Fresh off a humbling road loss at Duke following a 2-0 start in the ACC, the Virginia Tech men's basketball team returned to Cassell Coliseum looking to rebound against a dangerous Wake Forest squad. The Hokies opened with one of their most complete halves of basketball under head coach Buzz Williams, and then held on late to escape with a 93-91 win.
Against the Demon Deacons (10-6, 1-3 ACC), Tech (11-6, 3-1 ACC) played like a completely different team than the one that was almost run out of Cameron Indoor before halftime. Zach LeDay came out of the gates firing, he nailed two three pointers en route to a quick nine points. LeDay scored or assisted on the Hokies' first 13 points, but got into foul trouble shortly thereafter and spent the final 11 minutes of the first half on the bench.
In LeDay's absence, Justin Robinson was quick to pick up the slack. The freshman from Manassas did a fantastic job dribbling hard off screens at the top of the key, leading to easy finishes at the rim. When he struggled to find an open look, he was quick to attack the basket and find a way to get to the free throw line. Robinson finished the half with 11 points, matching his career high. He looked extremely assertive with the ball in his hands and gave teammate Justin Bibbs extra time to find his sea legs.
Four days removed from a paltry three points on 1-4 shooting against Duke, Bibbs caught fire in the final five minutes of the first half. Bibbs scored 18 of the Hokies final 22 points in the half, using a deadly inside-outside game that Wake failed to contain. He scored from distance, finished at the rim in transition and looked unstoppable on the catch-and-shoot.
The Hokies cruised into halftime with a 45-38 lead and looked in control thanks to a steady offense and some solid defending.
Tech's opening act was arguably one of the best halves of basketball under Williams, illustrating just how dangerous this baby faced squad can be when everything clicks. They combined largely disciplined defense and positioning with an active and effective high screen game that saw them nail threes and draw fouls at the hoop.
The Hokies struggled early defending screens, choosing not to hedge the ball handler and instead forcing the on-ball defender to fight over the top of the screen. This left open lanes for the ball handler to keep or kick to an open man, which Wake gladly turned into easy three-pointers and lightly contested baseline drives.
Buzz's bunch clamped down, utilizing an extremely active brand of defense that led to turnovers and forced the Demon Deacons to start their offense from 22 feet away. Wake was able to find success at times by splitting double teams and using quick passing to catch the Hokies out of position. When the Hokies were disciplined, they were able to force a lot of uncomfortable shots from the Deacs.
When that discipline fell apart, it led to plenty of wide open looks for Wake. It was the primary force behind the Deacs' 15-6 run to start the second half. Mitchell Wilbekin, Codi Miller-McIntyre and Rondale Watson used some great vision to carve up the Hokies defense and pull Wake back to a brief 53-51 lead with 15:52 to play.
"I think we are very fortunate to win, and that is not coach speak," said Williams. "We could not guard them in the second half. They just kept us in rotation and we couldn't guard the ball."
Two corner threes from LeDay bought the Hokies some breathing room, but Tech struggled to shake a suddenly hot-handed Wake team down the stretch. When Danny Manning's team switched to a 2-3 zone, the Hokies struggled to find the same offensive rhythm that paced them in the first half.
A fantastic burst of energy from center Satchel Pierce helped lift Tech's fledgling offense midway through the second half. Pierce hit a jumper, a layup, and then out-fought two Wake defenders for an offensive rebound and drew a foul that he converted into two made free throws. Six straight points from Pierce helped push the Hokies out front 74-71 with 8 minutes to play.
Wake's shooters continued to stay hot, constantly reeling in any Hokie leads with sharp outside shooting. The Deacs shot 18-27 (66.7%) from the field in the second half, 10-14 (71.4%) from distance. Six Wake players finished in double figures, led by Miller-McIntyre's 22 points on 8-11 shooting.
Ultimately, it was the Justin Bibbs show. Bibbs finished with a career high 32 points, none bigger than a huge corner three with the shot clock winding down that put the Hokies up by four with 1:06 to play. The sophomore finished 12-18 from the floor, including three triples, to go with two assists and three steals.
