Virginia Tech played a sloppy game, but beat an overmatched Mississippi Valley State team 70-49 in Cassell Coliseum to run their record to 8-1 on the season. The Delta Devils dropped to 0-6 on the year.
Erick Green paced the Hokies with 23 points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals in 33 minutes of action. He was the only Tech player in double figures. Thanks to foul trouble, as well as some poor play, several other starters spent a lot of the night on the bench while their backups got their minutes.
Cadarian Raines : Raines fouled out in just 12 minutes. He didn’t score, and he had four rebounds in 12 minutes. In his place, Joey van Zegeren played 23 minutes and finished with nine points, seven rebounds and three blocks.
Robert Brown : Brown had just four points on 2-of-9 shooting. Marquis Rankin played 19 minutes and scored 10 points. Walk-on guard Marcus Patrick also got 10 minutes of action and had two rebounds.
C.J. Barksdale : Barksdale had six points, but only three rebounds in 19 minutes. Marshall Wood played 15 minutes and had eight points and three rebounds. Walk-on Chr
istian Beyer also got 10 minutes, finishing with two points, five rebounds and a block.
Jarell Eddie only had eight points, but he did lead the team with 10 rebounds in 26 minutes of action. The Hokies shot poorly (38.3% from the field and 16.7% from three-point range), but Mississippi Valley State shot just 25.7% from the field and 13.8% from the outside.
Erick Green has scored 20 or more points in all nine games of the season.
“It’s cool to get 20, honestly it is,” Green said after the game. “But I don’t really care. It doesn’t really matter. As long as we get the win. That’s what I want to go home with.”
Besides Green, Tech got a great contribution off the bench from center Joey van Zegeren .
“We didn’t play our best game,” van Zegeren said afterwards. “It was a bounce back game. I think it will go better from here on.”
Despite the sloppy effort on Monday, van Zegeren feels good about how the season has gone thus far.
“I think overall, we’re feeling good about the start of the season,” said the r-freshman center. “From when we started practicing in July, after the first couple of weeks we already knew we were capable of a lot of big things together. We have good chemistry together. We’re playing good together. We all worked hard to get in the shape we’re in right now.”
Virginia Tech will return to action on Saturday afternoon when they face Georgia Southern. Tipoff is scheduled for 2pm, and the game can be viewed online on ESPN3.
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In another article I read Eric said they all played flat and that he was still angry about the game Saturday. It took him half of this game to get over the other game and some of the other players got focused in the second half.
Maybe it was good that they learned not to let a loss bog them down. They still have a mission to win the next game. Give the team a pass for the first 10-15 minutes of this one.
Now win the next one!
GO HOKIES!!!!!
In prior years this would have been a lot closer, if not a head-scratching loss. To win by 21 anyway shows we’re on the right track.
You have to try to foul out in 12 minutes, don’t you?
Depends on whether you’re playing against the refs as well as the other team.
Cadarian just isn’t putting it together this year. He’s being outperformed by both JVZ and Wood, it seems.