Defensive Lapses and Shooting Woes Lead to Horrible Loss

3-5 Georgia Southern, with one win over Division 1 competition, led the entire game and dealt Virginia Tech their first home loss, 78-73.

Georgia Southern is a bad basketball team, but against the Hokies, they played with confidence and emotion, outshooting and outrebounding the Hokies on the way to a stunning victory. Eagle starters C.J. Reed, Cleon Roberts, and Eric Ferguson lit the Hokies up from the outside, shooting 11-of-19 from beyond the arc. As a team, GSU shot 11-26 (42.3%) from deep. The Eagles, with no starter over 6-7, outrebounded Tech 41-38, including 16 offensive rebounds that led to 13 second chance points.

By contrast, the Hokies had their third straight game shooting less than 28% from the three point line. Tech went 6-of-27 (22.2%) from beyond the arc, including 4-of-21 from stars Erick Green, Jarell Eddie, and Robert Brown. Green and Eddie combined to miss their first ten three-pointers before Eddie finally canned one.

Green led Tech with 28 points, his tenth straight game over 20 points, breaking the Virginia Tech record previously held by Bimbo Coles. Eddie, despite shooting 6-of-19 from the field (3-of-13 from three point range), scored 21 points and added eight rebounds. The only other Hokie in double figures was C.J. Barksdale, who scored ten points and led the Hokies with nine rebounds.

Robert Brown had just four points on 1-of-7 shooting, and Cadarian Raines went scoreless for the second straight game and had just three rebounds. Just like the Mississippi Valley State game, Raines played just 12 minutes, but this time, he didn’t foul out, committing just two personals.

The Hokies gave up numerous open looks to Georgia Southern, who capitalized. Virginia Tech’s three point shots were likewise mostly wide open looks, but the Hokies struggled to make them.

Erick Green admitted in the post-game interview with the Tech radio network that the Hokies came out flat. Georgia Southern jumped out to an 8-0 lead just two and a half minutes in, a lead they never surrendered. The Hokies closed it to 13-12 and later trailed just 25-23, but a 17-4 GSU run that spanned half time put the Hokies down 42-27 with 18:10 to go.

Trying to play catchup, the Hokies struggled with the one thing that would have helped them: three pointers. GSU extended their lead another point, going up 64-48 with 7:55 left.

At that point, the Hokies were a horrid 2-of-18 from three-point range, while GSU was 10-of-23.

Jarell Eddie hit his first three pointer of the game with 7:08 to go, sparking a 23-10 run by the Hokies that also ended with an Eddie three-pointer with 54 seconds left. That made it 74-71, and after GSU missed a three pointer with 29 seconds to go, the Hokies rebounded, and Erick Green got a good look at a three pointer that would have tied it with 23 seconds left.

Green missed, Georgia Southern’s Cameron Baskerville grabbed the rebound, and the Eagles hit their free throws down the stretch to stun the Hokies by five. Despite his phenomenal play, and the fact that he is carrying the Hokies, Green has missed two critical shots in the last three games (GSU and WVU). It’s a shame to see such a great player not come through in the clutch, and it bothers Green greatly, as well.

Make no mistake, this is the definition of a bad loss, at home against a bad team, and all talk of the Hokies and the NCAA Tournament ends with this loss, barring a long winning streak in ACC play. After a torrid 7-0 start that included solid wins against Iowa and #15 Oklahoma State, Tech’s shooting touch has left them, and they have dropped two of three to fall to 8-2. The Hokies have shot just 39.9% from the field in that three-game stretch, including just 22.8% from three-point range.

James Johnson and his crew will try to regroup in Las Vegas against 6-2 Bradley next Saturday, Dec. 22nd. Bradley plays this same GSU squad Monday night at home, and Mississippi Valley State (Tech’s previous opponent) Wednesday night at home.

hokiesports.com box score

 

18 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. Keep the faith, despite one of the Worst losses in recent Tech Bball history. Tech will learn alot from this game, as in show up! Will, is there anything you can do to stifle all of the Negativity in the Fan Forum? Go Hokies!