The Hokies led by five points after Zach LeDay hit one of two free throws with 40 seconds to play, but three pointers from Wilbekin and Miller-McIntyre on back-to-back possessions cut the Tech lead to 91-90. After Wake's press forced Seth Allen to take a timeout, Allen found Kerry Blackshear understandably wide open in the corner, who was quickly fouled and sent to the line for two. A 48% free throw shooter, one could argue Blackshear shouldn't have even been in the game given the circumstances.
Completely unfazed by the moment, the freshman from Orlando nailed both shots from the charity stripe to extend the Tech lead to 3 with 6.3 seconds to play. Game over, right? Not quite.
Miller-McIntyre took the inbounds up-court, pump faked Bibbs out of his shoes and drew three free throws with one second remaining. Suddenly the Hokies' hero was on the verge of turning into their goat.
Thankfully, Miller-McIntyre — a 70% free throw shooter — missed the first attempt. After making the second, he intentionally missed the third but Wake was unable to grab the loose ball, sealing the win for the Hokies.
"I was just praying and hoping he'd miss it," Bibbs said. "That's what he did. After he missed the first one, I was like, 'Thank God.'"
Wake Forest's ACC road woes continue, extending their record to 1-46 in their last 47 conference away games. Coincidentally, their only win came in January, 2014 against the James Johnson-led Hokies.
While it was a fantastic bounce-back win for Tech, it was not all flowers and unicorns for this young team. The Hokies played some solid defense for stretches and were quick to get out in transition and convert 16 Wake turnovers into 24 points. They got tremendous offensive performances from Bibbs, LeDay (20 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds) and Robinson (17 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists), and benefitted from great energy plays from guys like Devin Wilson and Satchel Pierce.
At the same time, the Hokies were victimized by Wake's perimeter passing that was quick to find open players. When Tech's weakside defenders sagged too far into the paint, Wake guards punished the Hokies with skip passes that led to wide open corner threes. When Hokie defenders failed to maintain their positioning along the perimeter, Wake used good off-ball movement to create space and took advantage of the open looks.
Maybe it was a hot shooting night for the Deacs, but after watching Duke rain threes early on Saturday, it's hard not to worry a little about Tech's defensive rotations and perimeter defense. Buzz essentially said as much after the win.
"It is hard to beat a team that shoots it the way that they did," Williams said. "You wouldn't think that if you shot 50% from the field, 45% from the three, and 85% from the free throw line it would be a one possession game if you only knew those numbers."
After consecutive 2-16 seasons in ACC play, the Hokies have already won 3 conference games against some solid competition, and their 11 wins match last year's win total. Despite the absence of key players like Chris Clarke and Ahmed Hill, the future is clearly bright, but the present isn't too dim either.
The Hokies will look to maintain the positive momentum on the road Saturday at Georgia Tech. Tip-off is scheduled for noon.
Comments
How about that free throw shooting. thought it was a typo
maybe we need someone yelling "miss it" every time for us to actually make free throws.
or.....
I thought this was the best all around game I have seen VT play in about 5 years. Especially considering WF hit everything they threw up and I mean threw up. Banking 3 pointers and hitting other ridiculous shots. Last year this team would have folded down the stretch but last night they hung in there and shot pretty damn well from the free throw line. Great win, and the future keeps looking brighter.
Yep, Buzz might have killed Bibbs if those three free throws had been made. Last year we would not have been so lucky. This team has some good mojo at times.
Bibbs gave up like 4 tough 3's. the one right before the half was pretty lazy defense.
That was an awful call. He did fake Bibbs out, but Bibbs blocked him 100.0% clean. The foul call was purely reactionary on the refs part
could have been a make up call for the shot before that banked in.
3-1 in the ACC!
Who would have thought we would even have this may ACC win for the entire season. Buzz has them motivated and moving in the right direction.
Wow, I may need to reevaluate my ceiling for this team, NIT seems realistic meow!
Just keep up the good work guys. Very happy that we might not be the worst team in the ACC this year. I think Buzz has the team trending in the right direction. We are probably going to lose to the elite teams of the ACC, but they are going to have to work for it.
Does LOLUVA count?
Love that the guys we knew could be talented are finally starting to show up. Still cringe every time Allen pulls up for that 3 though.
