HOKIES HOOPS CENTRAL: Virginia (20-6) at Virginia Tech (14-11) 7PM ESPN

HOKIES HOOPS CENTRAL: Virginia (20-6) at Virginia Tech (14-11) 7PM ESPN

Round 2️⃣ of the #CommonwealthClash🆚 UVA🕖 7PM📺 ESPN🚨 Wear maroon🤝 @SmithfieldBrand #StoneByStone x #Hokies pic.twitter.com/NIHkn0KmgP— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) February 19, 2024

Virginia (20-6)
at Virginia Tech (14-11)
February 19th, 2024
Cassell Coliseum
7 p.m. ET
ESPN
Virginia Tech Sports Network

ESPN
Play-by-Play:
Analyst:

Local Radio
Virginia Tech Sports Network
Play-by-Play: Zach Mackey
Analyst: Mike Burnop

Current Spread: Hokies -3.5
Over/Under: -126.5

Revenge is especially sweet
The Hokies "welcome" the Wahoos to Cassell after a tough loss to #7 UNC on Tobacco Road. These teams have been vastly different since the last match up in Charlottesville. The Hokies have been a middling 4-4 while the Wahoos have gone on an impressive 9-1 stretch.

Us 🆚 ThemIt always delivers 🏰🔊🔊🔊#CommonwealthClash x #Hokies pic.twitter.com/ogOAhbL3Pk— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) February 19, 2024

Virginia squad comes in 20-6 after pulling off a close 49-47 win over Wake Forest. This will be the 158th meeting between the Hokies and Virginia. The Hokies are 59-98 overall against the Wahoos.

The Wahoos are coached by Tony Bennett, who has been at Virginia since 2009. Virginia is 333-120 under Bennett, who is now 430-162 as a Head coach with his only other stop was three seasons at Washington State. They have reached the post season 11 of their 14 seasons so far with nine NCAA appearances, one tournament cancelled, and one National Championship.

Virginia did a complete overhaul with four transfers including starter Andrew Rhode from St Thomas as well as Jacob Groves from Oklahoma. Jordan Minor from Merrimack is playing in almost every game for about 8 mpg. They had the 20th ranked recruiting class with four freshmen but only Blake Buchanan and Elijah Gertrude played meaningful minutes so far.

The starting five are Reece Beekman, Isaac McNeely, Ryan Dunn, Andrew Rhode and Jacob Groves. All but Groves are on the court at least 27 minutes per game. Virginia uses a bench of five players, seeing the floor about 10-15 mpg. This group consists of Blake Buchanan, Leon Bond, Taine Murray, and Elijah Gertrude. The only injury for UVA is Christian Bliss, a reserve guard with a foot injury.

Defensively, Virginia is one of the best at executing the "Pack Line Defense" and are allowing the second fewest points per game in all of college basketball even with their recent issues in ACC play. It is a high pressure, man to man defense that sags to the middle of the court. It is designed to prevent penetration by driving the basketball.

The "pack line" is an imaginary line two feet inside the three-point line that all defenders not guarding the current ball handler are never supposed to be outside of. The defender that is on the ball handler is expected to be up close, hand in face to create turnovers on the outside. One other critical aspect of this defense is that it's designed to deny the baseline.

Defenders are taught to position themselves to not allow any baseline penetration, relying on help defense to close an adjusted drive to the center of the lane. At the top of the post, expect to see defenders attempt to position themselves somewhat in front of the opposing offensive player to prevent the easy pass to the top of the lane.

The key weakness of this defense is if a team can find open shooters on the perimeter AND hit those shots, the integrity of this defense begins to fall apart. The best way to attack this defense is not allow it to get set by beating the defense down in transition. After that though, employing a four out – one in offense, initially sending shooters to both corners with the ball handler and a second post player or fourth guard at the top of the key evenly spaced to either side, with a post player establishing to the ball handler side of the lane. Then the shooters need to begin constantly rotating around the baseline. This allows the offense to create opportunities either to find an initial open shooter or dribble penetration with the intent to kick out.

Another aspect that can help in attacking this defense are two quick perimeter passes across the top to get the defense moving their feet side to side, and then employing the dribble penetration back across the lane to force defenders to try to reverse their hips. If done quickly you either find open lanes or reaching defenders. Pedulla under control is the best option here but the teams concerning number of turnovers really impacts everything they do offensively. Employing blur screens under a teammate after passing them the ball opens gaps as well at the side, drawing a defender deep into the corner.
Offensively, Bennett has his team running what is called a Blocker Mover Offense on the other end of the court. This is a variation of the Motion Offense, allowing the primary ball handler at the top of the key to attempt to use a screen provided by one of two lane personnel near the top of the key. At the point of the screen, the ball handler decides either to drive the lane, kick out to an open shooter or attempt a down low pass to their second lane player, who usually moves across the basket down at the baseline block to create space for the driving guard. The defensive rotation is what drives the guard's decision-making process as he assesses what is in front of him.

The guard essentially has three options coming off the pick or can spin back out to reset for another play. The key for the Hokies will be to limit the times where we allow dribble penetration by Beekman and McNeely or allow a clean pass into the lower lane player for an easy layup by Dunn. The Wahoos have very methodical scoring, with possessions averaging 24 seconds. They are shooting 18 three-point attempts per game in ACC play, hitting 6.4 of them.