  2. I was disappointed in JJ’s adjustments. He needed to take 24 out of his game sooner. Rankin should have been guarding him from the moment he touched the ball. I still can’t figure out why we are doubling on guys that are well beyond the 3-point line. Invariably, it ends in an easy shot for someone. I think if we had just played straight up D with no double teams, then we would have won that game. It would have taken away enough threes for us to win. Also, what has happened to Raines. He is not part of the offense at all. Is that a coaching issue. Raines down low means fowls on the other teams bigs. Especially at team like GaS.

  3. The key to this teams improvement is Raines. At the end of last year he was playing inspired basketball and scoring inside. This offense needs to concentrate on getting him the ball on the block. These guards have become so three happy that the inside offense is none existent.

    1. On a given Night, Raines can really suck and not show up. He was horror-awful Saturday afternoon, just a shame. He needs to have a Monster year! Keep the faith!

  4. Basketball is really a pretty simple game: You get points for putting the ball in the basket. Everything else … defense, rebounding, passing … leads to putting the ball in the basket.

    Consequently, the team that shoots the ball the best is usually gonna win. Shooting is especially important for a team like ours that really isn’t all that great at defense or rebounding. Georgia Southern hit a good % of their open looks yesterday. We didn’t.

    I think we’re a much better shooting team than we’ve showed over these last three games. Hopefully having a full week off will do us some good. But if we keep shooting this poorly from the perimeter, ACC play isn’t gonna be much fun at all.

  5. IF THE SAME GUYS ARE GOING TO KEEP GUNNING THE REST OF THE TEAM HAVE TO BE DENNIS RODMAN AND GET THEIR POINTS ON REBOUNDS. NOT FUN TO WATCH UNLESS YOUR HITTING THEM.NEED MORE TEAM PLAY!

  6. It has been mentioned here that the team likes an up-tempo pace. That can only happen if they can rebound defensively and offensively. Maybe a trip back to basics wiould help with the 3 being a side item. You live by the 3, you die by the 3.

  7. Good point on Green missing two clutch shots. He is carrying the team but star players need to hit those shots in crunch time.

    1. Blaming our only outstanding player for losing this game? He carried the entire team yesterday did you not watch it?

  8. This team does not have the margin of error to come out flat. We were shooting 3’s off of transition. I’d rather us get set in a rotation and if the 3 is there take it. That will get them in a rhythm when the transition 3’s aren’t falling.

  9. We cab’t fall in love with the 3-point shot. Green had a lane in transition and kicked it back to Eddie for a three. The guards need to attack the basket first rather than settle for 3s.

  10. every time eddie shot,..he dropped his not shooting hand and I had not feeling it was going in

  11. I was at the game and VT can’t win now unless we are hitting shots. Our D, our rebounding, and our inside play are not good enough to win games when we can’t hit outside shots. Erick Green brought his normal high level of play but Eddie had 1/2 dozen open looks in the 1st half and they wouldn’t go down. We couldn’t get a rebound when we needed it. We allowed dribble penetration and then kickouts for wide open threes. Just like WVU, GSU hit their wide open threes and with our cold shooting, it put us in a big hole that we couldn’t climb out of.

    1. Yep. That is it. The big fouls foul too much and don’t rebound. We can;t stop drives and we don’t rotate quickly enough to open shooters. Eddie needs to drive more and not settle for jumpers/

  12. The pressure defense by GS against our perimeter players begged for the pick and roll play. However when we ran it and threw it inside we could not finish. I wonder if we might try that play with Barksdale. He has some skill inside and is a very good foul shooter in case he is fouled.

  13. Mr. Stewart –

    They are who we thought they were!

    Maybe we were expecting too much form this basketball team. A bad loss like this can shake your confidence badly. Coach Johnson has let his team come out flat the last two games. Let’s hope he opens with a press and up-tempo play leading to easy baskets at the start of next game or this could be a long season.

    GET OFF your …pine and start runnin and having fun HOKIES!
    /r
    Slim

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