My major takeaways:
Best FT shooting I can remember (83% on 35 attempts)
14:6 assist:turnover is a fantastic stat
Justin Robinson is very very fast
Justin Bibbs is a clutch shooter
Still see Seth Allen playing a little out of control
Notice the write up says "10 wins". Thought last night's win gave them 11, tied for last season's win total?
If we're already winning enough for our writers to lose count, I'll take it.
I was gonna make a quip about Alabama State being an exhibition game then I realized it wouldn't count toward the win total anyways. :(
That's my bad. I edited Pierson's conclusion early this morning, transposed a few sentences and forgot to change that around. Pierson can count and I hope most of you focused on the rest of his top-shelf analysis.
This game was a ton of fun to watch. Also, I don't mean to brag (ok, maybe a little), but I just wanted to share where I got to watch the game last night. This did not suck.
Whatever you do, don't let Berman know you were way down there, while he was was up there.
Quick, someone tweet Berman that picture.
Eh, I'm not sure Berman could have seen over Allen during the intros. He would have had an excellent view of Clarke and Donlon perfecting a pretty slick handshake before/throughout the game though.
I probably passed you a handful of times and never knew. Any seats near the home or away bench are the best, just to hear the commentary coming from the coaches.
Was anyone else pleasantly shocked at Pierce's play last night? It's still easy to see why he plays so little, but if we get the same handful of minutes from him from here on out that we got last night, I'll be pretty darn happy with that.
I was just going to post something similar. He played well. It seems like the Hokies always have opposing bench players have "out of nowhere" moments where they hit a couple of big shots against them. Nice to have it go the other way.
Yes, completely. Once he settled in, he looked like a 2nd year player with potential. He is a developmental prospect with good size, but hasn't shown much progress until this game.
Rondale Watson went to my high school. Some doubted he would do well at Wake Forest. He has been a key contributor this season to the Deacs. Last night was his career high. Happy for him, even more happy the Hokies got the win!
I think this was the first game where all of the players on the floor seemed to have a positive game. None of them had a bunch of TOs, missed FTs, or dumb fouls. It looked like they essentially have figured out what the minimum level of effort they must maintain to stay competitive and when to push from there. I think there were too many times at the start of this season where you could see players slacking on the little things that ended up with mistakes or easy buckets for the opposition.
The defense still has a long way to go. The rotation was chaotic last night and too many times a defender didn't trust a teammate and committed too early or too aggressively on help defense and left wide open shooters (they shot 60%!). This is the biggest weakness right now. The defense needs to gel and play as a unit or the team needs to plan on being exhausted on the offensive side of the court.
Wake's fast style of play leads to those D breakdowns. You can't stop them all, but we did force a LOT of turnovers! So, I think they did pretty good on D.
Wake has a lot of contributors on O. They hit ~59% which is to their credit and, yea, we did give them a few open shots, but the difference is that we handled their chaotic style and caused the large # if TOs, which reduces their shot count, amirite? They shot 56 times (same as us), but imagine how many more shots they get if they don't turn it over as much...
From Roanoke Times article:
So, based on that the # of TOs for Wake and TO differential (16 vs 6) was huge to this win!! I think we scored north of 24 points off of turnovers. Gotta Like that!
Not to mention the points that VT got off of all those turnovers. That stat was the key to the entire game.
Wake Forest is much improved over last year. I am really impressed with these Hokies. May be coming together too late this year to make a serious run at getting in the Tourney, but that doesn't matter. Finishing in the top half of the league would be unbelievable.
Yeah, Wake is going to win a lot of games. Thomas inside is a moose, we held him in check pretty well last night.
Five of our six losses are to tourney teams. If we take care of business and beat the teams we should beat (WF, BC, GT), pick up wins against Clemson and FSU, and then knock off one or two of the higher ends, the bubble may come calling.
.500 in ACC play would be a huge step, and an attainable goal considering the first 4.
With 18 ACC games, we need to be in the 12-6 range to get on the bubble.
I don't know where you are, but that's a long where from here.
You mean the Clemson team that beat Duke last night and Louisville earlier this week?
Being on the NCAA bubble is unrealistic this year. We need to be focusing on getting on the NIT bubble to show some serious progress this season.
