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Virginia Tech leads the series against UMD-ES 5-0. Last years game: 82-66
Brian has done an excellent job touching on the current Virginia Tech roster and much of what we may see tonight from the Hokies so I will begin with the Shore Hawks and what to expect from them. Eastern Shore may be one of the smallest rosters we see this entire season, with no player above 6'8" expected to see much time on the floor. The Shore Hawks will also be without two of their top three scorers from last season that combined for 27 of their 67 points a game. That said, expect to see a heavy dose of three and four guard sets in this game from the Shore Hawks, as they have three senior guards returning that were top six scorers last season.
Tech should focus defensively on Junior guard Kyree Jones(#45) and senior guard Devon Walker(#11) as they provide much of the offensive punch for this team bringing back about 21 points between them per game.
The other players I would expect to see round out the starting rotation will be senior guard Isaac Smith(#13), junior Forward Iman Johnson(#1), and senior Forward Mike Myers(#24). The first two players off the bench will likely be senior guard Ishaq Pitt(#2) and sophomore Forward Shane Randall(#12). I am not sure where the incoming freshmen will fit in with this team as of yet, but there are five of them to account for so I would expect to see at least one surprise in this group. Possibly Dominique Elliott(#32) at Forward or William Tibbs(#14) at G/F as Elliott brings a college ready body to bang inside and Tibbs is known for his ball handling and ability to create his own shot. Both had extremely successful high school careers.
All that said, the Shore Hawks should have difficulty scoring, especially from outside (last season the team shot 32% from outside the arc). We should have a height advantage at almost every position on the floor and the talent level between these two programs is drastically different. The Hokies won this matchup last season 82-66 and I would expect a similar result in this matchup. The scoring may be lower for both sides with Buzz Williams focus on in your face defense which should limit the looks that Eastern Shore gets at the basket.
I would expect Buzz will mirror the lineup look tonight with three guards and two forwards, with returning players in starting positions and the freshmen being worked in off the bench for the most part this evening. At this point with all the chatter its difficult to determine which of the guards Buzz will run out to start with. Devin seems set at Point Guard but Mueller coming in at Shooting Guard was a surprise I had not anticipated over Smith and Ahmed Hill. This game should be an easier transition for Henry since much of the Eastern Shore roster will still be smaller than him so I would expect Buzz to spend some time finding out what he has in Henry early on. JVZ should be able to have a field day in this game if Buzz decides to focus the offense down low.
Eastern Shore is known for employing a high tempo defense looking to create turnovers to allow for quick transition baskets on the offensive end. Buzz will likely counter this by dominating the paint and taking high percentage shots to slow Eastern Shore into a half court offense.
All in all, I see Tech winning this game 70-51 or something along those lines. Enjoy it as it may be one of the only games that Tech enjoys a double digit lead this season.
Comments
Can't go undefeated of you don't win the first game. All aboaaaaard
One other thing of note for the student section: Be prepared to cheer for a member of the opposing coaching staff tonight. Ace Custis, a Hokie basketball legend from the mid 90's is one of the newest members of the Eastern Shore staff. Please give him a great ovation this evening.
Had no idea that Ace was coaching - he was my favorite player for Tech growing up.
Plus, one of the most badass (nick)name ever: "Ace"
Same here! Man he was awesome to watch!!
ACE! Nice, I had some classes with him. great guy
I had an Ace Custis poster on my wall for a few years growing up. The only thing I remember about it is that you could clearly see his Ace of Spades tattoo.
Awesome news for Ace. I would love to see him come back to Tech in future years many time then.
Can't wait to see Buzz's debut. I have been anticipating this day for a while now. Can't wait to tune in and listen to Bill and Mike tonight.
I expect a win, the first of many in Buzz's long and storied tenure at VT. I even have my victory dance primed and ready
that gif makes me very uncomfortable
exactly, that's how the rest of the ACC is gonna feel when we be winning conference championships, am I right?
I'm preparing a modified, more low key, version of my traditional mexican hat dance gone wrong celebration.
And yes, friends, the drinking has begun en mi casa...
I'm bringing my whole family out tonight (wife, kids, and mom). Where is public parking for BB games?
http://www.parking.vt.edu/Basketball_parking.asp
South End Zone is an easy walk.
BASKETBALLL YEEEEAAAAAAAAA
I was hoping there was gonna be a preview for the game. Thanks Rob!
Hope to be able to do one for every game barring an emergency.
awesome
Starting to get pumped!
You can tell that it's killing Seth Allen that he has to be in street clothes.
Bourbon and ginger in hand, ready for some Hokie Hoops!
Let's Go!!
Well, watching now on ESPN 3, the crowd looks really sparse.
But the cheerleaders are already bringing their A game.
Googly.
student section has a good turnout. the rest, not so much.
Good start, Bibbs looked smooth on jumper.
National Championship, here we come.
we're talking minimum 8-peat here
Dang it, ESPN3 feed is spotty. Anyone else having the same trouble?
Froze a couple of times.
My feed is running fine. I'm running mine through my xbox one, not sure if that makes a difference.
We've caused 5 turnovers not even 5 minutes into the game. We can build on this!
Bibbs is reminding me of Erick Green a little. This seems really promising.
Playing hard, I love it!
4 freshman on the court at the same time.
we're gonna be seeing a lot of that
I know but it still made me giddy to see it
Justin Bibbs is going to be really, really, good.
We look pretty good. No big mistakes which is a nice change. Nice to see even if it is against a bad team
JVZ and Pierce finishing inside, I love it
Pierce looks athletic but made freshman mistakes defensively.
Man, we are getting open looks and throwing some bricks up there
Nervous freshmen, they'll get over that.
