The Hokies take on UVA in Charlottesville at 2PM today. The game is on ACC Regional Sports Networks; for me that means AT&T Sports Pittsburgh. UVA is 10-2 with losses at Purdue and to USCe at home. Both losses were after Braxton Key broke his wrist; although he played against USC, he was not 100%. In their last game against Navy, he started, played 37 minutes and scored 15 points with 7 rebounds.
The Hoos are not a lot taller than the Hokies, especially if Ojiako can be a factor. For reasons that I did not try to understand, there are 2 players who have statistics this year who are not listed on their roster; and there are two players on their roster who have not played. They are a much older team than the Hokies with a rSr, true Sr, rJr, So and one Fr starting and a So and Jr as primary subs.
Two tables for the stats guys. One is the typical table with season averages. They shoot 41% overall and 28% from three. they have more turnovers than assists on the season primarily because of 16 and 19 turnovers in the two losses. The other table is game by game stats.
UVA is not as good as they have been at times in the past; but they are still good and we are still young. I think we have the talent to make this a game; but we can't afford to get careless. UVA does not give opponents as many scoring opportunities as most teams. We will have to be efficient on offense; if we shoot like we can, we can win this game. I think Catoor may be a factor in this game; he has a very quick shot, which is important against the UVA defense. It would also be good for Ojiako to be a presence on both offense and defense. If he can force Diakite to make some mistakes or get in foul trouble, that would be a big factor.
They have only made 61 threes in 12 games. Surprisingly Diakite is one of their better 3 Pt shooter, with 11 on 24 attempts. The other threat from three is Clark with 16 on 44 attempts. Of course, we will probably see someone totally unexpected get hot from three in this game.
They have only won the rebound battle by 4 so far this season.
I think if we shoot well we win; but shooting well against UVA is not easy. The ball can't stick in Nolley's hands. The offense has to be active and efficient. Shots will be harder to get and many will be contested. A real test for our young team.
Go Hokies!
Comments
Lets GO!
HOKIES
En route to JPJ with a group of 9 Hokies. It might be the liquid lunch talking but I'm cautiously optimistic about this one.
Let's go Hokies!!
Who doesn't love ole TV Teddy
Teddy is a big homer ref. Not good for us.
My interest in watching this game went drastically down.
Huff is over 7'. He can be a presence at times. Low scoring game going down to the wire. Would be great to win by a nose.
My bad on the roster. For some reason when I copy the roster into Excel, it converts all the heights into dates. I screwed up converting Huff back into feet and inches. Makes my comment about our height disadvantage not too accurate.
Game is blacked out in the ESPN app and on Sling. I'm not seeing it on any local channels in the NRV though.
Same on spectrum.
It's not on ACCN, it's a raycom game, on nbcsw in nova.
Game is blacked out in southern WV which makes no sense. No local channels are ever going to pick up Virginia Tech and UVA.
I'm not a fan of our orange uniforms at loluva
Ted Valentine is a clown.
Anyone have a list of RSN stations for the game. Can't find it on usual channels.
http://theacc.com/sports/2020/1/2/MBB_RSN_VT_UVA_20.aspx
Unfortunately the only option I have of these on DIRECTV is 642 NBC Washington channel and it's blacked out on there as well. Shouldn't be this difficult to watch a fucking acc basketball game.
It was on several regional channels on my directv. I do have the cheapo 10 buck sports package, though. I didn't count all the stations that carried it, but it was a bunch. Sometimes, it'll be blacked out on one but available on the rest of them. Never not found a televised game when it's regional, but the sports package is why.
Its on the YES (yankees) network in my area
Fox Sports SUN in FL
Fox Sports Florida for me is Iowa State versus Texas Tech women's game.
Edit: Found it, it's listed as Fox Sports Jax and it wasn't found by auto tuning channels had to manually enter it.
Odd..didn't know there was such a channel.
Where I am, we have FoxSports Florida and FoxSports Sun.
Get all the Tampa and Magic games, but they blackout Heat basketball for some bizarre reason. Sadly, they still give us the Marlins, lol.
