Virginia Tech played a poor defensive game and got blown out at home 74-58 by UVA on Thursday night. Tech dropped to 11-7 and 2-3 in the ACC, while the Hoos improved to 13-5 and 3-2.
Erick Green came to play, setting a career high in points (35) and rebounds (9). He was 11-of-18 from the field, 3-of-6 from three-point range, and 10-of-13 from the free throw line. It was the most points scored by an individual player against UVA since J.J. Reddick dropped 40 on them back in 2006.
However, Green didn’t get much help from his teammates. Jarrell Eddie had nine points and nine rebounds, and shot just 2-of-11 from the field. Meanwhile, Robert Brown’s struggles continued. He did not score in 24 minutes, and missed all three of his shot attempts. Green was the only Tech player in double figures.
“He had a phenominal game tonight,” Eddie said of Green following the game. “It’s really frustrating when the supporting cast can’t help him win the game. It’s just really tough, and I’m really frustrated.”
However, it was Tech’s defense that was most disappointing. UVA plays at a very slow pace, and the most points they have scored in an ACC game this season was 62 against UNC. They scored 74 on Tech, despite the slow pace. The Hoos were 26-of-51 (51%) from the field, and 11-of-23 (47.8%) from three-point range. UVA also had 21 assists on 26 made shots, and only six turnovers.
The Hokies were lit up by freshman post player Evan Nolte, who scored 18 points. He was 5-of-9 from three-point range. Joe Harris had 17 points, and he was 4-of-6 from the outside.
“It’s frustrating,” Erick Green said. “I could care less about how many points I scored. It’s about winning. It’s frustrating because we represent the whole school.”
Despite the performance of his teammates, Green backed them up in postgame interviews.
“They had some good shots,” Green said. “The ball just wasn’t falling for them tonight. That’s all. Next game we’ll have a couple of guys step up and make some plays.”
UVA coach Tony Bennett was very complimentary of Green after the game.
“I look at Green’s points, and for the most part I thought we made him earn them,” Bennett said. “But I didn’t realize he had that many…he dropped 35. We didn’t do a good job late, but he’s hard to guard. You just have to try to make him earn them and do a good job on the other guys. For the most part we were in position. Like Wake Forest did, we tried to get the ball out of his hands or push him out as far as possible. But he’s a talent.”
Virginia Tech returns to action on Sunday when they travel to Clemson. Tipoff is scheduled for 1pm, and the game will be televised by The ACC Network.
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So what does our MBB team do in that shiny new basketball facility?
Johnson needs to figure out the answer to this one simple question: Why are the guys playing tight and tentative now versus when they were loose and decisive in the first 7 games? Raines is second guessing. Barksdale looks scared out there. Brown looks indecisive. Wood gets a pass. Rankin looks ok. VZ looks about the same. Eddie isn’t as effective. I mean, that is the question….why are these guys tight now? Green’s only challenge is how to get the best out of his teammates.
On the money. With the exception of Green, we play like it’s our first game and we are playing the Lakers. This team is playing scared. To this day, I don’t know if Raines or Barksdale even have a jump shot. How many times, including Green, have we had the ball stolen just standing there? Dribbled off our feet?
On the positive, Green lets it fly all the time. At this point, what do the others have to lose? Lessons learned from the UVA game, UVA’s offense was always in motion away from the ball, not a bad thing to copy.
Ricky Stokes?? That you??
at about the 1:15 to go mark: wasn’t that slam anderson missed, then he hung on the rim with ball coming down and going in, offensive goaltending? and the refs never called it, and our coaches didn’t question it to the refs for a review. i’m pretty sure there was a timeout immediately after the basket, where it could have been reviewed. (the timeout certainly came soon after if it wasn’t immediate.)
i ran it back during the timeout and in verizon slo-mo and real time replays, it looked to me like he sure was on the rim and the ball was coming down thru the cylinder and thru for points.
We need more shooters. This seems like Greenberg’s lasting legacy, he just couldn’t recruit enough quality shooters. We only ever have 1 or 2 reliable shooters.
Robert Brown looks lost. Eddie’s shot is just not smooth, sometimes they go in, but if it catches any rim the ball will brick out. Rankin is under a 40% field-goal shooter. Our bigs do not cause enough disruption in the lane for rebounds or paint points. Thankful we have Eric Green or else we couldn’t break 30 or 40 points most nights.
