Buzzketball Downs BC 71-56

The Virginia Tech men's basketball team had a short turnaround following their win over Florida State on Saturday.

They had to turn their attention to Boston College and a trip to Chestnut Hill. Though the Eagles came into Tuesday night's contest without a win in the ACC, it wouldn't be as easy as it looked on paper. The Hokies had won just a single game ever in the Conte Forum, and have only totaled one conference victory away from Cassell Coliseum in Buzz Williams' tenure.

Despite a slow start and an overall sloppy showing, Buzz's bunch prevailed convincingly over the lowly Eagles 71-56. Paced by junior guard Seth Allen's 14 points and four steals, Tech capitalized on enough mistakes from their opponent to put it away early.

Up 13 by intermission, Allen and friends held serve for the final 20 minutes as the Hokies grabbed their seventh conference win and took another step above the dregs of the league. Justin Bibbs put up his third career double-double with 12 and 10, Kerry Blackshear Jr. threw together a sneaky-good bounce back game (10 points, five rebounds) and though freshman Justin Robinson's stats don't stand out he set the tone early with explosive plays to help both himself and his teammates.

There wasn't anything overly impressive about the result for Tech. BC is about as bad as it gets in big time division one hoops, and anything other than a performance like this would have been distressing, bordering on disastrous. But considering 2015's debacle in Blacksburg, the night was a sign of growth.

"I do think that we're improving in certain areas," a pleased Williams told Mike Burnop postgame. "And I do think that our guys recognize where we have to continue to improve, and that's the sign of maturing, which is encouraging considering the youth of our team. They're playing for one another, they're trying to do what we're asking them to do. With the lack of success we've had on the road over the last two years, to be able to come here and do what we did is good."

Now don't misunderstand, the Hokies won because the Eagles had the shooting accuracy of your average stormtrooper. It was clear early on Tech would let the home team shoot as much as they wanted outside the arc (closeouts were limited, and at times nonexistent), and it paid off as Jim Christian's guys bombed away to the tune of 5-28 from deep.

But let's not get carried away and say the men in maroon didn't have a few issues of their own. They turned it over 15 times (the same as BC), and made plenty of mental errors. Only half of their giveaways came from steals, which means many more were unforced. Many times they looked like a group playing in front of an announced crowd of 1,018, doing their best to simply leave town with a win.

And though they got it done, the Hokies aren't good enough to coast through a matchup. They have five days to prepare for another road trip to a bottom feeder, as they head to Wake Forest on Sunday. Tech won a thriller over the Demon Deacons in mid-January, but a trip to Winston Salem is never easy.

And now with a potential NIT berth on the line, Williams and company must cobble together a more complete outing to capitalize on their opportunity.

"Somehow we have to continue to find ways to win on the road," Williams said. "Because that's what good teams do. And I think in order for our team to continue to build and blossom, to be relevant, you have to be able to win on the road. Our guys understand that, it's a lot easier to say than do, and it has very little to do with the opponent, because they're always hard to accomplish."

A few quick thoughts

Time for an anecdote. I played ball in the York County Parks & Recreational League all through school, from fourth to twelfth grade. I like to believe I hold the record of losingest player in county history, because with nine seasons under my belt I saw one record over .500.

But my most infamous moment of futility was my initial year, which was possibly the worst team ever assembled on any level of the sport. On our 10-child roster, two quit before we even began. To make matter worse out of the eight remaining, one kid was so riddled with ADHD he screamed every time he touched the ball, one hated it so much he played Pokemon on the sideline and another was basically a 10-year-old version of Muggsy Bogues without any of the handles (he was, and probably still is, ridiculously short).

Needless to say we lost every game, by a lot. It got so bad, even the parents of the other kids started to root for us. We lost our finale 67-18. That's right, a bunch of fourth graders somehow scored SIXTY SEVEN POINTS in 32 minutes.

The point of this is that while my ragtag group of character building nerds may be the worst squad ever built, this BC program is stunningly close. And because of their ineptitude, it's nearly impossible to take anything of substance away from this win.

But if there is one thing, it's simply the ability to take care of business. How many times have we seen Virginia Tech basketball travel somewhere sleepy like Boston College and fall apart with an inexcusable loss? Too many to count.

Every time it seemed like BC would pull themselves within striking distance, a hustle play from someone (Robinson, Allen, Chris Clarke) made sure an Eagle run didn't happen. And though Allen didn't have a great followup to his incandescent performance against the Seminoles, he was one of many who did enough to cash in on the countless number of chances afforded.

The Hokies are noticeably different when Clarke's on the floor. It was unclear how limited he was by the ankle injury suffered on Saturday, but the freshman was still able to make an impact. He's far from a finished product, but the learning curve is exhilarating (and often exhausting) to witness. One time in particular he made a wonderful play on defense, hustled into the front court and promptly picked up an egregious charge. It's what you get with him at the moment, but he puts far more on the coaching staff's table than he takes off it.

"His motor doesn't stop," Buzz said of his freshman after the game. "He still doesn't have his wind. I didn't think Zach (LeDay) was great, particularly in the first half. Chris' energy overwhelms our team in a positive way. And he's getting a little bit more comfortable in what we're trying to accomplish offensively, and defensively he can be elite."

Robinson saw 27 minutes to Devin Wilson's 16. Though Wilson will still have a role because of his on-ball defense, I wonder if this ratio will be a trend to end the season. The freshman's really come on over his last four appearances (averaging 12 points, two assists and 25 minutes a night), and gels well with Allen in the backcourt. He brings more of a scoring threat, and is active enough away from the ball on the other end to take the starting point guard reigns and never give them back.

To close, I'm not always all about Buzz's patented inspirational messages, but he took Burnop behind the curtain in something he got across to the guys pregame. It not only illustrates the mentality they have going on the road, but how cognizant the entire program is of their path back to respectability.

"It's kind of like that quote you see, the guy's banging on the rock and on the 101st blow the rock splits," Williams explained. "And everybody goes 'wow you finally did it on the 101st blow', and actually that's not right. It's what happened the first 100 hits. And that's what's so hard about this, that's also what's so hard about life, you've got to do it every day. And you've got to have the discipline and the maturity with that to continue to hit."