Virginia Tech rallied from a four-point deficit with 6:10 to play by going on a 14-1 run and beat UNC-Greensboro 96-87 in the Greensboro Coliseum on Monday night. The Hokies are now 4-0 for the first time since the 2004-05 season.
Jarell Eddie lit up the Spartans all night, scoring a career-high 28 points. Eddie was 7-of-9 from the field, a perfect 5-of-5 from three-point range, and 9-of-10 from the charity stripe. He also had five rebounds and three blocks in 34 minutes. Eddie made five free throws in a 33 second span in the final minutes to help ice the game.
Erick Green didn’t have his best shooting night, going only 4-of-15 from the field. However, he was a perfect 16-of-16 from the free throw line, and made eight free throws in the final 2:01 to finish with 26 points. He put the team on his back down the stretch. As a team, Tech was 34-of-42 from the free throw line.
The Hokies were 24-of-53 (45.3%) from the field, and an impressive 14-of-22 (63.6%) from three-point range. Eddie was perfect from the outside, Will Johnston made three outside jumpers in the first seven minutes of the game to finish with nine points, and Robert Brown was 3-of-5 from behind the arc. Brown finished with 10 points.
Cadarian Raines had nine points and nine rebounds for the Hokies, while freshman forward Marshall Wood finished with five points and 11 rebounds. Tech outrebounded UNC-Greensboro 41-38.
Tech didn’t play a good game defensively. The Hokies led by as many as 14 points in the first half, but they were never able to put the Spartans away because they couldn’t get stops. They had trouble stopping the ball, and their rotation on the inside was slow. However, they picked up the intensity down the stretch. Between the 6:10 mark and the 1:14 mark, UNC-Greensboro didn’t make a single field goal and managed just one free throw. The Hokies were more active with their hands, they kept the ball handler in front of them, and they rotated faster. That late defensive effort enabled them to pick up a key road win.
The Hokies will return to action on Friday afternoon when they host Appalachian State. The Mountaineers have been struggling defensively, allowing 86 points to High Point and 101 points to Campbell. If Tech wins on Friday, it will be their first 5-0 start since the 1984-85 season. Tipoff is scheduled for 2pm, and the game will be available online on ESPN3.
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Getting outrebounded 40-29 on the offensive glass. Got to get a little better when the bigger teams start hitting the schedule. Overall pretty impressed so far.
What is different? It seems like the % on the stripe and beyond the arc is greatly improved from previous years. Did CSG work them too hard in practice? Arm fatigue? Is CJJ doing something different? Am I just seeing things or is the team really shooting better?
You’re not seeing things, we’re shooting extremely well beyond the arc. We’re #8 in the country in 3-point percentage at 46%:
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/statistics/team/_/stat/3-points/sort/threePointFieldGoalPct
That’s virtually certain to come down. Last year the #1 ranked team in 3-point percentage finished at 44%.
Freshman Marshall Wood stood out to me near the end of the game. Checked the stats and he grabbed 5 rebounds and a steal in the last 5 minutes. Not bad at all.
4-15 FG and 16-16 FT…was he channeling his inner Malcolm Delaney? I hate to think this team will live and die by the 3. Duke has done that for years but they also play incredible defense. I like what I see so far. At least it’s much more fun to watch. Oh and where can I get a Will Johnston jersey?
Personally, I think we have to play to our strengths due to our lack of size in the frontcourt and lack of depth. That means shooting a lot of threes once we get to ACC play. We won’t be able to bang down low against a DUke/UNC, so we gotta hope we can shoot over them.
We will have 4-20 3pt shooting nights, but that’s ok. We need to stick to our guns. I think our shooting will keep us in a lot of games.
I know he’s not getting the minutes right now, but Will Johnston is really outperforming his walk-on label.
Green also over-dribbled too much on offense. He relies a bit much on that arching floater in the lane
I disagree. Part of the offense is him breaking down the defense, but the change from this year to last year, is we have people cutting to the basket, giving him options once he gets in the lane. Raines set the ball screen, but unlike last year rolled hard to the basket. Green got him the ball at least twice in that scenario. Another time Green hit Van Zegeren for what should have been a dunk, but he bobbled it.
When it’s close or we have the lead late in the game, we want our best player to have to ball in his hands. He either scored or got fouled (12 for 12 from the line works) and we won.
I agree, Erick’s game and handle have improved each year as has his strength in moving towards the basket. He will win us a few games this year by driving to the hoop and taking the fouls. Great Point guards hold on to the ball as long as necessary to suck the defense in so they can dish it out or go to the hoop. Erick is one of the top two PGs in the ACC IMO.
Probably the best headline ever on TSL.
LOL. I was thinking the same thing when I first read it. But the point is that teams who give up 87 points usually don’t win.
I thought Barksdale played well although he is not mentioned in this article.
Nice win ill take it! Go jj