2023-24 Hokie Hoops Statistical Notes: Volume VI

The Men's Team

Smell that?

Hokies are hot right now, having gone 3-1 over the last four, winning three in a row.

The Hokies now have a record of 13-7 and 5-4. Cassell has been a house of horrors for opponents, as the Hokies are 10-1, outscoring opponents 879-684.

As bad as the season has seemed to this point, the Hokies are guaranteed to be over .500 when February starts, and currently smack dab in the middle of the ACC (though tied for 6th) and just a single game back of the double-bye.

Additionally, CMYBall is now tied for 5th most wins over 5 years with Bill Foster, with 86, just 2 behind Seth Greenberg and Don DeVoe.

Scoring

Four Hokies averaged double figures, led by Cattoor's 14.75, narrowly beating out Pedulla's 14 ppg. Tied for third were Kidd and Beran with 11 ppg. Nickel and Poteat were tied for 5th at 9 ppg. So basically, we got a nice 69 ppg from our top 6 scorers. Throw in an improving MJ Collins' 7 ppg, Camden's 3 ppg, and Long's 1 ppg, and we've averaged almost 80 ppg over the last 4. (note this is per player game)

Rebounding

In a sequence of words all too familiar to Hokie Nation, we don't rebound well. Over this frame our top rebounder was Robbie Beran at 5 rpg. Joining him in at least 1 rebound per player half were Poteat/Kidd with 4.25, Pedulla with 4, Cattoor with 3.75, Nickel at 2.25, and Collins at 2. Rechsteiner, Camden, and Young each managed to pull down 1 per game played. Oddly enough, the only team that rebounds worse than the Hokies in the ACC was the 1 game we lost this window.

Assists/Turnovers/Steals

Well, we finished with a positive ratio in ATO, but the turnover numbers were still astronomical. 68 assists...good. 51 turnovers....bad. 22 of those turnovers coming from your starting point guard...very bad. Just thank whatever deity in which you believe for GT being so...so bad at stopping us from passing the ball. At least the steals numbers were up, giving us an over 2:1 AATO at 68:33.

Experience/Depth

We've pretty much solidified a 8 player master rotation with a 9th potential for emergency depth. Cattoor made up for lost minutes with a whopping 36.25 mpg, followed by Pedulla's 35.5, and Collins' 32.75. Such high numbers from those three tell me Young doesn't have much confidence right now in our bench guards, as that seems to be all they are guarding right now. Beran leads all bigs with 26 mpg, followed by Nickel (21.75 mpg), Kidd (20.25), and Poteat (18.25), rounded out by Long's (11). That's 104.5 minutes from the 3 starting guards and 97.25 minutes from the 5 bigs. Yes, I know those numbers add up to more than 200, but it is minutes per player game, not minutes per team game. As such, Rechsteiner (3.67), Young (2), and Camden/Wessler (1) round out the actual 800 minutes of gameplay.

Next Window

This frame begins with the Hokies welcoming the 15-4 Duke Blue Devils. They are big, deep, and talented. They score at the same clip as Miami, but are better defenders. Looking at the statbook, they are very similar to the Hokies in scoring defense, opponent FG%, 3pt%, and opponent rebounds. If the Hokies are to win, they have to exploit their advantages in Duke's poorer FT shooting and 3pt defense. Tech will need to be on their game defensively as Duke leads the ACC in assists.

A road trip begins with a voyage to South Beach. I won't go into too many details about the 14-6 Hurricanes, except to say I hope we pay them back for them being our only home loss as of this writing.

From South Beach the Hokies will proceed to South Bend to face a Notre Dame team that is very much on the struggle bus at 7-13. The Irish get very little production from their Bigs and rely on four of their guards to provide two thirds of their team's entire scoring output. Their scoring offense makes UVA look proficient, but they do couple that with a reasonably good scoring defense. Don't believe me? They're shooting 40% from the floor, overall and less than 30% from range. They do rebound well, but they get a lot of chances, with 60% of all shots missing. They also commit more turnovers than anybody else in the ACC, and pair that with the worst ATO ratio at 0.71. Despite having some size, they block fewer shots per game than Tech and are as likely to steal a pass as we are.

Coming back to the Cassell, the Hokies square off against Florida State again. Like Miami, I won't go into too much, as we have already played them, and like Miami, I hope we repay them for the loss earlier this season.

Prediction

We should utterly obliterate Notre Dame, even on the road. I think we manage to get some home cooking against Florida State.

I would love to see us knock off Duke, but I give our odds of winning at 36.1%, as in, if we can shoot 3s at a better clip than that, we might just pull off the win; below that, no chance. Miami confounds me as it's always a close game and home court doesn't matter. I'm going to be pessimistic here and call it a loss.

2-2. This gives Young 88 wins as a Hokie, tying Don DeVoe for 7th all-time and 3rd most wins in the first 5 years of tenure.

The Women's Team.

Going a surprisingly poor 2-2, the Hokies currently sit 15-4, tied for 3rd in the ACC, half a game behind #1. It's very crowded at the top. Head Coach Kenny Brooks also notched his 170th Virginia Tech win, 2nd all-time behind Carol Alfano's 278. This also ties Seth Greenberg for 3rd among all Tech basketball coaches.

