Just 24 hours removed from the wrath of Winter Storm Jonas, Virginia Tech opened the doors of Cassell Coliseum to any and all students that could make the trek to Washington Street for the Sunday matinee. And Virginia Tech students — willing as ever to take advantage of free entertainment — came out in force.
But No. 2 North Carolina and senior forward Brice Johnson — both surely accustomed to hostile environments from their time on Tobacco Road —proved too much to handle as the Tar Heels powered their way to a 75-70 road victory in Blacksburg.
"I thought their length overwhelmed us all day," lamented head coach Buzz Williams. "They scored 18 on second chance points. They scored 19 off turnovers. So that's 37 out of their 75."
Johnson torched the Hokies to the tune of 19 points, 17 rebounds and 3 blocks, and frontcourt mate Kennedy Meeks pitched in 7 points and 3 blocks of his own. But setting aside the dominant play of Johnson, North Carolina was brutally bad offensively, leaving head coach Roy Williams bewildered on the sideline for much of the afternoon.
"We shot the ball terribly," said Williams. "I was not satisfied with the way we played. You go 3 for 23 (from three-point range), you've gotta have enough courage to take that shot and you've gotta have enough courage to step up and make it...That was about as ugly of a game for us as it could possibly be. We're lucky."
The Heels jumped on the Hokies early and took a 20-11 lead into the under 12 media timeout courtesy of a balanced offensive attack orchestrated by senior point guard Marcus Paige. The Heels blitzed the Hokies coming out of the timeout and took a 36-16 lead thanks to several tough buckets from Joel Berry II. But despite a miserable first 15 minutes, the Hokies battled back, rattling off an 18-3 run that cut the North Carolina advantage to just five headed into halftime.
The Carolina lead hovered around five for the majority of the second half, but the Hokies did tie things up at 61 with 7:42 to play courtesy of a layup from Kerry Blackshear. North Carolina answered with a three-pointer from Berry, and each team traded buckets for several minutes heading into the game's final media timeout. Blackshear knocked down two free throws that tied the game up at 68 with 2:44 to play, but Johnson put the Heels back on top after knocking down two of his own at the charity stripe. Justin Jackson put Carolina up by four with 1:11 to play following a turnover from LeDay, but Seth Allen proceeded to draw a foul with 19 seconds remaining that cut the Carolina lead back to two. The Hokies were forced to foul Marcus Paige immediately after he caught a full-court heave off an in-bounds play, and despite enduring a serious shooting slump during his senior season, Paige calmly drilled both free throws to give the Tar Heels a 74-70 lead. Justin Bibbs missed an open three with 8 seconds left, and Johnson corralled his seventeenth rebound to seal the victory for North Carolina.
A Few Quick Thoughts
North Carolina is almost exclusively a man-to-man team on defense, but Roy Williams sprinkled in a 3-2 zone down the stretch that flummoxed the Hokies offensively.
Jalen Hudson started out slow once again, but the sophomore wing was dynamic offensively throughout the game's final twenty minutes, consistently beating the Tar Heels off the dribble and attacking the rim.
Kerry Blackshear was solid in a laughably tough matchup for a freshman big man making his first go-round in the ACC. Roy Williams commented on Blackshear's performance postgame, visibly impressed with the talent of the Hokies' most unheralded freshman.
There's not much rest for the weary for the Hokies with Rick Pitino's Louisville Cardinals (16-3, 5-1) coming to town on Wednesday. Pitino may not have the top-end talent that he's had in years past (Montrezl Harrell is finally gone), but sophomore center Chinanu Onuaku promises to pose a wealth of challenges for the undersized Hokies.
Comments
Tough loss, but really proud of our fight in this one. It really felt like we were gonna pull out another great one. I love this team.
^ THIS!
Glad to see that the students were willing to make it to Cassell. We'll get 'em next time!
Definitely good to see the Cassell full. It's sad to see games where the attendance is less than a women's basketball game (sorry women, not a comment on the level of play, just the interest of the students).
It's going to be a challenge winning games when we're constantly getting beat on the boards, and I don't recall the last game where we had the overall rebounding edge. Having Clarke in the lineup would have helped, but I still see this team needing a strong rebounder. I guess Pierce and Hamilton aren't the answer either, despite their sizes. Hopefully, Buzz has a plan to help us deal with the rebounding deficiency, but it won't be easy.
Even given our struggles, UNC was getting the bounce like crazy.
I may be speaking blindly, but I'm pretty confident someone made a post recently where for the season we actually have out rebounded our opponents. Just doesn't always feel like it
This drove me nuts, especially in the first half. We got out-rebounded 48-33, including 20 offensive rebounds for the Heels. Coach Buzz pointed this out in the comment above about 2nd-chance points.
UNC is the best team in the country. That was quite an effort.
