Virginia Tech Basketball Needs Bounce Back Wins Against Cornell, Dayton

Virginia Tech men’s basketball didn’t look like itself on Saturday vs. Wake Forest.

In the 80-61 loss, the Hokies couldn’t do what they had done all season: Play good defense. Even when the offense stalled and couldn’t produce anything in the first eight games, the team continued to fight and get stops. That wasn’t the case in the ACC opener, and it was strange.

Point guard Storm Murphy said he felt like something was off after the game. Forward Justyn Mutts mentioned afterwards that he felt like the team was disconnected, that it wasn’t “five fingers in a fist,” as he described. Mike Young seemed confused, as to why he wasn’t sure what happened to his team. 

A team with such a veteran leadership presence, one that has many players with career minutes ranging from 1,500 to 4,000, seemed discombobulated. No one was really sure how to explain it, and Young still seemed a bit confuddled on Tech Talk Live on Monday.

“We were worse,” Young said. “I don’t know. Trying to figure out young people. … We were lethargic and I thought – which I’ve never seen this in our three years together, I’ve never seen our defense affect our offense. I thought our lack of getting shots contested and fighting on that end in the last eight minutes was difficult.”

Young was adamant that the Hokies will play better this week against Cornell (9 p.m. ET on Wednesday) and Dayton (2 p.m. ET on Sunday). It would come as a surprise to many if Tech didn’t, quite honestly, simply because the core of the group has been through tough times before. Murphy mentioned a specific instance at Wofford where the Terriers lost seven straight regular season games to end the year but then won three in a row, coming face-to-face with Steve Forbes and ETSU in the SoCon title.

“We came together as a team, I remember that, and what it took to have the belief, despite losing seven in a row when we were on a bad stretch and not playing like ourselves,” Murphy said. “I think the belief, what coach was talking to us just in that locker room, about the promise that this team has, keep our heads up, and I think a lot of players on this team have a ton of experience with that and know what we need to do.

“Just lock in and get in the gym a lot more and work out what’s wrong and we’ll come out on the other side.”

Young mentioned that a lot of little things went wrong, but they’re easily correctable. He also said Tech had a great Monday practice and will be ready to go on Wednesday against Cornell. The team just got shocked by Wake Forest, though, so how it responds in these next two games will be very important to watch.

With road trips to Duke and North Carolina after the next three non-conference games, it’s even more important that the Hokies work out the kinks with the intangibles now. We’ll find out this week.

Cornell

Game Details:

Virginia Tech (6-3, 0-1 ACC) vs. Cornell (8-1)
Location: Cassell Coliseum, Blacksburg, Va.
Time: 9:00 p.m. ET
Television: ACC Network
Tickets: Link

The Big Red

Surprisingly, Virginia Tech and Cornell have never met.

The Big Red will be the fifth Ivy League school the Hokies have faced, joining Brown (VT holds 2-0 record), Columbia (1-0), Princeton (1-0) and Yale (0-1). The most recent game against an Ivy League program was in March of 2016 against Princeton in the NIT. Tech knocked off the Tigers in overtime, 86-81.

A 7-20 team in 2019-20, Brian Earl (brother Dan coaches VMI) has yet to have a plus-.500 team in five seasons at Cornell. That is, until this year. The Big Red are off to a hot start, and their only loss was by nine to Penn State. A three-time Ivy League champ as a player with Princeton, Earl has been the head man at Cornell since 2016. He was the conference’s player of the year in 1999, and he was an assistant/associate head coach at Princeton from 2007-16. 

Jordan Jones is the main force for the Big Red. A 6-5 junior forward from Thousand Oaks, Calif., Jordan is averaging 14.0 points per game and is shooting a 46% clip from the floor. He had a season-high 20 points in Cornell’s opener against Binghamton back in November, but in the team’s one loss, the Nittany Lions limited him to just six points.

Here’s the starting five for the Big Red:

Greg Dolan (6-3, Jr., Williamsville, N.Y.): 6.9 ppg, 50% FG, 3.9 rpg, 3.2 apg
Sarju Patel (6-3, Sr., Daleville, Va.): 9.7 ppg, 44% FG, 30% 3FG, 4.0 rpg
Chris Manon (6-5, So., New Milford, N.J): 9.7 ppg, 49% FG, 4.1 rpg, team-high 15 stl
Jordan Jones (6-5, Jr., Thousand Oaks, Calif.): 14.0 ppg, 46% FG, 76% FT, 3.3 rpg
Kobe Dickson (6-9, Sr., Holcomb, Kan.): 6.8 ppg, 49% FG, 6.6 rpg, team-high 3.9 apg, 15 blk

Unlike Virginia Tech’s three previous opponents, Cornell isn’t very large and lengthy. The Big Red do push the pace, though – they’re No. 2 in average possession length (14.1 seconds), per KenPom, and are tenth in adjusted tempo. They’re also an efficient shooting team and are No. 15 in effective FG% (56.9) and 16th in 2P% (57.8).

Where Cornell struggles is its defense. It’s able to play solid defense against the likes of Binghamton, Lafayette, St. Francis and Coppin State, but teams like Penn State and Virginia Tech are on a different level. 