Exactly what I said last night walking out of Cassell – this is what Seth Greenburg left us. This is his legacy.
We have one great player and the rest are average at best and should be our 6th through 10th players. The scary part to me is this is not a bunch of freshmen we can blame for inexperience. We start no freshmen – this is our experience – we are stuck with this team for the next 2 -3 years.
I hope JJ can get the recruiting machine moving in that time. I will be happy when the Greenburg era is truely over.
Wow…Greenberg is not even here anymore but is still somehow to blame for all of VT’s basketball woes? I know a lot of people hated him but he’s no longer here so I think it’s time for people to move on. And if you want to blame anyone for the current issues w/ the program, I would suggest Jim Weaver. He created this situation. Unfortunately, James Johnson is the one who has to try to clean it up.
You did not mention lack of defense, but that is certainly not a legacy that Greenburg left.
To win this game, the Hokies needed a good game from EG. They got it.
They needed a good shooting night from Jarell. They didn’t get it.
They needed to defend the three, in particular Joe Harris. They didn’t.
They needed to play good D in general and prevent easy, open shots. They didn’t. UVa had 21 assists on 26 made baskets.
There’s probably more I could come up with. On the bright side, they outrebounded UVa 32-24. Not sure if there’s any other big positives, other than EG’s 35 points. Erick is averaging 25.2 overall, and (impressively) 27.4 in ACC games.
Brown looked like a deer in the headlights. Eddie was not much better. This was our home court; UVA was supposed to be nervous, not us. I don’t understand why we insist on playing man-to-man when it is obvious that we can’t guard anyone. It’s as if our big guys either can’t or won’t shoot a jump shot facing the basket. Playing like that, UVA will beat us 9 out of 10 times. UVA ran a nice set of off the ball screens with an offense that never seemed to stop moving. Lots of layups and uncontested threes. Hate to say it, but with the exception of Green, UVA has better players and right now are better coached.
Eric Green is worth the price of admission all by himself. It’s disappointing that still another opposing player put a career high on VT. Defensive rotation and getting off screens is just bad.
Ho hum….bring on football!
If Eric is going to do most of the shooting the bigs need to be under the and around the basket.Get your points inside, because he is going to miss over half of his shots . This is the most un-disiplined Tech team i have ever seen.And i have been watching them since the 60)s. IT is ok to get beat by better talent, but this is just plain ugly basketball. It takes time but coach has to take charge now.
“…because he is going to miss over half of his shots”
Erick was 11-of-18 last night and is exactly 50% (148-of-296) for the year.
Robert Brown is simply pitiful. He has been such a disappointment. But, so have many others with their lack of consistency, Erick Green is having a great year despite the pressure placed on him by the opposing defenses. IF we could only get someone else to be consistent. IF, IF, IF……..
yeah, he needs to go to the basket and get his game going, just cause you’re open at the 3 point line doesn’t mean you have to shoot it when you’re going bad…..
agreed. he needs to get in the paint and get a couple of his floaters or mid ranger jumpers to fall and then extend beyond the 3 point line.
Except when he drives lately he usually bounces the ball off his foot. Not only are his shots not falling he is a turnover machine.
I agree that Robert’s best aspect of his game is going to the basket and shooting in the lane, but UVa’s pack-line defense is geared to stop lane penetration, and to make you beat them shooting the basketball.
Not a good matchup for Robert. He’s a driver, not a jump-shooter, and UVa’s defense is kryptonite for him.
during the last 6 minutes of the game Eddie seemed to be driving a lot more than earlier in the game. His shots didn’t fall and no fouls were called with two or three hoos reaching in (i think hoo-v-a got some selective referee vision blackouts). Green seemed to be getting into the paint or near it toward the end as well.
did hoo-v-a change their defense at that point? which allowed the penetrations. or was it so helter-skelter on our part that they couldn’t get into or stay in their “box fourmation”?
for the rematch, i think Coaches need to see how we penetrated during last 6 minutes and get Brown, Eddie and Green doing that in the early going.
I agree 100% but I thought that we should attack in spite of their D. And it seemed that we were doing just that in the first half. We got them to commit a lot of fouls. I’m not for them totally dictating how we run our offense.