IT'S GAMEDAY!#Hokies take on BC at 9 PM on @ESPNU #BeatBC pic.twitter.com/QehXTlwtnP— VT Men's Basketball (@VT_MBBall) February 23, 2016
Talk about a night when there must not be anything else available to ESPN. We have had games against ranked opponents go to ESPN3 or Regional TV, but our game against the cellar owning Eagles makes it to ESPNU.
Radio
Virginia Tech IMG Sports Network
Jon Laaser & Mike Burnop
Also available on:
Satellite: Sirius: 106 XM: 193
Digital: Hokies Xtra & TuneIn
Television/Internet
ESPNU
Mike Couzens & Len Elmore
Also available on the ESPN app
Tech has to make the most of the opportunity before them, which is notch two wins against the two worst teams in the conference in BC and Wake. It starts tonight with the Eagles, who have yet to win a conference game this year. That said, Tech does not fare well historically in its trips to BC, winning only once in the twelve times we have played there and having lost their last four overall to the Eagles as well. This is a streak that needs stopping, and these should be the kids to do just that. If Tech can win tonight and then beat Wake Forest on Sunday than they would only need one win in their remaining two games to lock up a .500 season in regular season conference play.
Tech comes in off a win over Florida State that saw five Hokies score in double figures. BC comes in having lost to Wake Forest 74-48, and that was with Wake without its top scorer due to a suspension.
Boston College comes in with only two players averaging double figures this season, Eli Carter,(#3) Senior Guard 6'2, 200 Lbs who brings 15.8 PPG,4.1 RPG and 4 APG. He also manages 1.2 SPG.
Jerome Robinson, (#1) Freshmen Guard, 6'7, 181 Lbs. who is putting up 11.6 PPG, 4 RPG, 2.8 APG, and 1.4 SPG.
After these two its a smorgusboard of role players.
The two most likely to hurt the Hokies would be Matt Milon (#22) Freshmen Guard 6'4, 200 Lbs who shoots better than 50% from outside and
Sammy Barnes-Thompkins(#55) Freshmen Guard 6'3, 192 Lbs. who shoots better than 41% from outside. Its been a consistent theme this year for the Hokies that a relative nobody just cant miss from outside.
Boston College is much farther behind us in terms of recovering from their coaching change. This year they have 10 Freshmen that have played and at least half of those have played meaningful minutes. They will lose three seniors this year so more new blood will follow next season.
Right now BC averages losing by almost 10 points per game. That takes into account their 20+ point losses to Michigan State, Notre Dame x2, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, UNC, Louisville, and Wake Forest. This is just not a very good team right now. Tech should run and run and run tonight, putting the Eagles out of the gym by at least 25, I think the final is Tech 74, BC 49.
Comments
Big timin' it on the U yall!
I'd be shocked if we won by that much. There's just something about playing at BC that sucks our teams into a funnel of pro sports town meh. 9 o'clock tip on a Tuesday? Gonna be a sleepy atmosphere.
We don't run away with many games. Needs to happen tonight, would be a great confidence builder for this final stretch.
Crush em'
I want to win a conference game by a number that ends in "teen" or "ty".
I doubt we win by that much. Winning on the road in the ACC is tough regardless of how bad BC might be. I say its actually pretty close most of the way, but we end up winning 67-58.
I watched BC play MSU early in the season and thought they would at least be competitive in the ACC, but it has been absolutely brutal for the eagles this year.
Here's to hoping the Hokies have a comfortable win away from home!
Reporting in! I know Tech is typically a slow starting team, but IMHO it would be very important to come out firing in this game. It'd be nice to get up by something like 15-5 early.
Robinson looking confident already, team looks crisp
BC is looking to go winless in conference football and basketball, don't screw this up Hokies.
Ugh. This team and fast starts don't really coincide very often.
Well then, we might just let Carter score 50 points on breakaways alone. Went from crisp passes to sloppy dribble drives
Playing 5 on 3 with satchel pierce and Devin Wilson in the game. Hard to watch.
Good to see Clarke out there!
Seth Allen is just so silky smooth sometimes.
It looks like there's only 37 people in the stands tonight. I don't even remember some of the James Johnson home games looking this empty.
It's Boston and BC is in cellar so not surprised.
Right, nobody has the interest/attention span for college spots up here. BC is hardly relevant to the locals when they are relevant on a national spectrum, never mind when they are in the cellar.
That said, most people up here can't swing 55k a year for a private catholic institution.
