Another disappointing loss for the men's team today. The final score is pretty indicative of how the entire game went. Boston College held between a 1-4 point lead for most of the game. Tech's largest lead in the game was 4 points at 36-32. Three Hokies were in double figures, led by Adam Smith with 12, followed by Barksdale and Eddie with 11 and 10 respectively. Biggest problem for Tech was FGM percentage in this game, shooting 35% for the game compared to BC's 43%. Both teams were a dreadful 57% from the foul line. This is a bad loss considering BC is one of the few teams in the conference with a worse record right now than Tech, currently sitting at 5-11. The loss drops Tech to 8-7.
It was another game where Tech didn't seem to have much in the way of an established offensive identity. It was pass it around until the last man throws it up, usually a three point attempt. Tech was 7-for-22 from behind the arc for the game so while not awful, its still too many attempts. On defense, Tech could not stop the BC guards from scoring, as Jackson and Hanlan combined for 31 of BC's 62 points. Jackson was particularly deadly from behind the arc, going 5-for-8. Disappointing but unfortunately not surprising to be in this position.
Mens BB VT 59 - Boston College 62
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They didn't say the road to the Final Four would be easy
For those who attended/watched the game: Eddie had an awful stat line, was he defended well and took ill-advised shots or was he missing decent looks?
he was pretty well defended, BC was surprisingly aggressive/competent on the defensive end for a 4-11 team. all of our guards struggled to get off their shots, although when you're only looking for your own shots it usually is hard.
Honestly, Im not as disappointed as I thought Id be. I thought they played significantly better than vs Syracuse. I know the talent is different between BC and Cuse, but I felt like the Hokies showed some life here. The offense couldnt hit a shot but was getting open looks and moving the ball finally. They were setting screens, taking better shots (minus some from Eddie), and not running behind the screen on D.
Compared to the cuse game, Im happy with how the coaches coached today. They were shifting the lineup, running set plays and creating mismatches with personnel. There isnt anything JJ could have done about players going ice cold, minus taking players out after poor shot selections, and he finally did that today! As a whole, I blame this loss on having to play too many young guys but I have to acknowledge that Tech was much better today than I saw last year and in the two games Ive watched so far this year
Eddie struggled with his shot which was disappointing, but he's always been a streaky player. He pulled down 8 boards though, so I'll credit the effort. I've been impressed by Barksdale, he's really upped his game this year. If he continues to develop he could be a dominant player in the conference next season.
In short, this team hasn't figured out how to win yet. I'm going off of memory, not statistics, but it seems like we're always in close ACC games and way more often than not we don't pull it out.
In 2011-2012 we were 5-10 in games decided by 4 points or fewer. That's kind of how I always picture our team.
The fact that 15 of our games being decided by 4 points or less is crazy in itself.
Awful end of game coaching by JJ. First off, Barksdale had been their best player in the second half and for some reason, he was promptly taken out with 20 seconds left with the game on the line. Then, instead of scoring or at least shooting quickly as Basketball 101 would dictate, we worked the clock down to around 2 or 3 seconds left and Adam Smith missed a challenged jump shot, leaving essentially no time left to extend the game by fouling.
I know JJ was dealt a poor hand at the beginning of his tenure, but there's no excuse for such terrible end of game coaching regardless of your personnel.
Agreed, horrible play @ the end, all outside shooters put in when we were poor 3pt %age. I did not get it... is that ALL WE HAVE? PATHETIC...
Opportunities to win, let's see:
1. How many missed free throws by wilson
2. Barksdale missed dunk
3. A couple missed layups/inside drive buckets
Really frustrating, if we get even some of these we win by 4-5 pts n the end of game is totally different. Some of that is bad luk, but man!
Good point- he was the one guy who could muscle it up vs their inside guys. Why the heck WAS he out.
This team needs to play inside out to help the perimeter game, but with Raines in the doghouse and hardly playing, the inside options are limited. JVZ just has little in the post on O. Too bad as he's a beast on D. They need to develop Thompson as a low post option as he seems to have a nice touch and could be very good swapping high- low post with Barksdale.
Bottom line, I'm not sold on JJ as an X and O coach.
