies' bigs could have hurt the Mountaineers' defense like Allen.
The Zach LeDay we're seeing now is probably more aligned to what LeDay really is as a player. LeDay's endless motor will always show up in the box score in some manner, but the undersized forward will struggle going up against Power 5 frontcourts. Early in the season, LeDay benefited from opponent's four-guard lineups that often matched him up with a 6'3" guard. Now as the conference season begins, LeDay likely won't be turning in consistent double-doubles (and Williams admitted as much early on in the season).
The road doesn't get any easier for the Hokies with N.C. State (10-3) coming to town on Saturday to kick off ACC play. And as if that wasn't enough, No. 5 Virginia comes to Cassell next Monday. If the Hokies hope to avoid an 0-2 start to league play, they'll need to improve on both ends of the floor, and they'll need to do it fast.
Comments
Joey, any word on why Blackshear didn't play after 1st 3 minutes?
He got into foul trouble very quickly, and my guess was that Buzz felt like the other guys were contributing more than Kerry displayed with his starting spot.
Buzz said he wasn't happy with how he had played, particularly on defense.
That's not exactly what I wanted to hear from Buzz considering he played three minutes and then was benched for the remainder. Pretty damming to sit arguably our most consistent post player even as a freshmen for 37 minutes especially after the rest of the bigs all got in foul trouble too. I mean Henry as much as this may have been his best game this season so far fouled out in sixteen minutes of play. The other bigs had just as many troubles. Who does #getbetter benefit the most to play in a game like this? Tonight was ugly all around though but to already have Clarke out 18% rebounding this year and then sit Blackshear 22% rebounding this year and you wonder why we got beat on the boards 42-24 today. Frustrating.
Agree. What was Blackshear's grievous sin? Understand sitting the freshman after 2 fouls in the first half but question sitting him all 2nd half after a poor effort on a drive possibly to avoid foul #3. Certainly no worse than several of Hudson's block out failures resulting in put backs and the usual Pierce and Hamilton awkward performances.
I thought the motto this year was #getbetter. After going 8-5, I'd say we're not going to match our win total from last year.
Buzz officially goes on the hot seat next year. If we don't become a .500 team by year four, Whit pulls the plug.
Nope. I think to say he goes on the hot seat even next year is early. Buzz took over a program that was the remnants of a raging dumpster fire. He is only in year two right now, so we are still VERY much in the rebuilding process. We cannot be instant gratification in this situation. Buzz is a proven head coach, and IF Whit pulled the plug on this, there is absolutely no guarantee we would get as good a coach as Buzz is. We're looking at a team that is young, small, and inexperienced. Give it time. Patience is a virtue.
Please settle down a bit and give Buzz some much-needed breathing room. Year 1 was a patchwork year where Buzz did what he could with the players and time he had. Now, year 2, he has more of his players, but he has had 3 big names go out with injuries. AND it is still a new team that mostly hasn't played together. I think year 4 is when he should ever really possibly go on a hot seat.l, because by then his system/players would have had a fair shot to prove themselves. VT men's basketball does not need to be a HC carousel!
Yeah, really. Hill and Clarke start easily, and with Outlaw's scout rating you gotta think he's the 6th man at the very least. The only thing going against Buzz is how he pretends that Seth Allen has talent that he clearly doesn't. When Clarke gets healthy he has to sit him, no way around it.
I think Seth DOES have talent...at being a bit of a Taz. He has loads of energy and speed, but doesn't seem to quite know what to do with it all. He needs to find a different identity IMO.
I must agree. The guy has a lot of talent, but cannot channel it. Really good players recognize their practical limitations and work within them.
I'm not even asking for him to be an NCAA tourney team by year four, but I do expect the team to at least be .500 in his fourth season. That's not asking for too much.
Any reason given as to why Buzz and team didn't do any interviews?
It would have been Bud Foster-like in quality. He was screaming into a towel for several portions of the game to make sure the cameras couldn't see him cursing out his players.
I was wondering why he was holding a towel over his mouth. That makes sense though.
I won't go into any specific details with respect to Buzz and his game-time "emotions", but there seemed to be a lot of talk between Buzz and the bigs (Hamilton and Pierce, mostly) about how Shane actually came off the bench and took care of business. My guess, based on the little tidbits I could actually hear, is that Shane didnt earn his starting spot from recent practices. But when Buzz got desperate due to foul issues, Shane came through for Buzz...something Hamilton and Pierce could have done a better job. Key points were making free-throws and easy under-the-basket shots.