OT, but curious. Do people in Boston get annoyed that some people from the south still tend to think of everyone from New England as Yankees?
Are they not?!?
Not to my knowledge. Seems like everyone has internalized the differeces betwewn a 'Swamp Yankee' and those jerks in pinstripes.
I'd say about 12 of them are Hokies so were relatively well represented.
Anyone know a different way to watch the game online? My cable provider doesn't offer ESPNU on watchespn
Boston College is EXTREMELY bad. Like much worse than we have been in the past three years. Never seen a team miss so many good looks. Hopefully we open this one up soon.
Yep. BC's offense is turrible, just turrible. The only think keeping them in it is their offensive boards.
This Clarke/Henry/Jrob/Allen/Tyrone lineup out there is super small. As in: holy crap BC's five guy looks huge now.
Hudson 4 point play. In other news, water is wet.
Ya better call Tyroooone
How was that a charge?!
I've spent all season wondering why we're so bad at giving up offensive rebounds.
I swear I've seen so many balls hit the rim and head straight for an opposing player, it's wild.
I was just thinking this myself. I know we're a small team, but it would be nice to get a good bounce once in awhile.
We play as a small team but we really aren't a small team anymore, it's just that all of our bigs have glaring holes in their games. We now have two seven footers and two guys 6'10. The problem is that those four average about 15 minutes a game right now.
Yeah, it doesn't really matter that we have four 6'10"+ guys if they're riding the bench or out on the perimeter where they have no chance to grab a board (I'm looking at you Blackshear).
A big part of this is that we rarely shoot off set plays so our bigs hardly are ever in position to rebound correctly. Our bigs are also terrible at getting position down low which is one of the reasons we tend to see them commit ticky tack fouls after rebounds on both ends. Not sure which coach is responsible for the bigs but it seems to be a point of concern on the lack of improvement in the play of all our bigs.
Causing us some problems...
Chris Clarke has been working on his jumper!
The Super Fans seem less than enthused tonight
I almost feel bad for BC right now. And then I remember that we've lost to them so many times in the past few years
Our small lineup is generating a ton of steals right now. It's nice to see those guys getting after the ball.
Even though nothing came of it I really liked Clarke's hustle to get down the court to try to help Allen on that loose ball.
Boston College is f------ terrible. This statement is retracted if we lose.
BC's coach kinda looks like the Despicable Me guy.
Now I can't unsee that. Thanks.
Right?
Thank you, I'm on my phone
I forgot how good it felt to get a close range offensive put back or two.
It's so empty in there that I can hear one VT fan counting down the shot clock correctly for us. That is pretty depressing.
YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME. OMG.
So we are beating the crap out of them and we still end up on the crap end of a top play. Classic Virginia Tech.
And we get sportscentered to end the half again
Damn that was a finish, but what a horrible shot by their leader.
EDIT: how hard was that announcer hoping garland would make a big play so he could use they Christmas tree analogy
Even against Boston college, we can't close a half out properly. Absolutely inexcusable lack of effort on the boards.
As always, I feel like we should be up by more but I'm happy to say it's a thirteen point lead at the half.
In case anyone is looking for a more interesting game to watch, Alberta is beating Montreal in a huge game for women's Canadian curling playoff standings...
We've got some groan-worthy commentary going on in this game.
Nice, Jae Crowder sighting
Hey Rutgers, how's that B1G move working out for you? 29 game conference losing streak? Sooooo... good?
Oak Hill could beat this BC team.
I'm pretty sure you could pull 13 guys from the McComas courts and they would beat this BC team. Their offense is just bad.
That three attempt by Allen was the perfect example of why we have such a hard time rebounding. Closest Hokie to the rim was Clarke who was laid out on the floor eight feet from the basket. No one was on the alternate side of the shot closer than 15 feet.
That effort play by Chris Clarke right there is what is going to win us another 2 or 3 ball games this year, tournament included.
We're going to cruise to this win, he didn't need to do that, but he did it anyway.
And another charge call that I do not understand!
Don't worry. The ACC refs don't understand it either.
Outstanding hustle to grab that loose ball. Up by 19 and bodies are still flying over the court chasing that ball down.
And the announcer praises the BC player for his hustle. You just got the ball stripped from you and you're getting blown out you better hustle. Oh well, with the improved quality of basketball will come the improved quality of commentary. In due time...