We apparently have an issue with finishing in the paint, watching us miss those layups was painful. Agree with your point that there is not go to guy in the offense, it seemed like everyone was afraid to shoot (just like the year after eric green). Honestly, watching this team is painful
Not only not being able to finish on lay ups, but how many dunks have we missed this year and last. Not getting the two points hurts, but the emotional lift or lack of if the dunk is missed, can be worse.
Not related to this game, but Virginia Tech commit Justin Bibbs's high school team is currently playing on ESPN. He's had one really impressive dunk so far and the commentators have been raving about how he is the "most improved player on the team" and the "best on-ball defender." Pretty high praise for a guy playing on a team with 7 (!!!) other D1 commits. Kudos to JJ for landing him.
The new AD is supposed to be announced this week. That leaves JJ with 17 more games.
I think JJ gets 1 more year, he has some good recruits comin in. He deserves that opportunity. I just don't understand the offense, we run fast some then slow down, n there is no upperclassmen leadership on court.
On attendance comment, yea, its bad, how'd we get 3 home games during break? Is ACC screwin us?...who schedules that? If it doesn't get better after students bak, it could get bad for him, students need to support team n help rebuild VT Bball identity.
As an alumni, I am not ready to plop down $500 per ticket for a season basketball ticket for the dumpster fire that has been our program for the last several years. If they dropped the season ticket price to $250-$300, I would buy at least 2 tickets.
I cant argue with you on this. Even if they went to a tiered pricing program to make things still affordable for all level of fans.
This is something that we keep bringing while at games. I feel like we could paint the front of the steps like they did in the south endzone in Lane and have different colored sections and makes those the different sections for different prices. Pretty sure they'd get a lot more than the couple thousand they are getting right now if people had a cheaper option to get in.
That is my issue. I am not dropping $1,000 for a pair of tickets when I know that I am not going to be make all the games. Tuesday 2 pm games for example.
I don't mind supporting the program for basketball as well as football, but I am getting a much better value for my money at football.
Does anyone actually think JJ will be fired at the end of the season?
At this point I think the bigger surprise will be if he's retained for another year. Team's lack of progress and diminishing crowds are sealing his fate.
Well it looks like I need to start going to bball games to stop him getting fired. I really like JJ
I will always wonder where this team could have been right now if we had just kept Greenberg long enough to see how Finney-Smith and Harrell panned out. Obviously if the team continued to suck with those two recruits Greenberg needed to go, but I'll never understand why he was fired right after our biggest recruiting breakthrough in decades.
If Greenberg stuck around, Green would have left and DFS was already leaving. Harrell was on the fence the whole time really as he was gaining traction in the recruiting world. So I really doubt that if Greenberg was here last year, he would have been kept around for this year.
Spot on, Finney Smith was out the door because his AAU coach had gotten hired at Florida, so leaving "because Greenberg was fired" was the easiest way for him to get out the door. I think JJ gets one more year, barring a complete collapse the rest of this season in the ACC. If they get the doors blown off in more games than not than he might be a casualty of the new AD wanting to be able to imprint something on VT athletics early on. I think that would take at least six double digit losses the rest of the season.
That has been the collective reasoning as of late. Especially with the 0'fer this week of both teams. If they can win 3-4 more games I think he somewhat safe for another season. If we were to only win 2 games or less I think the new AD puts his/her stamp on the program with a new hire.
I think the new AD is going to want to make his first big hire and he won't be able to touch football for at least three more years. JJ is unfortunately coaching his way into the unemployment line. He needs to really turn things around to have a chance at a third year. Sad part is that every coach should get a minimum of three years to try and establish their own team and philosophy.
I'm all for JJ being fired. He went to the same High School as me and I've met him (great guy) it's just the team isn't performing. The VCU game sealed it for me. They had 11 days to prepare. Came out doing everything wrong, absolutely weren't prepared for Havoc. Just bad coaching.
Only concern would be losing all our recruits and having players transfer again. Will be tough to lose even more players.
Just need to hire a coach who can bring in good players of his own. This program is a dumpster fire right now, at least if we change coaches, we are one step closer to rebuilding. As long as JJ is still at the helm, we are just sinking deeper and deeper.
Oh yeah. Before the end of the season. We must position ourselves to pick early, not late, in the coach round table.