Just got TV and Internet back up. Frustrating weekend.
Sorry to hear that, Rob. We always appreciate your reports here.
I'll be at the Syracuse game. Still feels like anywhere from a close road win (ND style) to a possible drubbing where we start too slow.
Buzz had a great game plan for SU last year.
They've been hot since Boeheim came back.
We played well, but free throws, oh my. It seemed we were as cold as the weather in the first half.
Big men in the middle is expected for UNC, but they did not dominate us like you would except a #2 team to do. Excellent effort.
Good progress Hokies/Buzz!
UNC was worse at the line than we were. 61% in first half, 64% for the game. We were 65% and 68%.
It wasn't a great night at the line for us because we have been so good at the line this calendar year. Leday, in particular, is a very good FT shooter who gets to the line a ton.
When you lose a close game, it always seems to be FTs but VT is a good FT shooting team who had an avg night.
Man, talk about a heart breaker, down 20 to the best team in the country, come back and actually take the lead, then still end up losing. Great heart and fight by the Hokies.
A couple observations...FREE THROWS. I was shocked to look up and the box score and see that we sot 68.8% from the stripe, it felt much lower than that. First half shooting overall seemed abysmal.
Seth Allen, love the way he plays, and all the does for the team...but I wish he would look to someone else for the 3 ball more often.
Lastly, officiating seemed horrendous, for both sides, maybe slightly more in UNC's favor
Was about to make a comment on the officiating but I'll just make an addendum here:
The first half was so unevenly officiated. UNC got help to their 20 point lead with their good zebra buddies. Called ghost fouls on us, didn't call fouls on UNC when we got hacked, and they didn't call the same exact call both ways (charge/block both in favor of UNC). It was frustrating to see because I think that harmed what chance we had, but we lost because we didn't execute well enough down the stretch. But I'm glad we stayed in it even after we were down by 20 in what looked like a walloping. This team has made a ton of strides since Buzz was hired and being able to go to games and see the progress is incredible. Still a long way to go as of now.
I believe many of the missed free throws were the front end of 1 and ones. This kills a rally.
I could not believe when we charged back from 20 down in a five on eight game to take the lead. The heart and soul of our players is a huge relief. They believe in the coach and what he is doing. I don't know that an evenly called game would have made a difference, second half was better than the first (refs). But our team never quit. That makes me feel about some of the previously thought unwinnable games coming up.
If our first half free throws had been better, this could have been an even closer game.
Lastly, Seth Allen. Shakes head. I love the energy he brings, but there are a lot times the opponent doesn't bother guarding him for a reason. He is a horrible shot unless it is from the charity stripe.
Also, I've realized over the past few games, that despite playing basketball for over 15 years, including on my JV and Varsity teams...I evidently have no idea what the difference is between a charge and a block...either that, or the refs are just terrible at differentiating between the two.
The downfall of the charge started on its slippery slope ever since the NCAA voted to put in place the stupid circle. The officials already have to make a bang bang call, now they have to make sure they see where the defenders feet are located in addition to whether they are set and whether they take a direct impact from the offensive player.
Take into account this guidance from the NCAA
That means the defender has to be in place before the offensive player leaves the ground, the other big issue is whether they are stationary, ie not with body moving forward.
So to make the call an official has to be able to see six things.
1) Location of feet of defender
2) Both defender feet on ground
3) Body of defender stationary
4) Defender facing (perpendicular) to opponent
5) All of these complete before Offensive player leaves feet
6) Offensive player not out of control
To call it a block, they just have to hope that at least one of those things wasnt right. To call it a charge, they have to hope all six were correct. Pretty easy to see why its gone the direction it has.
*sigh*
Gave em a hell of a fight but man, that loss was frustrating. The team has a ton of fight in them, and boy are we going to be good, but man... We had a great chance yesterday.
Moral victories are great but nothing beats the real thing. I hate UNC as much as LOL.
One thing that was frustrating that the Heels had in their favor was their ability to block and alter shots. We did a pretty nice job of attacking the rim, but I can't count how many layups we missed, and I have to think that a lot of that has to do with their size and shot-blocking influence down low.
This is where our guards have to learn to drive into the body of the player down low before forcing a shot. Contact first means you are going to the line. Our guards do this well against even sized opponents but are miserable at it when it comes to big men. It also impacts the rebounding game because when you alter your shot last second, your teammates have little time to adjust to where the ball is going to come on a miss.
The past 2 games were played with one key player sitting for long stretches in foul trouble. Against ND it was LeDay and yesterday it was Bibbs. And both those games came down to the last minute. Add to that the injuries to Clarke and Hill. That's depth.
Does anyone know why Hamilton isn't playing? I liked what I saw from him early in the season, and this seemed like a good time to use a 7 footer. I know he had academic suspension last semester, but he's been dressed for games.