Both of the charges on Clarke were bad, the second one more than the first
We need to get a couple baskets here to stem any chance of the lead getting to single digits. Strange things happen around ACC refs and single digit leads
Per your request
I'm really glad the good guys got it back to 20 points. Maybe I'm just used to things falling apart and questionable officiating, but when it's under 15 I'm getting nervous.
Edit: Damn it.
Leday got bailed out there
That felt like an apology for one of those Clarke charges.
Time to get big Satch and Hamilton some minutes, rest the starters. Donlon and Galloway with 2 min to go.
Refs have swallowed their whistles when things are getting a bit ugly.
I'm just flipping back and forth between the game and House Hunters so I haven't seen a lot of shots of the crowd till now, there is nobody there at the game. Why did BC get an ACC invite again?
So the Boston TV market could tune into CSI Boston ove BC games
It was a strategic move to gain a large population base for when they started up the acc network. So pretty much no reason except to stick us with a shitty yearly "rival" in football
Academic money is another reason BC got the invite.
it feels sooooo good to be on the other side of a miserable season.
Donlon!!!!!
Ah yes. Send in Holloway and Donlon. I hope one of them drains a shot.
Edit: Woohoo!
*Galloway
I knew Boston College was bad, but I hadn't watched them play yet. Wow.
Sloppy but a win is a win the ACC. Probably should have won by at least ten more but we slowed up the last ten minutes.
100% agree. Yet another example of how the Hokies are quite adept at mirroring the level of their opponents. I love the win, though, don't get me wrong.
It didn't help things that the refs couldn't tell a charge from a moving blocking foul from the big silvery turds sitting atop their heads. (Note how I am picking on just the two white-haired referees...the fact that they are still gainfully employed by anything higher than community league basketball just completely boggles my mind)
I really hope Buzz doesn't let the team get any high from this win. There is plenty in the game that they need to work and improve on. That being said, a good win on the road for the men in maroon. Still very much excited for Hokie basketball!
when was the last time we can say we just watched a boring ACC game that involved VT basketball
The Miami game?
when was the last time we can say we just watched a boring ACC game that involved VT basketball winning
FTFY
I can't believe I'm saying this, but if we win at Wake we will be .500 in ACC play 16 games in. That is incredible.
I'll go one further win out and win 2 ACC tourney games and were on bubble.
Uh no. Is our RPI like 150?
Ummmm, yea. Not going to happen.
As much as I would love to have that be true, our only real chance at getting into the Dance at this point is to pull off a run to the ACC title
Too soon.
The other Seth, the other Allen and some guy from Russia who claims to have a few MVPs are all holding on Line 2.
So actually, the numbers make an argument that could support this.
TL; DR (for those of you that don't want to dive into the data): hypothetically, we could jump up onto the bubble, because it's hella weak this year, but likely the wrong side simply due to that Alabama St. loss .
First, most sites that I've seen have our RPI closer to 110-ish (sometimes as high as 100 or as low as 120). Still not great, but not quite as bad as 150.
Winning out and a couple of wins in the ACC tournament likely gives us two more wins against top 15 teams (Miami at home, projected to face UNC in the 1 vs 8/9 matchup), and one or two wins against bubble/lower tournament seed team (Pitt and our first game in the tourney - likely Clemson). According to ESPN's RPI, that gives us:
As far as an estimated RPI, I ran some numbers using RPI Wizard and we could jump up into the mid-70s in that situation. This is with simulated wins against Wake, Pitt, Miami, Clemson, UNC, and a loss against ND in the semis.
20-14 (10-8 ACC), 2 tournament wins, 75-ish RPI sounds like a bubble team to me, but still likely on the wrong side of the bubble, because Alabama State. But the bubble is weak this year...
Maybe we're due to get karma for the '10-'11 VCU team that took a spot we had a claim to. If we ended up like them, I don't think anybody would complain haha.
Great post. Any way you could run the numbers for what we need to make the NIT?
So the NIT is a bit more difficult to project since the selection process is a lot more vague and it's a lot easier to observe tendencies of the NCAA bubble (better than mid 70s RPI, 9-10 ACC wins tends to get you in, # of quality wins/bad losses, etc.) than the NIT bubble.
It would be interesting to see if there are any historical trends for the NIT though...I think the big thing in our case is their requirement that you have to be better than .500. My gut reaction (with no historical or statistical proof) is that pure win-loss record would be the main factor, so if we get a couple games above .500 we should have a good shot. Once I'm home from work, I might try to pull up some additional info about the NIT and see if I can make any better guesses.