What is on your Fox Sun right now? My Fox Jax is some jet ski racing off Daytona.
Same...jet ski racing.
Sounds like probably same channel..im closer to Tampa, I'm guessing you don't get Rays/Lightning?
Don't know will have to look. The guide has nothing on it "no information available"
Looks like lighting pre game is on right now.
And Valentine with his usual home team pandering call. When will the ACC put this loser out to pasture?
I love the guy, but PJ Horne may have the all-time record for most open layups and dunks missed.
Tech player gets pushed around either no call or offensive foul. LolUva player falls to the floor in the area of a tech player - foul on tech. So typical.
Rough start, team looks flustered. Hopefully a few made shots will settle them in. On queue, Nolley knocks one in.
This is hard to watch so far. We wight not break 30 today.
We look like nc state against us last year
Im just hoping we don't set a new record for offensive futility at this point.
Nothing but long jumpers with no rebounding presence at all. This is pretty ugly, even for a UVA basketball game.
They are letting PJ shoot behind the arc
He needs to stop.
Coach needs to pull him for it, position and size be damned
Halftime Nolley is 6-10 rest of team is 1-14.
Missing too many open looks. Have to give UVA credit. They know whom to leave open. I thought Cattoor might be a factor; but he can't get open. Alleyn is playing like a young player; need to settle down.
WTF did i just see on TV....does the UVA halftime show really consist of letting babies crawl around on the court?
Lots of teams (pro and college) are doing Baby Races as halftime shows. I like them. Some are quite comical
I guess i dont get out enough.....
it's the Virginia 529 Diaper Derby. I think they put 7 sets of parents and their baby (crawler, not a baby that is walking) and the baby races from one parent to the other... about 15 feet. The winner wins $500 in a 529 account. The 529 Diaper Derby is coming to Blacksburg on Saturday, January 11th when we play nc st at home.
Ok...i can get behind that. I thought it was just babies randomly crawling around.
Lack of talent and experience is showing in this 1st half. You knew UVA was gonna take away perimeter shots (our strong suit) and our reaction has been confusion. The shot is gone and the players are like "well...Imma shoot this anyway even though its contested". Or the set gets blown up early and instead of resetting into something else, we try having a player shake off multiple defenders with a couple of crossovers. Can't beat a Bennett defense going iso. Need more sharp, purposeful cuts. What's frustrating is we've had them a couple of times but the ball handler isn't seeing them. And there's been a few open(ish) lanes to the basket where we could at least draw a foul but we're abandoning it to pass it back out. Defensively, its disjointed. Some possessions are good, some are total headscratchers.
You can tell that our guys just haven't had the experience facing a team that disciplined. The only positive is UVA is not good offensively and are prone to scoring droughts. So if we can just find a way to manufacture some kind of points, we might be able to make it a game late.
Just got live...
I think CMY has done a good job of getting our guys in a position to compete. There have been more open looks than I thought there would be, but they just aren't falling. Future looks really good!
Bede runs into nolley and he gets called for a foul. Wow
Clark is taking Bede's lunch money today
And he's not even that good.
Yep. He's not a stand out offensive player. But towards in the end of the 1st half, he realized he could beat Bede off the dribble with relative ease. UVA opened the 2nd half just attacking Bede every possession and Clarke cooked him.
Edit: I don't mean this as a way to dump on Bede. Just pointing out that UVA found a weakness today and we had no counter. Bede couldn't stay with him and there was never an adjustment that worked to help him out
It was more of realizing that Clarke could consistently beat Bede off the screens that Diake was setting. I would love to see Horne and Ojaiko set screens like that - and for Bede, Cone, etc actually run their defender into the screens the way Clarke was.
Bede could have definitely defended that better though. Every. Single. Time. He acted completely surprised that Diake was there and got held up. No hedging at all to try and force Clarke back away from the screen or to create space between Clarke and the screener.
