Virginia Tech played their best 30 minutes of offense this season on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, it came after their worst 10 minutes of offense, and BYU held on to beat the Hokies 70-68. Tech dropped to 12-8 on the season, while the Cougars improved to 18-5.
It looks like BYU is well on their way to making their sixth straight NCAA Tournament appearance, but they certainly got some help from the Hokies in the first 10 minutes of the game. Tech didn’t score until a Jarell Eddie free throw with 13:05 left in the first half, and they didn’t make a field goal until a putback by C.J. Barksdale at the 10:17 mark.
At that point it was 13-3 BYU, and the Hokies were still in the game because of solid defense. Over the next 30 minutes they exploded for 65 points, but Erick Green’s driving layup at the end of the game was blocked, and after the ball rolled free to Jarell Eddie, who kicked it out to Robert Brown, the long three-point attempt by Tech’s freshman guard was just off as the buzzer sounded.
It was a tough loss for Tech, as they held a very good offensive team to 10 points below their season average. BYU was just 33.3% from the field and only 20.8% from three-point range. Tech was 42.9% from the field, including 64% in the second half, but they committed 14 turnovers to BYU’s seven, including two critical turnovers in the final two minutes by Erick Green and Dorenzo Hudson.
Hudson paced Tech off the bench with 14 points. He was 4-of-8 from the field and 2-of-3 from three-point range. Jarell Eddie continued to improve, setting his career high in rebounding for the second straight game. He had 12 points and 14 boards for Tech, who outrebounded a bigger BYU team 43-37.
Victor Davila finished with 12 points, while Erick Green had 11. However, Green didn’t have his best game, missing all four of his three-point attempts. He didn’t score in the first 20 minutes of play.
This was Virginia Tech’s fifth loss of the season by four or fewer points. Since January 7, four of their five losses have come by four or fewer points.
The Hokies will return to action this Saturday when they travel to Maryland to take on the Terps. Tip-off is scheduled for 2:30pm, and the game will be televised by The ACC Network.
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Lazy offense, when BYU went on that 10-0 run killed us along with the missed front ends of the 1 and 1’s. Very frustrating watching this offense. We will be competitive in almost every game this year, but like most years won’t be able to finish. We needed that win bad. I know we are young, but we have to play smarter ball. And to not get a good shot on the last possession was very disappointing.
Hokiestud hit the nails on the head.
Going back to our joining the ACC, what is our record in games decided by 5 points or less? It seems like this is a theme most years.
HokieSA broke down the 2-3 point games on the hoops board:
http://www.techsideline.com/forums/showthread.php?56197-VT-in-2-or-3-point-games-in-SG-era-%28season-by-season%29&p=200379#post200379
I compiled the data for you, HokiePWC, for 5 point games. Overall we are 35-47 (42.7%) when decided by 5 points or less.
You can view more details/stats in the notes that I took, which are posted here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4306403/Hokies.txt
Had they capitalized on the early bonus situation in the second half, I beleive they would have won by a comfortable margin.
Definitely an opportunity missed. Davies picked up two quick fouls with 15 minutes left in the game. BYU committed their 7th foul and VT went into the bonus with 13 minutes left. I thought the Hokies were going to pull away then, and they didn’t take advantage of it.
I continue to feel that we are simply too passive in our halfcourt offensive set. All too often we seem to be content with lazily passing the ball around the perimeter 22-23 feet from the basket, which accomplishes nothing.
We simply have to get guys more aggressive at putting the ball on the floor and driving to the basket hard. Sure, we’ll get some shots blocked that will lead to run-outs on the other end. But we’ll also score some baskets and/or get to the line for FTs. In just about every game this season, we have shot fewer FTs than our opponents.
Also, Bobby Knight is 100% right when he says that our players need to learn how to shot-fake. All too often last night we settled for contested 3-pointers with a defender right in our faces when we could have simply faked the shot, taken a quick dribble to either the left or the right, and had a wide-open look.
Improvement in these two areas alone would be enough to start turning these close losses into wins.
To amplify the turnover stat, the Hokies were outscored 23-6 in points off turnovers. BYU also made 21-24 free throws (87.5%). VT was 15-23 (65.2%).
Yeah, 65% from the FT line was disappointing. If we had shot our FTs as well as we usually shoot them, we would have won.
And I also remember a few missed first shots of 1 and 1’s. Also, shocked when Eddie missed 2 of 3 when he was fouled on a 3 pt shot. He was shooting what…90% or so?