Not being a D-I coach myself, it is hard to say if the long-term benefits of " you practice well, you start" approach will outweigh the immediate needs we will have each game against tougher opponents. But in Buzz I trust, and I still love each and every one of our Hokies despite their mishaps on the court!
What we are doing isn't working. Use today's starting five (Wilson, Hudson, Bibbs, LeDay, Blackshear) as the starters and define other roles as key subs. The personnel situation is out of control.
Son of a bitch. Why did I pull up tkp? Should I even watch the game now? Any bright spots to look forward to?
The end.
First 12 minutes aren't really that bad, but it's clear from the beginning what the outcome with be
There are a couple Henry dunks in the second half worth seeing. Thats about all.
Thanks for the heads up. Called the wife to have record while I'm at work, but will now delete. I'm a fan, not a glutton for punishment. I hope we get to wanna watch soon.
Well, I had the same feeling when I returned from a trip and checked TKP before watching the recorded game. Really wasn't thinking or I wouldn't have done it, but I almost didn't watch the game. There were some bright spots in the first half. We looked decent for a while against the press and even after falling behind, we came back within two a couple of times and almost looked for a moment like we might compete somewhat. There were, as mentioned above, a few nice individual plays, but if you are a fan, you can sorta watch it with a filter and just look for the things we did right. Overall, though, the inability to finish around the rim stood out to me, as well as the obvious differential in talent on the court. I have disliked Huggins since the old Metro days while watching him scream and berate his players, and dislike him more now that he is coaching our cousins, but they have a nifty team that we just couldn't match up with. I'd say watch it, but keep the remote in hand and finger on FF.
Thought it was kind of a jerk move for Buzz to avoid all postgame interviews. I wasn't at the game and didn't get to watch it but sounds like he all but about had it out with all of his players during the course of the game. Combine those two things with a 25-pt loss and it's all around a pretty awful look for the entire basketball program.
Buzz hardly even had a voice to yell at his players with several minutes before the end of the game. I would have been surprised if you'd have been able to hear him had he been interviewed!
If you're talking postgame radio, he was in the locker room according to Laazer past the time they could bring him on air.
I don't really care if he gives an interview or not after that game.
What's he going to say?
He's got better things to do, I think.
Agreed!
If you didn't attend the game and didn't watch the game, how do you know Coach Williams avoided all postgame interviews? You do realize he meets with the team after every game before bothering with the media right?
Our next three games are against State, UVa, and Duke. If Buzz is doing something to help us develop between now and then, I'm fine with him skipping press stuff.
I just said something similar to this, so leg to you.
It was a brutal game against a team that was clearly superior. Sometimes we need to cut him some slack so he can catch his breathe and thoughts. I'd rather see positive results on the court, and no press blah blah blah... Why does he need to be beat up by the press, after being pummeled by the other team?
That picture is terrifying
Since many of you have asked about Buzz not showing up for media postgame:
I'm not physically in Blacksburg, but Mark Umansky was at Cassell today for TKP and stuck around for postgame. Buzz finally did show up after a long wait and I believe we will be posting video shortly.
Clarke may not be the best player on the team but he was the player that we could absolutely not lose. Him and Hill were probably our best defenders, sigh.
Was the substitution pattern today particularly chaotic and excessive? We seemed to sub every FT attempt and every other deadball. Nobody was playing well, but hard to get in a rhythm with 2 min runs at a time.
Hard to balance a lineup when you have one less player available and you commit twice the number of personal fouls as you normally would in a game. 30 fouls today
>Sigh<
It's kind of amazing how much this win means to WVU. They just beat a below .500 to flat .500 team by 25, and their fans are treating it as if they just beat Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen (right, Daxter?).
I can't wait to see these guys in football in 2017 when Dana Holgorsen has been fired and the program is rebuilding or Dana's still there and the team is just average. The deadly combo of Fuente and Bud will be picking up steam the second year.
Deleted
If you get upset by losses, maybe you should stop following this year's squad before ACC play because we are going to lose early and often likely en route to another basement finish. Right now this is not a good team. Between injuries and youth, it just is asking to much for this year. We opened the season with a loss to Alabama State, which should have been a big red flag for those expecting the record to improve.
This is only Year 2 of a massive overhaul. Our program was a legitimate disaster when Buzz was hired after being pulled driven into the ground and detonated on impact by the previous administration. What we are seeing right now is why those who follow the game questioned Buzz wanting to come here from Marquette. It was never going to be a quick process.