Scoring

Liz Kitley is on a freakishly torrid pace, averaging 27 over the last 4, and 25.4 since ACC play started. In this frame she was scoring as much as the next three top scorers for the Hokies; Amoore (14.3), Ekh (9), and King (5.5). Other players averaging at least a basket per half were Summiel (5.25) and Suffren/Wenzel (4). Strack and Micheaux both averaged 3 ppg, and Carys Baker finished the scoring with 1.5 ppg.

Rebounding
Sadly, Kitley did not average a double double this frame, falling short by 1 rebound (9.75 rpg). Summiel was the only other Hokie to average at least a rebound per quarter, pulling down 7 per game.King (3.5), Strack/Wenzel (3), and Ekh (2) averaged at least 1 per half. Suffren (1.67), Micheaux (1.5), Baker (0.5), and Amoore (0.33) finished pulling down all the boards.

Assists/Turnovers/Steals

ATO margin improved to 77:48, but the AATO looked incredible thanks to 23 steals adjusting that ratio to 77:25. Adjusted down for steals, Kitley, Ekh, and Strack all had perfect AATO margins. Micheaux and Baker failed to record an assist. King finished with the best pure ATO with 17:4. It's kind of surprising the Hokies went 2-2 while having a greater than 3:1 AATO margin?

Experience/Depth

The Hokies strongly relied on Kitley due to injuries to King and Amoore, to the tune of 36.25 mpg. King still managed 31.25 mpg, while Ekh joined the 30 mpg club, with 30.25. Amoore just missed out at 29 mpg. She was joined in that club by Summiel (22) and Wenzel (21.75). Suffren (14.67) and Strack (12.5) averaged at least 3 minutes per quarter. Baker averaged 7.75 mpg. Rose Micheaux has definitely been identified as the odd one out, dropping from game 1 starter to the least utilized player on the roster at 6 mpg.

Next Window

Beginning this frame, later today, the Hokies will be battling Syracuse in the Carrier Dome*. The Orange come in at 17-2 with their few losses coming on the road to a ranked Maryland and UNC. They are a talented scoring team, led by elite guards in Dyasia Fair, Alaina Rice, and Georgia Wooley. In the paint 6-3 Kyra Wood and 6-2 Alyssa Latham are undersized, but will be a challenge for the Hokies, averaging 15 rebounds and 18 points combined. They can be a little careless with the ball, putting up an ATO of 13.6:15.1, but they are disruptive on the defensive end, averaging almost 10 steals and 5 blocks per game. Despite being #1 in the conference, they do allow about 4 ppg more than the Hokies, while scoring exactly 1 more point over 19 games than Coach Brooks' squad. They are a high volume shooting team, as they have 87 more shots than the Hokies over the current season. Opponents also make more shots against them, by 1.5%. Syracuse is middle of the road in the ACC for 3pt% and Opp3pt%. They are better than the Hokies at getting to the FT line, having 33% more FT than the Hokies on the season, but they are shooting 4% poorer from the line. Syracuse goes 8.5 deep, with only those two aforementioned forwards and 6-2 guard Sophie Burrows as their height. The remaining 5.5 are all guards 6-0 and shorter. Watch for this to be a potential tiny guard showdown between 5-5 Fair and 5-6 Amoore.

The lone home game is against UVA. Before going too much into detail, this is a rare instance of Kitley having to look up to an opposing C, in 6-7 Taylor Lauterbach, a reserve with limited minutes. UVA will not have a winning record by the time they come to Blacksburg, and based on a lot of data, that will not change. UVA is middle of the road in the ACC in scoring, bottom third in scoring defense, dead last in FG%, bottom feeding in 3pt%, but they are tops in the conference in rebounding and FT%, while also being top third in 3pt% defense. 12 Hoos have seen at least 12 games this season, so this should be a team that rotates a lot of players in and out. Outside of the Lauterbach, they have more usual heighted post players in 6-3 Edessa Noyan and a quartet of 6-2 players.

The Hokies then head down to Tobacco Road for a few games, starting with UNC. The 15-5 Tar Heels are tied with Syracuse atop the ACC, with their lone home loss coming against #1 South Carolina. Outside of their starting 5, only 3 other players have seen action in at least 15 of their games. A quick check of their roster shows 9 players 6-0 or taller.

Finally, the Hokies wrap up in Raleigh. In what will probably go down as the ACC game of the year, the Hokies pulled out a thrilling win on a last second basket after trailing for all but a few seconds of the game. NC State has not lost on the road and are 17-2 on the season. The only thing I can think of that may remove the seemingly automatic home win for ACC teams, is that thePack will have played UNC and Louisville in the week leading up to the VT game and could be as exhausted as the Hokies.

Prediction

This stretch will go a long way to determine placement in the ACC tournament and the perception of the Hokies going forward. UVA should be an easy win. The other three are absolute tossups, leaning towards guaranteed losses as they are all on the road. I can't see us losing all 3. I would be ecstatic to see us win all 3. So I'm going to say 3-1 for this frame.

*it will always be the Carrier Dome, don't try to convince me otherwise