What the Nittany Lions did that really frustrated the Big Red was limit their three-point shooting. It’s not a stat that completely jumps out, but it’s a solid one: Cornell is No. 50 in 3P% (37.3%) and No. 57 in 3P% defense (29.0%). Earl’s team really benefits from good shooting from deep, and the group has done a good job against teams in limiting that same shot on the other end of the floor.

Where Penn State succeeded was it flipped the script. The Nittany Lions only allowed Cornell to make nine of its 32 attempts (28%) and shot a 44% clip (15-34) at the same time.

Virginia Tech is third in 3P% defense this year, allowing opponents to shoot just 23.4%. Against Wake Forest, the Demon Deacons were 7-16 (43.8%). Not allowing buckets from behind the arc is crucial.

One player to watch is Keller Boothby off the bench. A 6-7 sophomore from Plano, Texas, he’s a sharpshooter. He averages the second-most points on the team with 10, and he’s shot 57% from three this season. Boothby is a 59% shooter in general, and he’s hit 90% from the free throw line, too. A solid rebounder (4.7 rpg), Boothby is the guy to lock down for Virginia Tech to limit Cornell’s spark from outside its starting five.

“They really shoot it and they fly,” Mike Young said of Brian Earl’s team on Tech Talk Live. “They are No. 1 in the country in pace of play. So a Hokie basket and here they come like a herd of buffaloes and a shots going up from three. They’ve got a number of guys that can shoot it. They play a lot of people.”

Dayton

Virginia Tech (6-3, 0-1 ACC) vs. Dayton (6-3)
Location: University of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio
Time: 2:00 p.m. ET
Television: ESPN2
Tickets: Link 

The Flyers

Virginia Tech and Dayton are familiar foes as of late, having met in the Maui Invitation in 2019. Obi Toppin hit ten of his 14 attempts from the floor and finished with 24 points and eight rebounds in the Flyers’ 89-62 win.

Led by Anthony Grant, who’s been the head coach at Dayton since 2017, the Flyers are 84-44 with two NIT appearances. Dayton would’ve been a high seed, potentially No. 1, in 2020 after finishing with a 29-2 record, though the NCAA Tournament was canceled due to COVID. The Flyers finished 14-10 in 2021 after losing to Memphis in the NIT. The University of Dayton Arena holds 13,455.

Dayton is Virginia Tech’s fifth top-100 KenPom opponent (at No. 94) in the last six games, following Memphis (35), Xavier (31), Maryland (53) and Wake Forest (59). The Flyers are an efficient team on both ends of the court, though they got off to a rough start to the season.

After losing three straight games to UMass Lowell, Lipscomb and Austin Peay, Grant’s squad rebounded. Wins against Miami (95 in KenPom), then-No. 4 Kansas (5) and Belmont (58) were huge for the Flyers. Now, they sit at 6-3, and they travel to SMU (78) on Wednesday when Tech hosts Cornell.

Elijah Weaver (6-6, r-Jr., Cocoa, Fla.) and Toumani Camala (6-8, So., Brussels, Belgium) have led the way for Dayton so far this season.

Though Weaver came off the bench in the last game, he led the Flyers with 16 points. He did not play against Alabama State on Dec. 1, but he’s averaging a team-high 10.9 points per game, has shot 56% from the floor and 45% from deep. Camala is an interior presence, and he’s really efficient. He’s averaging 10.6 points and 6.2 rebounds per game, and shoots 51% from the floor.

The starting five from Dayton’s last two games:

Malachi Smith (6-0 Fr, Bronx, N.Y.): 9.4 ppg, 59% FG, 44% 3FG, 92% FT, 4.1 rpg, 4.2 apg
Kobe Elvis (6-2, r-Fr., Brampton, Ont.): 6.8 ppg, 46% FG, 33% 3FG, 2.0 rpg
R.J. Blakney (6-6, r-Fr., Baltimore, Md.): 5.3 ppg, 41% FG, 29% 3FG, 2.8 rpg
Toumani Camala (6-8, So., Brussels, Belgium): 10.6 ppg, 51% FG, team-high 6.2 rpg
Daron Holmes (6-10, Fr., Goodyear, Ariz.): 9.9 ppg, 63% FG, 5.0 rpg, 24 blk

The first two things that should stick out are how tall and how efficient the Flyers are. It’s a more favorable matchup in terms of size than Wake Forest or Memphis were, but Dayton consistently gets good looks. Grant & Co. are No. 15 (57.9%) in 2P%, per KenPom, and No. 40 in effective FG% (54.9%). They don’t shoot the three well, though.

Dayton wants to push it into the interior, and it’s a solid offensive rebounding team (No. 45 in off. reb %). The Flyers grabbed 43 rebounds in each of their last two games, and they’ve shot 47% or better in each of their last six games. This is a game where Virginia Tech’s defense is going to need to come to play.

One area where the Hokies can take advantage is turnovers. Dayton is No. 271 in turnover percentage (21.2%). There have been only two games – UIC, Alabama St. – where the team didn’t turn the ball over at least 13 times. Tech needs to make the most of those mistakes and capitalize.

“They struggled early,” Mike Young said of Dayton. “Lost some games I know they didn’t expect to lose, but Anthony Grant up there is a friend, a good coach. They stuck with it, plugged, and hung in there. They went to Orlando, I think it was, and won a tournament down there, beat Kansas, beat a good Belmont team to win the thing.

“It will be a great test for us and a great lead up, really good lead up, as will the St. Bonaventure game, for ACC play.”