Saturday 🆚 the 'Canes⁉️ National Trivia Day👶 Invest529 Diaper Derby🥓 @SmithfieldBrand Bricks for Bacon in 2H🤝 @ValeroEnergy pic.twitter.com/S8tDOtrH64— Virginia Tech Men's Basketball (@HokiesMBB) January 3, 2025
Miami (4-9)
at
Virginia Tech (5-8)
Cassell Coliseum
2pm ACCN
TV | ACCN
Jordan Bernfield, PxP
David Padgett, Analyst
RADIO | VT Sports Network
Zach Mackey, PxP
Mike Burnop, Analyst
VIDEO STREAM
@HokiesMBB ESPN.com and ESPN app
LIVE STATS
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Who would have thought?
That when Lynn Kidd jumped to the Hurricanes and the Hokies cupboard was left bare, that the Canes would come to Blacksburg without its head coach and with a worse record than the Hokies?
Saturday we get to see if they have fixed the concession debacle, whether VT Club Hockey has a bigger attendance than Hokies basketball and can the Hokies take advantage of a bad Miami team to get an ACC win.
Miami this year has beaten Farleigh Dickinson, Binghamton, Coppin State and Presbyterian. Their losses started with Drake and continued into a seven game losing streak including Oklahoma State, VCU, Charleston Southern, Arkansas, Clemson, and Tennessee. They beat Presbyterian to end it but then lost to Mount St Mary's and Boston College. This is a very experienced, bad Miami team.
Their starting five are all Seniors but the bench are all Freshman outside of sixth man, Senior Staton-McCray. They are led by guard tandem Nijel Pack and Matthew Cleveland along with Kidd inside. All three are in double-digits scoring wise.
It's tough to point at a single thing dragging the Canes down. They have four losses by double-digits but four of the others are by two baskets or less. Poor perimeter shooting and very slow ball movement definitely is part of it. Kidd has been soft inside like we came to expect so Miami defaults to perimeter shooting when they can't get in the paint. Defense or lack thereof really seems to be the biggest issue. The Canes look like they are playing AAU basketball. All offense, no defense.
Areas that don't seem to be an issue are turnovers, rebounding and free throw shooting. They hit 79% from the line, only turn the ball over around 10 times per game and have an overall rebounding advantage of about 3 per game.
This will be the second game without Larranaga. Not sure the remaining staff will make any significant changes to style of play.
All of that being the case, the Hokies still have to prove to me they can win this one. Just not sure that they can score enough to keep up. Any drought in scoring could doom the Hokies.
Hokies Starting Five
Toibu Lawal
1 JR F 6-8 200
11.3 Pts, 5.8 Reb, 0.4 Ast
Mylyjael Poteat
34 SR F 6-9 260
9.8 Pts, 4.2 Reb, 1.2 Ast
Jaden Schutt
2 SO G 6-5 185
8.8 Pts, 3.2 Reb, 1.8 Ast
Tyler Johnson
10 FR G 6-5 215
5.5 Pts, 4.8 Reb, 1.0 Ast
Ben Hammond
11 FR G 5-11 170
5.0 Pts, 1.3 Reb, 1.8 Ast
Key Bench Players
Brandon Rechsteiner
7 SO G 6-1 185
7.3 Pts, 1.2 Reb, 3.7 Ast
Ben Burnham
13 SR F 6-7 200
7.1 Pts, 3.6 Reb, 1.1 Ast
Jaydon Young
3 SO G 6-4 205
7.0 Pts, 1.8 Reb, 1.4 Ast
Patrick Wessler
5 SO C 7-0 245
4.9 Pts, 3.1 Reb, 0.2 Ast
Rodney Brown
4 SO G 6-6 180
4.6 Pts, 1.9 Reb, 1.8 Ast
Miami Starting Five
Matthew Cleveland
0 SR G 6-7 200
12.1 Pts, 4.8 Reb, 0.7 Ast
Lynn Kidd
1 SR C 6-10 235
11.6 Pts, 7.4 Reb, 1.8 Ast
Nijel Pack
24 SR G 6-0 180
13.9 Pts, 3.0 Reb, 4.3 Ast
Jalen Blackmon
5 SR G 6-3 180
9.4 Pts, 1.2 Reb, 1.6 Ast
Brandon Johnson
2 SR F 6-8 210
8.7 Pts, 7.1 Reb, 1.6 Ast
Key Bench Players
A.J. Staton-McCray
11 SR G 6-5 190
7.0 Pts, 2.6 Reb, 0.9 Ast
Jalil Bethea
3 FR G 6-5 190
6.4 Pts, 1.5 Reb, 0.7 Ast
Divine Ugochukwu
99 FR G 6-3 190
5.4 Pts, 1.6 Reb, 1.1 Ast
Austin Swartz
23 FR G 6-4 200
4.5 Pts, 0.6 Reb, 0.5 Ast
Comments
Let's Go!
