Virginia Tech trailed for most of the game, rallied to force overtime, and then rallied to overcome a five-point deficit in overtime in a 66-65 victory over Bradley in Las Vegas on Saturday night. The Hokies improved to 9-2 with the win, while Bradley dropped to 8-3.
Tech trailed 65-60 with 40 seconds remaining, and Joey van Zegeren went to the free throw line and made one of two free throws. After a missed free throw by Bradley, Christian Beyer pulled down the board, got it ahead to Erick Green, who hit a layup and was fouled. Green converted the free throw, and Tech trailed 65-64 with 26 seconds left.
On the ensuing play, Christian Beyer got his hand on the ball, and it was stolen away by Marquis Rankin. He got the ball to Erick Green, who converted the layup to put the Hokies up 66-65 with 21 seconds left. (Note: the official box score credits that steal and assist to Rankin. Following the game live, I was under the impression that it was Christian Beyer who made the steal and the assist, but both were credit to Rankin.)
Bradley got the ball back for one last shot, but Marquis Rankin tried to make it easy on them by fouling with just 9.6 seconds left. Walt Lemon, Jr. went to the line and missed both free throws, but the ball rolled out of bounds to the Braves. Lemon then missed a shot at the end, and Robert Brown came away with the defensive rebound, and the Hokies held on.
Erick Green scored a career-high 31 points, and he also grabbed eight rebounds in 41 minutes. Green did commit five turnovers, and the Hokies had to overcome 24 turnovers as a team to rally and get the win.
Christian Beyer, a walkon post player who was playing with Marshall Wood out with a fractured foot, came up big for Tech. In 27 minutes, Beyer is credited with three points, nine rebounds, two steals and an assist.
“He’s the hero,” Erick Green said of Beyer following the game.
Cadarian Raines had struggled recently, but he came back with a 16-point, nine-rebound performance against the Braves. Jarell Eddie finished with 12 points and five rebounds. C.J. Barksdale didn’t score, and only had one rebound, but Beyer more than made up the difference on the boards.
Virginia Tech will return to action late Sunday night when they take on Colorado State in Las Vegas. Tipoff is scheduled for approximately 11:30pm, and the game will be televised by CBS College Sports Network.
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The great line of the night was when Bill Roth alluded to Butler having “Beyer’s remorse”. Classic.
Sounds like a good game. We learned a few weeks ago we weren’t headed to the stars, but now we know we have a good enough team that can recover and not fall through the floor after a couple losses. Back to having a fun season, great (team) effort.
Christian Who? Now that’s drama: a walk-on having a big effect on the game. Put an extra cup of coffee in that kid’s paycheck.
This is a plus one win. After losing Wood I was anticipating the losses to start piling on, beginning with this Butler game. The losses are still out there, but not when there’s effort like this. Congrats to #4 as well for a huge comeback. Somebody got a hold of his ear, thank goodness.
ESPN reports that Green is now the leading scorer in the country. Something for the Hokie Nation to be proud of. I’ll take any and all props that come our way.
We hung on in the last 10 seconds from reading the review of the game. We’ll take it. Yay!!!!
Great win. Watching it on gamecast had me on the edge of my seat. Sheesh.
Great Job, Mr. Beyer. Great team effort to come back and keep fighting even if it looked bad for us. Great Job Mr. Raines, way to step up when the team needed you. Stay healthy everybody and keep playing as a team. Oh and great leadership Mr. Green and coach Mrs. Green. (Put her on the bench JJ)