Fifty-one seconds in, Elizabeth Kitley caught Georgia Amoore’s pass in the high post, took a step back and fired a shot before it rimmed in and out of the hoop. Azana Baines was under the basket, came up with the rebound over two Liberty defenders before the Hokies passed the ball around until finding an open second-chance opportunity.
Amoore, the Hokies’ do-it-all point guard, fired a shot up at the top of the arc over the Flames’ Dee Brown. Her three-point attempt, which had found the bottom of the basket 50% of the time in her last two games, flew short and a little wide left.
In the fourth quarter, Aisha Sheppard threw a pass intended for Kitley into the arms of Mya Berkman. Though Liberty didn’t score after Sheppard turned the ball over, its defense smothered Kayana Traylor’s three-point attempt on the Hokies’ next possession.
Virginia Tech (7-3) couldn’t successfully dissect the Flames’ defense (8-1) in its 59-40 loss to Liberty in Lynchburg, Va. Tuesday night.
An uncharacteristic poor shooting performance didn’t help the Hokies either — they finished 28% from the field and 22% from beyond the arc. VT conceded a season-high 19 turnovers, five more than its made field goals (14). Aside from Sheppard’s 17-point, 6-for-10 night, the Flames’ plan to guard the paint — while allowing Tech to find open shots on the perimeter — worked.
Amoore was 2-of-10 from the field and 0-of-5 from deep. Cayla King, VT’s Swiss army knife, missed all seven shots she took, six from beyond the arc. And Kitley, who shot 1-of-12 against Tennessee on Sunday, only scored seven points on seven shots.
It should have been another non-conference win for Virginia Tech, who grinded through a six-point loss to No. 11 Tennessee just two days before. After all, the Hokies had blown out Liberty 81-66 in their second game of the season last year. Plus, sharpshooter Emily Lytle now played for Tech.
But whatever could go wrong for Brooks’ squad went wrong. Kitley was out-muscled on the boards as Liberty out-rebounded Tech 43-33. It wasn’t like the Hokies were closely guarded; rather, they were simply missing wide open shots on the perimeter.
When VT drove inside, the defense swarmed, but didn’t draw contact to send the Hokies to the line. Instead, when pressured, they settled for tough shots with a defender or two in their face.
Brooks was a tad critical of Kitley after his team’s loss on Sunday, saying that she needed to build more confidence particularly when playing against defenders that matched up against and pressured her 6-foot-6 frame. On Tuesday, she struggled to create shots or space for herself as the Flames turned their attention to guard her down low.
In turn, with the defense turning its attention to the paint, it opened up wide open looks from outside the arc that the Hokies simply didn’t knock down. Twenty-one of the 27 shots they took from deep went long, wide, or short. And when Virginia Tech shoots poorly, its offense typically looks down low for its center to bail the team out. Against Liberty, Tech didn’t have that luxury.
Brooks commonly uses “pick your poison” when describing his team’s offense, referring to his opponents choosing whether to defend Kitley in the paint or stop the typical three-point barrage his team is used to seeing.
But on Tuesday, there was no poison. Liberty found the antidote.
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So, what’s going on at Liberty University? Their men’s basketball team make’s the NCAA tournament regularly, their football team is vying for the CFP, and now their women’s basketball team trounces a tech team that’s won something like 40 non-conference games in a row. The world is a’ changing.