Hokies Men's Basketball Fall 60-85 to White-Hot Fighting Irish

The Virginia Tech men's basketball team started to form a reputation in the weeks leading up to Thursday night's matchup against No. 8 Notre Dame. The Hokies were just annoying enough to hang with their much more talented opponents, fighting to make games as interesting as possible.

Against the Irish? Well that reputation may have taken a hit, as Tech was shot out of the gym and dropped their sixth consecutive game 60-85.

Though a decent first half kept the game within reach, Notre Dame seemingly couldn't miss all night. They nailed 12 threes at a 46-percent clip from behind the arc, and hit almost half of the shots they took overall (29-59 from the field).

The Hokies simply couldn't keep up with that pace, and seemed to be pressing at times offensively. With Justin Bibbs out for the second straight game, the team only went 7 of 24 from deep (29 percent). And, according to the handmade shot charts given out to the media post-game, Tech only sank 5-14 from the corners. This team shoots a large amount of threes from that area, and you'd like to see that specific percentage higher.

Yes, the game wasn't close, but you can still find things to look for when a team is down by twenty or more. To me, it's always interesting to see which guys try just a little bit harder when their team is getting blown out. It's not in a "let me pad my stats" kind of way, but rather something that just shows how much a player hates to lose.

For example, Ahmed Hill was doing everything he could to lead a one-man come back. Even when Mike Brey cleared out his bench, Hill was pressing. He was flying to the ball to get steals, and he was leading the charge on oft-fruitless one-on-many fastbreaks. When the horn mercifully sounded, there was visible disheartenment in his eyes.

As someone who holds the (unofficial) record for most career losses in the York County Parks and Recreation Basketball League, I knew that look. It was a look that said 'this sucks and we need to be better.' Only Hill's look came with the ferocity of someone willing to run through 10 scorer's tables to make sure his team actually gets better.

Yes, Hill frequently plays so fast that many of his possessions end in wild layup attempts (he's basically this team's Luis Mendoza), but he cares. And he hates to lose. It makes perfect sense as to why he followed Buzz from Marquette to Tech, they're a near perfect fit of player to coach.

The big story before the game was that junior forward Joey van Zegeren had decided to leave the team. Though this shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone, since the Dutchman missed the team's entire conference slate to this point, it definitely drives home certain problems the squad will have for the rest of the season.

Tech is undersized, and now will be even smaller. The team lost it's one true rim protector (no offense to Shane Henry), its best rebounder and its only real threat to score consistently close to the hoop. Post presence, rim protection and rebounding were already problems when van Zegeren was playing, and now? Well they can best be described as disaster areas.

But really, JVZ's exit highlights something even bigger than the on-court difficulties the Hokies will face this year. It makes it very clear that Buzz Williams is looking for something from the players on this team, and that if someone doesn't have whatever Buzz is looking for, he'll have no problem moving on.

I'm not going to speculate on what Joey did to earn the initial punishment before this was announced, it doesn't matter now. I will say this, though: a "mutual decision" sounds like it was best for both the team and the player to part ways, and it opens up an avenue for Williams to bring in one more young player who fits his system.

Sure, van Zegeren's departure makes the scholarship numbers work out evenly for next season, but the staff is still actively recruiting. Don't think for a second that just because they don't have any more open schollys that these coaches would hesitate to add someone whom they think could help.

In fact earlier this month Tech offered class of '15 prospect Levi Cook, a 6'9" 300 pound center out of West Virginia. And, not so coincidentally, guess who was in attendance on Thursday night? That's right, the Huntington Prep behemoth.

Williams and company are going to turn this team around, and the results will probably come quicker than you'd think. But many of the players who will lead the turnaround? They're currently in street clothes on the bench, watching the games from home or slogging through a brutal freshman year.

2016 Hokie basketball is looking better seemingly by the day, but for this year? Well it seems that fans will have to feast on hope, grit and three pointers for a couple more months.