Hokie Hoops Statistical Notes: Volume 10

Well then, the second season of CMYball started with about as well an opening four game stretch as could have been hoped for. An opening night win against Radford, followed up by thrilling victories over Temple Villanova, and USF, and ended by a hard fought, ugly win over VMI.

So without further ado, how do things look for the Hokies?

Scoring
Redshirt Junior PF Keve Aluma leads the Hokies with 17.8 ppg. Sophomore guards Tyrece Radford and Naheim Alleyne also are averaging double figures (12.8 and 11.3, respectively). Sophmore guard Hunter Cattoor has 8.3 ppg, and the dueling Senior point guards, Cartier Diarra and Wabissa Bede round out the 7+ ppg club (7.7 and 7.0 respectively), while Junior forward Justyn Mutts completes the significant scorers at 6.8 ppg. The remainder of the roster has contributed 5 ppg on the season.

Rebounding
A bit of a far cry from last season, as not one, but two forwards lead the team in rebounding. 6-7 SF Mutts leads with 7.0 rpg, followed by 6-9 Aluma. Don't be discouraged, Hokie Nation, 6-2 SG Radford is hot on their heels with 6.3.

Assists

Bede leads the team in ATO margin, at 2.2:1, (a drop off from his 3.3:1 last season, but he seems to have made up a little bit on the scoring end) but it's actually Mutts who leads the team in overall assists with 13. Radford is just behind Bede with 11:6 as his margin.

Experience/Depth

As with last season, the Hokies have bodies to put on the floor. This year, they're more experienced and taller, but just as balanced.

Radford is the only Hokie averaging more than 30mpg, at 33.8. In the 20mpg group, you find Aluma and Mutts (28.8 each), Alleyne (28.3), and Bede (24.3) Cattoor just misses the cut at 19.3 mpg, and after missing the VMI game, Diarra is down to 15 minutes per team game. Cordell Pemsl rounds out the significant minutes portion with 10.8 mpg. The remainder of the roster has contributed 72 minutes of depth, or 18 mpg. Only 1 scholarship player has yet to see the court (6-10 So C John Ojiako). If I had to guess at this juncture, I'd suspect the bulk of the minutes to be centered around a core group of 9, but with satisfactory depth to go 11-12 deep.

Next Four
CMYBall returns to action Tuesday to face Penn State in the ACC/B1G Challenge. The Nittany Lions roll 8-deep, with 3 seniors and 4 juniors getting the bulk of the work to this point. 6-6 SF Lundy (So) is the scoring threat getting 22 ppg over their first 2 games, followed by 6-0 Junior G Sam Sessoms (14.5 ppg), 6-4 Junior G Izaiah Brockington (11 ppg) and 6-1 Sr PG Jamari Wheeler (10 ppg). 6-9 Seniorr PF John Harrar cleans up the glass to the tune of 8.5rpg. The remaining significant minutes come from 6-4 Junior Guard Myles Dread (14 mpg) and 6-8 Senior PF Trent Buttrick. Neither team has a distinct size advantage among the potential starting 5, or even going deeper into the bench to the 7th or 8th man off the bench. The Lions better hope they don't need to go any further, as the rest of their bench has a combined 8 minutes played on the young season.

Then the Hokies open conference play against Clemson, a team that is 3-0 against teams that haven't really shown a pulse against major conference opponents. They average about 5 ppg fewer than the Hokies, get 3.5 fewer rebounds. I expect we'll see how good they are if they get their B1G matchup with Maryland.

Next the Hokies go back out of conference to take on Coppin State who did only lose to Duke by 10 in their only game so far. They have 1 big who has played, who put up 10 points and 8 rebounds against the Blue Devils in Kenan Sarvan. Senior guards Anthony Tarke and DeJuan Clayton torched Duke with 22 points, each. Senior guard Kobe Thomas (11 points) and Freshman guard Nendeh Tarke (6) round out the Eagles scorers so far. At 6-10 Sarvan is the only player above 6-6 to have played.

Rounding out this tetralogy of games will be the final regular season non-conference game against Longwood, a team that lost by 13 to a VMI team that the Hokies just beat by 7. The Lancers have a few taller guys, but they don't play them much (4 total minutes in 2 games). They seem to play an odd 3 forward lineup, and have only played 4 guards on the season.

Prediction

If the Hokies can get through very winnable Penn State and Clemson games, the Hokies should be 8-0 going into full conference play. I want to remain optimistic and say we will, but I am expecting one slip-up somewhere; most likely Penn State. However, if that doesn't happen, the Hokies could be getting into the meat of their ACC schedule as a top 10 team.