It's #CommonwealthClash time 🥓Here are the top five reasons why you need to be jumping in the stands for @HokiesMBB tomorrow night in Cassell 🔥 (@SmithfieldBrand)— HokieSports (@hokiesports) February 18, 2024

Wahoos Backcourt
Reece Beekman
2 SR G 6-3 174
14.2 Pts, 3.2 Reb, 6.0 Ast

Isaac McKneely
11 SO G 6-4 179
12.4 Pts, 3.1 Reb, 1.7 Ast

Jacob Groves
34 SR G 6-7 185
7.7 Pts, 2.5 Reb, 0.7 Ast

Andrew Rohde
4 SO G 6-6 185
4.8 Pts, 2.0 Reb, 3.1 Ast

Leon Bond
35 FR G 6-5 200
4.6 Pts, 3.1 Reb, 0.7 Ast

Dante Harris
1 JR G 6-0 170
2.4 Pts, 1.9 Reb, 1.9 Ast

Wahoos Frontcourt
Ryan Dunn
13 SO G 6-8 208
8.9 Pts, 7.0 Reb, 0.9 Ast

Blake Buchanan
0 FR F 6-11 215
3.8 Pts, 3.3 Reb, 0.4 Ast

Jordan Minor
22 SR F 6-8 220
4.1 Pts, 2.9 Reb, 0.3 Ast

What to expect from Virginia?
The Wahoos will run primarily a four guard and one smaller forward set. Virginia is the smallest starting five in the ACC this season. They want the game to go slower than Coach Young. They take the 337th fewest shots in basketball while allowing only the 8th fewest shots. They want possessions on both ends to take as long as possible. It makes judging their players scoring more difficult since points are at a premium on both ends.

Tony Bennett depends on the guard duo of Beekman and McNeely for nearly 45% of their scoring. Ryan Dunn adds another 8.9 ppg so the trio represent 57% of scoring. Jacob Groves has significantly improved his scoring in ACC play but still only scores 7.7 ppg.

One player to watch out for is Jordan Minor, who last game wasnt expected to play a big role and in most games has not but against the Hokies he put up 16 points, mostly in the second half, keeping the Wahoos just out of reach.

Virginia is creating 13 turnovers while only turning the ball over 8 times per game. A difference of five possessions against Virginia is extremely hard to overcome. It represents about 10% of total possessions.
Dunn and Taine both find ways to score in the lane at a high percentage. Dunn likes to slide in from the corner as a guard drives from the top of the key. It forces the defense to account for two scoring options attacking the basket simultaneously.

The Wahoos really righted their ship after a slow and ugly start to conference play. Pitt did manage to beat them two games ago. They did it by raining threes, hitting 14 treys on their way to a 74-63 victory. Only four times have opponents broken the 70 point barrier against UVA and three of those resulted in Wahoos losses.

The Hokies

Scenes from last year 🆚 UVAGoing for 4 straight home wins against the Hoos Monday night inside 🏰 pic.twitter.com/6hzlLcmtLL— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) February 18, 2024

Let's just skip a UNC conversation as the foul trouble led them to an entirely different style of play than normal. The bigger problem though is the Hokies have lost four of the last five, allowing multiple opponents to hold them scoreless over multiple four-minute spans. You can't do that in the ACC and expect to win.

The good news is that Virginia doesn't have near the level of athleticism that have allowed Hokies opponents to get to the rim at will. The bigger challenge with Virginia is trying to speed them up. The Wahoos like to make the floor seem like its covered in molasses.

Will we see more MJ Collins at the Point with Pedulla taking longer stretches off the floor or was that a one off with how the UNC game was going?

I'm going to do whatever it takes to help our team ~ MJNext 🆙: Big Monday vs. UVA pic.twitter.com/5sq6WKlNVm— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) February 17, 2024

The aspect of the Hokies offense though that I question the most and could play a major factor against Virginia is the reluctance to use size advantage in the paint. Several times this season, the Hokies have chosen to not involve Lynn Kidd against much smaller competition and its quite telling the results. Kidd and Poteat could have big games if Young schemes plays to get them isolated in the paint.

No update on whether Mekhi Long will return from his knee issue tonight. Nickel needs to continue to be heavily involved and keep shooting threes to divide the focus on Cattoor.

In Closing
Home game with fans stirred up about basketball thanks mostly to the Ladies so it should be a great atmosphere for a game on ESPN.

Vegas expects 126.5 total scoring, nearly twenty points off the average and both coaches game plans of slow methodical offense lend themselves to this. If the Hokies reach 65 points a win is very likely, anything under 60 puts the edge to Virginia.

Can the Hokies protect the basketball and hit outside shots? Those two aspects are usually the biggest factors in Wahoo losses. Cattoor and Nickel combining for ten made treys goes a long way to win the game. Hitting outside also opens the spacing to allow Kidd and Poteat to not constantly be double teamed when they touch the ball.

BRING FOOD

Help out a great cause ahead of our Big Monday game vs. UVA!🤝 @SmithfieldBrand MORE: https://t.co/mLMmjrQyjt pic.twitter.com/Uzc0tScMnC— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) February 15, 2024