Virginia Tech Hammered by NC State 104-78

Buzz Williams

In a stark contrast from Saturday’s win over Duke, #21 Virginia Tech never led in 40 minutes of basketball against NC State.  The Wolfpack hammered the Hokies 104-78 on Wednesday night. Tech dropped to 12-2 overall and 1-1 in the ACC, while NC State improved to 12-3 and 1-1.

NC State came out scorching hot from the field, shooting 69.7% in the first half.  They didn’t cool off much in the second half, shooting 58.1%.  For the game, they were 41-of-64 (64.1%).  They rode their hot-shooting first half to a 55-30 halftime lead, and the game was effectively over at that point despite a 10-0 VT run to start the second half.

The hot Wolfpack offense was aided by porous Tech defense throughout the night.  NC State got to the basket at will and had numerous open looks from three-point range.  They had more energy than the Hokies from the opening tip.

Virginia Tech dished out 18 assists in the game, which is a big number, but they also committed an uncharacteristic 21 turnovers.  Coming into the game, Tech was #16 in the country in assist-to-turnover ratio, but obviously that number will take a hit after Wednesday night’s game.

Four Hokies scored in double figures, led by Ahmed Hill’s 17.  Chris Clarke had the best overall game of all Tech players, finishing with 15 points, four rebounds and five assists, but it was all for naught.  Tech played poorly on the offensive end in the first half, and they let it affect them on the defensive end against a very good offensive team.

NC State was led by future NBA lottery pick Dennis Smith, who had a triple double.  Smith finished with 27 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds, and while he did commit five turnovers (NC State had 17 turnovers as a team) it didn’t matter because the Hokies played a poor game.

Zach LeDay made his first start of the season in place of Khadim Sy, who was injured during the pre-game shootaround.  The extent of Sy’s injury is not known.  To make matters worse, Buzz Williams sent senior guard Seth Allen off the court with approximately eight minutes remaining to be checked for a concussion.  If Sy and Allen can’t play this weekend against Florida State, the Hokies will go into that game with a 6-man rotation.

Tech’s game with #12 Florida State tips off at 2pm on Saturday, and it will be televised by The ACC Network.  Check your local listings.

Box Score

11 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. When will we ever have all 13 scholarship players available for most of a season. Seems like every year we get down to 7 or 8 players available to play. Seems like this has been the case for the last 20 yrs.

    1. That’s been my line, 8 scholarship players in Seth Greenburg’s first year. I think, well, OK, that’s his first year but through transfers and injuries etc. we seem to get down to that magical 8 schollie number. I liked what Buzz did, just kind of fill out those missing Jr-Srs, first with Shane Henry, then Allen and LeDay, while filling out that pipeline. Well the pipeline should be producing those 3rd year seniors this year, especially the bigs like Blackshear and in general we should be seeing a full compliment of schollies for the first time in forever… Then we got down to 7 last year and if I’m reading this right “6 in the rotation.”

      I’m going with the Indian burial ground theorem, always thought that was step one, get a full team, half fr-sophs, half jr-srs. just hasn’t happened yet.

  2. Somebody said, during the Duke celebration, that there would be ups and downs. Had hoped the down would not have come quite this quickly. But now that we got that out of the way,

    Go Hokies beat the Seminoles!!!!

  3. I’m going to file this under the category of “fake news”. I don’t know that we’ll ever know what happened at NC State, but I refuse to accept it when Tech loses. Maybe the Russians hacked the score board?!

  4. Overall, a bad matchup. Any team with balanced scoring & size is going to give the Hokies trouble. And just like that, Tech is thin getting thinner.

  5. Disagree that Chris Clark had the best overall game… He was very porous and bad defensively. Stats might look nice but he did not play well. No one really do so i guess it is relative. but it would be misleading to say he had the best overall game. He was one of the worst defenders. People repeatedly drive by him when he was in on-ball defensive position. One person raised up at the FT and basically stepped by and past Clark easily. He was slow to recognize a person flashing across him to the mid-post for a pass and easy score. I am fan of Clark so this is not a Clark bashing session. Just don’t think he was the best player overall for VT even if he had some stats.

    1. Agree with your comments. He also had a number of turn overs and was “out of control” on numerous trips down the court. He has the talent but I also see need for much improvement in his game.

  6. First time I can remember leaving a VT game a few minutes early to beat traffic. That was a tough one to watch

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