Virginia Tech hung tough early, but ultimately fell to UVA 73-55 in Charlotteville on Tuesday night. UVA improved to 18-6 overall and 8-3 in the ACC, while the Hokies dropped to 11-13 and 2-9.
Tech hung tough throughout most of the first half, despite the struggles of Erick Green. The nation’s leading scorer had just one point in the first half, and missed all seven of his field goal attempts. The Hokies stayed in the game thanks to eight first half points by Marshall Wood, and five more from Marquis Rankin, but the Hoos eventually pulled away to take a 36-23 lead into the break.
The second half was back to normal. Green went 4-of-10 from the field in the second half, and went 11-of-13 from the free throw line for the game, but couldn’t get contributions from his teammates in the second half to keep the game close. He also had five rebounds, two assists, a steal and a turnover.
Jarrell Eddie didn’t start thanks to Saturday’s water bottle incident. Will Johnston got the start and played 28 minutes, scoring three points and grabbing a rebound while finishing with an assist and a steal. He made one of his two three-point attempts. Eddie had three points on 1-of-7 shooting in 14 minutes. Robert Brown started, but scored just two points on 1-of-5 shooting.
In a total of 32 minutes between Brown and Eddie, the Hokies got a total of five points on 2-of-12 shooting, with four rebounds and two turnovers. As a comparison, walkon guard Marcus Patrick played the final two minutes of the game and finished with four points and one rebound, making both of his midrange jumpers.
Cadarian Raines played very hard for the Hokies, and he finished with six points and seven rebounds, but it was difficult for Tech to get him the ball because of UVA’s outstanding packline defense. The Hoos haven’t given up more than 69 points in a game this season.
Freshman forward Marshall Wood led Tech with 8 points and 5 rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench.
The Hokies return to action on Saturday when they travel to Raleigh to take on NC State. Tipoff is scheduled for 2pm, and the game will be televised by ESPN2.
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I guess I missed something. What was “the water bottle incident”?
this past game vs. GT, Eddie slammed a water bottle on the floor as he was taken out, the water bottle burst all over the floor and Robert Brown promptly slipped and fell in the water. The game had to be delayed to clean up the mess. LOL.
Baffling what is going on with Eddie and Brown; got to think it is mostly mental at this point. They just need to hit the reset button.
I thought some positives were Raines and Wood’s play. Particularly Woods in the limited playing time and the production as a freshman. Full time and he would have 12 pts and 7 rebounds; a solid contribution. With some help in the off season and some new blood coming in I think we take a step forwards next year.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Both Brown and Eddie look absolutely nothing like the smooth, confident players who were routinely draining open jump shots at the start of the season.
You really have to wonder what’s going on with the two of them. I have no doubt that they’re trying their best, but their shots just aren’t dropping. How can two guys with good outside shots, especially Eddie, just go into the deep freeze and stay there like this?
After the 7th game of the season, I posted on the basketball board that Eddie was the best spot-up shooter we’d had at VT since Dell Curry. There’s obviously something that’s changed with regard to their shooting mechanics. Guys who’ve been playing basketball all their lives just don’t suddenly forget how to shoot overnight. But it’s been going on for long enough now that it’s almost certainly mental at this point too.
The combined production, or lack thereof, from Eddie and Brown has been mind boggling. Raines has provided some scoring punch here and there but Eddie and Brown were supposed to be the #2 and #3 scoring options and I neither of them has scored consistently after VT started 7-0. I really hope they can right the ship and turn things around or next year is going to be a really long year.
I feel sorry for Green. His senior season he gets very little help from his teammates, but has scored 20+ every game but two. Short bench, inconsistent defense, players obviously worn out at this point in the season. When we were 7-0 we were averaging 85 ppg and were top ten in scoring as a team. We’ve only cracked 70 a couple of times since. I can’t believe things will be this bad next year when CJJ will have a full complement of schollie players.
I hate DSU, but I gotta give them props for their D. Another loss to them, and the series to them is out of whack. If we won every game with DSU for the next 20 years we would pull even with them in the series. We might have their number in football, but they got ours in BB.
Time to start the walk-ons. What’s the worst that could happen? A loss?
This^^^^