I took a look at the remaining schedule, and broke the games into 3 tiers in terms of relative opponent difficulty:
EASIEST:
MEDIUM:
DIFFICULT:
We are 11-6 (3-1). I think to even be considered for the NIT we need to finish the regular season 17-14 (9-9). That means 6 more wins
EASIEST - need to win 4 out of 5 here
MEDIUM - need to win 2 out of 5 here
DIFFICULT - any wins here would offset the other tiers
That is going to be pretty difficult but I think it is within reach. Go Hokies!
If we do that, this team will have done some serious improvement. That would be exceptional progress.
Oklahoma State was a #9 seed at 18-14 last year. With zero top 25 wins OOC. If we can get to 10 ACC wins, especially with 1 or 2 more "big ones" the bubble is very much in play.
Is it realistic to get there? Maybe not, but IF we get there, there is precedent.
Earlier in the year the talking heads were saying possibly 10 teams from the ACC. So if we finish in the top half we are in, IF you believe the talking heads. Which I don't. But it is a huge step forward.
Bestest: Win the ACC Tournament.
I guess that means Alabama St. is going to the dance this year, because it's impossible for Northwestern to get in.
Joking aside, it's pretty cool that Northwestern will probably have their first shot at the tourney this year with JVZ on the team. Another VT basketball transfer success story.
Malcolm Delaney says hello.
Just glad to see Buzz paying attention to the things that really matter, like feeling obligated to media over team, has resulted in this amazing turnaround. Where would we be if he was the type of coach that believed inspirational movie-like speeches would impact players more than answering some media questions immediately after the game, right? certainly not playing like this.
In the post-game Buzz was raving about Justin Robinson saying he loves everything about him: he's left handed, quick, tough, good parents, "might have some little-man's syndrome" and Berman chirps back "do you?" Buzz responds "no, but you do Berman" haha
Still chafing over that, are we? The press did whine about that, didn't they? I understand their frustration, effectively making them work a little overtime, delaying their homecoming, etc. I really do, but to make something out of it other than a mention was a big mistake. Really made them out to be crybabies. For Buzz, the game wasn't over until he'd finished coaching it. That's his real job.
haha, no. I think the only ones chafed are the media members that had to wait. I just like being sarcastic about bullshit.
agreed, about Buzz though. he did his job correctly.
Went to check our RPI and noticed it's at 119. Anyone know why it has barely even budged after wins over nc state, wake, and a top 10 RPI uva?
that win over UAB is turning out to be pretty nice too.
Because the RPI is garbage and doesn't even begin to come close to being useful until the last week or so of the season.
okay..and why is that? That is my question. Why does it only become a useful barometer at the end of the season?
RPI sucks because it is almost completely based on strength of schedule. 25% your record. 50% your opponents' aggregate record, 25% your opponents' opponents aggregate record. It also has a heavy home/away bias for the team record portion of the calculation. A win at home only counts as 0.6 of a win, while a road win credits you for 1.4 wins. "neutral" sites are 1 win. Losses are biased the same way, only in reverse. Losing at home kills your RPI.
Ultimately, losing on the road to a really good team who has a strong schedule is actually better for your RPI than beating a terrible team with a weak schedule at home. That's why mid-majors like the Missouri Valley conference specifically schedule top100 RPI teams, because it boosts their own RPI, win or lose. Our RPI is pretty bad because we have a lot of terrible opponents on the schedule this year, that win or lose, are going to limit how high we can climb in the RPI rankings.
As for why it's not useful until late in the season - up until that point there's incomplete data or "connectedness" and too much variability remaining to really predict how good every team is.
Game 10 in the season you'll have 1,110 games outcomes contributing to your RPI. - your record (10 games), your opponents records (100 games), and your opponents opponents record (1000 games). *assuming no repeated opponents
Game 30 in the season you'll have 27,930 game outcomes contributing to your RPI. (your 30 games + 900 games for your opponents + 27,000 games for your opponents' opponents) *assuming no repeated opponents.
That being said, we're only 103rd in Sagarin's score-based ratings, so it's not like RPI is discounting us all that much.
Yeah, that.
Part of the reason is that UVA might not be as good as hyped. They lost to GT as well.
Did anyone else see the great photo on hokiesports.com of Allen going up and over Miller-Mcintyre? What are the rules as far as giving credit, etc to post it over here?
This looks vaguely familiar.
EDIT: posted original message in wrong thread.