Bede was beat before he even got to the screen though several times. It was so bad at times that you'd almost think it was part strategy to open your hips and funnel him in to a defender behind which some teams do if they have great shot blockers (but we don't). Clark could have gotten to the rim without those screens, they just made it easier. It was rough for all involved on our side
Horne has to quit shooting the three. I don't care how open he is. Fake and drive or something.
I hate UVA
I'd be curious to know our road record in the ACC with games officiated by Valentine vs games without him. He really is egregious in his home cooking.
so are you saying that when he refs in the Cassell the Hokies will get the calls?
Every UVA player except Diakite and Huff has a three today.
I'll admit that I haven't watched a ton of men's basketball this year, but one thing has definitely struck me.
Offensively, we seem incredibly reliant on hitting threes four point production, yet on the defensive side, we seem to struggle to defend the three.
If ours aren't falling, it's a pretty lethal combination.
Hot take: we're better without Nolley on the floor...at times.
I don't know. He's 18 of our 39 points.
Without nolley on the floor we have 21 total points today
We just need to figure out a way to get someone else to score. We aren't going to win any games with Horne going O for 9 and the team 4 for 25 from three .
They shoulda pulled the plug on allowing horne to shoot the 3 by halftime. He was ice cold.
Garbage 2nd half. If the 1st was inconsistent, the 2nd was a complete breakdown, especially defensively. Numerous possessions where all 5 guys were ball watching, slowly creeping towards the ball leaving not just a man open, but entire sides of the floor.
About the only thing I liked in the 2nd half was Cattoor's attitude. The few times he got the ball, he was like "Fuck this. I'm attacking."
Someone should have told our basketball team we had a game today. That was probably the most uninspiring performance from our basketball team that I've ever seen, and don't tell me it was because of UVA. Navy scored 56 against them, and only lost by 9. USCe whipped them. I know we're young, but something was wrong with our team today.
Totally outplayed and out coached by a better team today. Probably the best defensive team in the country, and certainly one of the best coached. Tony B sure does seem to constantly get the best of the officiating. A la Mike K at Duke, the zebras sure do seem to love the Bennet show, especially in Charlottesville. Had no impact on the game today, though. Hokies had very little to offer.
That great basketball philosopher Brent Williams, who was not a very nice human, but a great basketball coach, was a big fan of paint touches. VT does not get enough paint touches with this team. They are a good 3 pt shooting team some of the time; but they can't get open consistently because they don't force the defense inside to open up the 3 pt line.
As good as their defense is, we had enough open shots that we could have kept in the game had we hit some of them. I suppose every team they beat thinks that, but we contributed to their typically stellar effort with cold as ice major league brick layer shooting all game long. Really disappointing afternoon.
Can't be afraid to draw the extra man and break the trap. I'm pretty concerned about the lack of penetration/paint touches we've got all season
To be fair, they aren't very good at it. They don't really have a big man; and Bede can't close at the rim. Catoor was the only player that drove the ball effectively today.
We will get them in wrestling!
And Track & Field. Don't forget Track & Field.
I think we get them at home in BBall later this year.
Football SchoolBasketball SchoolWrestling School
Post checks out.
This team's biggest issue right now is that they are not moving the ball like they used to. Earlier in the year when they were killing lesser opponents and beat Michigan State, the ball never stuck. There wasn't much isolation at all. Now, the ball seems to stick after every pass, especially when it hits Nolley's hands. There was one instance yesterday early in the game where if Nolley had immediately swung the ball to Horne after catching it, Horne would have had a wide open three (not that it would have mattered for Horne yesterday, but still). Early in the season, it was like watching a Buzz coached team again. They shared the ball, didn't isolate, didn't throw up weird shots early in the shot clock, and looked like a team who could surprise people. Now they look like the 2012 team where there is only one player capable of scoring. The thing is, I know more are capable of scoring. I knew for the most part that March Madness wasn't in the cards for this team. The Michigan State game opened my mind up a little bit to it, but the ensuing Dayton and BYU games made it make sense to me. Now we look like a team who won't even make the NIT. I hope CMY addresses the ball movement problem and can fix it. I'm sure he can. He's one of the brightest coaches we've ever had.