Is there anyone who has not played yet. Buzz is getting everyone involved.
You got to love the no turnovers, a lot of good ballhandlers. Free throw shooting sucks.
Missed most of the first half with technical difficulties. Saw the last ten minutes. Definitely need to work to create cleaner looks down low. Henry is taller than 6'5 but definitely not 6'8. Needs to play a larger role in the second half with JVZ and Pierce in foul trouble. Bibbs scoring nine in the first half is a good sign. Turnover margin is what we need to shoot for every game. We have let Andino get too many open looks considering his size. Hopefully we start the second half the same way we did the first and put this game away early. Don't want to give a team hope coming out of the break.
Gamecast lost the game, but ESPN3 still has it.
Big men are proving more a hindrance than a help so far in the second half. Pierce caused the one turnover-transition basket but other than that, way to quiet. It may prove telling that Mike Myers got hurt early in this second half because he was man handling our bigs. Bibbs continues to impress so far.
Pierce is impressing me for a big in his first game. Joey has had some nice touches as well.
Bibbs is going to be a monster based on this game so far.
Pierce looks very athletic for a big guy.
Not surprised by Pierce athleticism after watching tape from a few of the U-19 games but he cant box out Mike Myers at all and Myers is nothing compared to what we will see later in the season. Smith hitting some key shots but Devin doesn't appear to have improved at the free throw line whatsoever, although there is the black eye.
I hope you're right. This free throw shooting effort has me rolling my eyes.
Free throwing is going to cost us a few games.
Really telling that Buzz isn't high on Henry so far considering the foul trouble Pierce/JVZ are in and still no Henry in second half.
MALIK MUELLER FOR THE NAISMITH
There went his Naismith!
Buzz has his team hustling for sure, I love he is giving everybody some minutes.
I don't know a lot about basketball, but from my layman's observations, I think these guys are showing a lot of hustle. I know UMES isn't a very good team, so there isn't much to extrapolate here, but it looks like we're generally taking care of the ball, passing better, and creating more opportunities as compared to last year.
the ball movement is light years ahead of where we were.
I loved the ball movement. Last year, it seemed that it was a bunch of dribbling around, and then throwing up a prayer with :02 on the shot clock. Tonight, the guys seemed more fluid and confident in moving the ball around. Good stuff.
Free throws keeping this from being a complete blowout. We have missed a ton so far which is very disappointing.
Could any of that be attributed to first-game jitters? I know that reason/excuse can only go so far and it WAS a problem last year.
Not really, its a home game and more of our misses came in the second half. Just really frustrating because otherwise it was an all around solid game.
We have to fix the free throws. That killed us last year as well.
Is MEAC division II?
No.
Bibbs and Muller leading scorers with 15
Hill with 11
Well, first game won. Time to walk it off!
I just wish we could have found a coach a little more intensity. Looks like we have ourselves the Jim Harbaugh of the ACC #BUZZKETBALL
Good win with a lot of positives. Free throw shooting needs to get better and Joey needs to stay away from fouls. All in all a satisfactory 1st game.
The road to the Final Four starts here
leg for the optimism
Nice win for the first game. About what I expected, although I would have expected Buzz to have beaten the free throw issue out them. Well balanced scoring all around, even with three in double figures.
Top Three Highlights
Bibbs scoring the ball.
No turnovers for the first 32 minutes
Hustle for the basketball - 20 points off turnovers
Lowlights
Free Throw Shooting at 58.6%(17 for 29) for the game (especially Devin 1 for 5)
The inability of the bigs to stay out of foul trouble (Both Pierce and JVZ fouled out)
Limited the turnovers, spread the basketball around, gave the defense many different looks (ahem football team take a lesson), disrupting shots (eight blocks), and taking quality shots (53% from the field). This will win us more games than it will lose us going forward.
The only FT % that concerns me right now is Wilson at 1/5 (20%) after shooting so poorly last year from the line, a start like that is not encouraging me to think that he's fixed his woes at the line...
Everyone else only missed a combined 1 or 2 FT that they could be expected to make though.
Overall, at 17/29 we left about 5 points on the court from FT's if you consider that 75% (22/27) for the team is a realistic expectation, so if Wilson makes 2-3 more, there's only 2-3 unreasonable misses from the rest of the squad.
A lot of those misses were the 1st shot of 1 and 1, more than 5 points left on court.
Point well made. When your point guard is the worst FT shooter on the team, he has some SERIOUS work he needs to do IMMEDIATELY to improve. Totally unacceptable. Not any excuses for that. Wilson should have been shooting 1K FTs a day this summer, or whatever it took to learn how to shoot FTs. His form is totally inconsistent, and he's as erratic as a 7 footer trying to shoot. Yet he's a PG. If he wants playing time this season he better change that immediately. Actually, he should have already changed it.
I'll add my two cents from the game as well:
Bibbs looked very calm and ready to play a big role this season.
Mueller was probably most impressive to me because of how much of an unknown he was.
Our offensive flow was actually pretty good. Our passing was good and the effort was definitely there. That is all stuff to build on.
I was disappointed with how quickly our bigs fouled out and how hey weren't able to control the game against a small team. We also did not rebound well at all, this will be a major struggle for us this year.
All in all, good win and lots of quality PT for all of the freshmen
My only thought on this was that Mike Myers, 6'9, 245 lbs and every bit of it caused 6 of the 10 fouls called on our bigs. My problem with that happening is that when we run a four guard one big lineup like we did alot last night, the big has no help defense to keep someone that size out of the paint. Its not an ideal setup which is why I expected to see more of Henry, who while lighter than we expected still seems to be able to provide the help to turn someone like Myers away.