HOKIES!
One of the few chances we will have to win an ACC game. Have to have the huge crowd propel them to victory. Oh yeah, there will be no crowd. Just win baby!
And no coach at Miami!
Something tells me that Miami will find a solution for all of their woes today, shoot the lights out from everywhere and be the team they were expected to be even if only for one game. I would love to be wrong, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
Unfortunately my thoughts lean this way too
We've been VT fans for too long
Hokies!
Sounds like a titanic struggle between the totally resistable force and the easily movable object.
All offense so far....no one wants to play defense. 30 total points in 6 minutes.
And the VT turnovers begin. Jeesh......
Man our 1on1 and transition defense is horrible
Allowing Miami to transition with no slow down....ugh
We seem to not be able to make a layup driving to the rim so we should just keep dunking shit like that.
And walla, take care of the basketball and they have a nice finish sequence to the 1st half and take the lead. It's amazing how that works....
Welp...zero perimeter defense in second half killing them
Reichsteiner makes an absurd amount of stupid decisions.
Maybe CMY is hoping to get the top draft pick....
That ain't gonna work without more NIL money...
Watching your PG turn it over every third possession is exhausting.
That sequence there of blowing the rebound on a missed free throw to give Miami another bucket....FUCK
Four Hokies and Cleveland in the paint....Cleveland gets the rebound and fouled
How does a guy on Miami have #99 on his jersey? I thought everybody in basketball has to have combinations of #'s 0 thru 5?
Changed it last year:
https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/11/obscure-rule-change-has-college-pl...
Well that's just stupid.
I think referees can pretty cabably handle telling numbers higher than five to the scorers table with their fingers.
Poteat scoring over Lynn Kidd and getting fouled is beautiful to maybe win the game.
Hokies win in glorious retribution fashion
FAMMMMMMMMM
That was fun.
It really was fun. Exciting all the way to the end, and it sure helped wash the taste of the mayo out of my mouth.
Whoop whoop they did it
I've been heavily critical of Poteat but what a game. Truly carried us. We know that Lynn Kidd still sucks against P4 competition.
Suck it miami!
First game I got to see in-person this year. I can't believe how many layups/dunks we gave up to Miami. It's like our team doesn't believe in help defense when a guy gets beat on a drive 😂 Another thing that stood out to me was how stagnant the offense felt when Rechsteiner was running point compared to Hammond. Hammond made his share of mistakes today, but you can see the raw ability there. I was impressed with a few of his passes.
It was a pretty weak atmosphere today with all the students gone and things maybe 50% full, but the crowd got into it in the end and the basket by Poteat was super hyped.
Also Cassell's sound system needs a major, major overhaul...I was pretty high up, but I could barely even hear the music sometimes. Enter Sandman never sounded so lame...if people around me clapped, it literally drowned out the music lol.
The sound has been turned down for the last month or so of games. Guessing the season-ticket holders who complained about the band being too loud also complained about the sound system volume.
Agree 100% Enter Sandman is lame on low volume. Same with other video sounds. Really lame.
Sound has been turned down since the Autism awareness game. I will ask Jed's wife on Monday why it is still so quiet.
Just caught the condensed game on YouTube. Poteat FAM!