Virginia Tech played another poor defensive game, losing to Maryland 94-71 in College Park. Tech dropped to 9-5 overall and 0-1 in the ACC with the loss, while the Terps are now 13-1 overall and 1-0 in the ACC.
The Hokies have now lost three straight games by 23 or more points for the first time in school history. They’ve lost three straight games by 20 or more points for the first time since the 1936-37 season.
C.J. Barksdale did not play in this game, leaving the Hokies with just six scholarship players. James Johnson said following the game that Barksdale was benched for lack of effort in practice and in games. He had recently lost playing time to walk-on Christian Beyer, and Beyer had six points and seven rebounds in 15 minutes on Saturday.
Joey van Zegeren got the start over Barksdale and had 10 points and 5 rebounds. Cadarian Raines finished with eight points and a career-high 13 rebounds. Erick Green was very good as usual, scoring 28 points.
Unfortunately, Robert Brown continued his slump, going just 4-of-15 from the field. He scored 11 points, but it was not an efficient day offensively. Jarell Eddie also struggled, scoring just five points on 2-of-12 shooting. He was 0-of-6 from three-point range.
Though Tech had some players struggle on offense, their main problem continued to be defense. The Terps made 51.7% of their field goals, and were 10-of-23 (43.5%) from three-point range. Maryland came into the game shooting just over 34% from the outside, and had countless open looks against a Tech defense that looked confused and was very slow in rotations.
Perhaps the only bright spot the Hokies can take out of this game was their offensive rebounding. Tech pulled down 18 offensive rebounds and scored 24 second chance points.
The Hokies will finally return to Cassell Coliseum on Wednesday night when they host Boston College. Tipoff will be at 7pm, and the game will be televised by RSN. Check your local listings.
Print
The only thing that gets trapped is Tech when they go to a double team. We are slow and leave men unguarded. Agree with VTRayDuh. This team is a slower version of Seth Greenburg’s team. And, not nearly as tough. Teams are pushing us around. And, what started out as an overall, very quick team , has morphed into plodding, poorly run guard/post pick and roll offense. What happened to the quick, lots of touches offense seen early in the season? JJ might not like it, but he has to play more folks, scholarship or no scholarship. If this team is out of gas now, they won’t win another game! And defense? I hear Jim Mora shouting “Playoffs?” “Defense?” Georgia Southern figured out the post trap early and made Tech play with wide open threes. And yet, we still try it, and get burned.
Vic is that you….BHS grad from AZ? Gotta be!
We see most home games, you are right on! But like JJ, he will have success at VT, just needs a few more Bigs.
Everyone gets the low scholarships and what not. What nobody understands, is why JJ doesn’t see that his offense is completely different now? It literally looks exactly like Greenberg’s. I’m not talking about the lack of run and gun….that’s understandable because of depth and fatigue. What I’m talking about is the fact that Maryland played the style of offense that VT played the first 7 games of the season. MOVE THE BALL QUICKLY ON OFFENSE! How is that so difficult. Everything is born out of quick ball movement. You keep defenders on their heals and shots develop. Period. Eric Green has to instill this back into the offense. No more ball hogging by anyone. When watching this game, there were so many opportunities to be a playmaker by Green, Eddie, and Brown that is was ridiculous. They all missed so many opportunities to make that one pass to the open guy or swing the ball quickly around the perimeter and dump it to the low post. They just don’t get the game of basketball. Defense is horrible. But, it’s always been horrible. They need that offensive syle back (quick everything, team pla) and points will come. That was VTs best defense….the fact that the offense scored and forced the other team to press with its offense too much. Ugh!!!
Mr. Coleman –
YEP! TRUE COLORS…
We are seeing the true colors of two of our key players. Much the same as last year. Those two may not be starters next year, rather they will be bench strength, especially if they cannot hit their shots. Afterall, they are who we all assumed they would be…
This year is not over and we can believe it will still be a better-than-expected season. Give Coach Johnson and the players credit for not laying down right from the start due to being short-handed on player numbers. A good effort and they can rebound – the players need to look the coach in the eyes and believe.
Next year will be a very young team and some of our walk-ons will be gone. Give them credit for hanging in there this year. Need that student support for the rest of our games!
Go Hokies
/r
Slim
Name names.
RK –
See the article for the two names of those not performing as they did earlier in the season.
I like what Coach Johnson is doing by benching those who don’t perform. The football coaches can learn a thing or two from him.
Hang tough Hokies!
/r
Slim
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch
by Mike Barber:
The Hokies (9-5, 0-1 ACC) have lost five of their past seven games after being 7-0, and Green’s supporting cast has been devastatingly inconsistent. Junior forward Jarell Eddie is averaging 14.1 points for the season, but has been held to 12 or less five times in the past seven games.
Sophomore guard Robert Brown is at 10.6 ppg, but endured a stretch of four straight games in mid-December where he scored four points or fewer each outing.
…and as Coach was saying, “we can’t find the basket right now”. Lets hope the team starts to catch fire on those shots to help Eric Green as he leads them and creates shots for them.
Go Hokies!
Watched the game replay. Rotations are indeed slow on D but the poor shooting led to a lot of quick open looks for Md., which they hit. This team needs to learn a match-up zone (for several reasons) since the guards can’t seem to cover the open 3 againist even avg. passing teams. AND QUIT THE DOUBLE-TEAMING. It’s one of the reasons good teams are getting so many uncontested shots. M-T-M isn’t working. Of course, it’ll have to be used Wed. againist BC.
6 on 15 –night after night……being caught between admin & coaches…. a little too late to
transfer elsewhere to become a factor elsewhere….. players caught between rock & hard placel… to me in such circumstances (beyond their control) players should be able to transfer anywhere with full eligibility restored. Never know who might have ended up in pros without all the change & drama.
give me a break
I’m on that like a fat kid on a cupcake!
Well said Flyer.
well they are being given every opportunity to play tons of minutes and perform here. If they are good enough to play in the pros, they could perform on this team. I agree with Flyer… give me a break.
WHAT??