Despite a good first half, Virginia Tech fell to Maryland 64-47 on Tuesday night. The Hokies led 29-28 at halftime, but were outscored 36-18 in the second half. Tech fell to 9-20 overall, and 2-15 in the ACC. It marks the first time since 1955 that the Hokies have lost 20 games in a season. Maryland improved to 16-14 overall and 8-9 in the ACC with the win.
Tech came out strong in this game, as Maryland only made 11 field goals in the first half. However, the big difference was Virginia Tech’s offense from the first half to the second half. The Hokies scored 29 points in the first half and shot 37% from the field and 50% from three-point range. In the second half, they only scored 18 points while shooting 22.7% from the field and 12.5% from three-point range.
Virginia Tech got a career-high 14 points and nine rebounds from Joey van Zegeren. He had just two points and no rebounds in Tech’s last game against UNC, so it was good to see him get back on track. Jarell Eddie also added 14 points and five rebounds.
Freshman forward Trevor Thompson had six points and 10 rebounds, but he also had seven of Tech’s 17 turnovers. Freshman guard Devin Wilson only had five points on 1-of-10 shooting. He had four assists and four turnovers.
The Hokies return to action this Saturday against Georgia Tech. Though the Yellow Jackets have had a down season, they did knock off Syracuse on Tuesday night in the Carrier Dome. Tipoff is scheduled for 2pm, and the game will be televised by ESPN2.
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I have just one word for that game last night: regression. The Hokies were doing good during the last stretch of games…even though they were losing, they were keeping up with teams much better than them and much deeper benches. But last night, they regressed back to silly mistakes/turnovers, silly fouls, and poor shooting. The upcoming GT game and our almost guaranteed single ACC championship game will tell us if they just had a bad night or if the problems are back.
We have lost 40% of our ACC games by more than 15+ pts. Some of the latest losses had us ahead at the half. Is this more indicative of 1) Opp not taking us seriously until the second half, or 2) We are improving but don’t have the horses to keep up for 40 minutes. The only ACC wins we have are an OT win by 1 pt and a 7 pt win where UM forgot where the rim was and scored only 45 pts. I took a few minutes this morning to look over the season as a whole and was hoping for some encouraging signs…..I found none.
For the record, there were a lot of empty seats at Comcast last night…not unlike we see at Cassell on a regular basis. It just goes to show you that it doesn’t matter how nice or modern the arena is, if the product is bad, people won’t show up…except for crazy people like me who support the team no matter what…or people who are gluttons for punishment.
1st half was very entertaining. Highlight of the game was halftime with the Simon Sez guy. And then the 2nd half happened.
Playing a team in last place certainly doesn’t help attendance.
Really – who wants to watch VT play. We are very bad and the style we have to play to even stay in a game is boring to watch.
Maryland isn’t that great either this year. The point is that this is a major urban area with a relatively new and modern arena, and they still have a LOT (~50%) of empty seats for a conference game.
I stand by my earlier statement, the arena doesn’t matter if the product is good. The product makes the arena.
We MUST have a “name brand” coach!!!!
agree!!!
Maryland had open shoys and we attacked the basaket with 10 seconds on the shot clock. We don’t have a very good plan. Some changes have to be made. please.
I agree bad X’s and O’s coach. Bring in some excitement with a new coach
Is Bobby Knight too old?
Why not Phil Jackson?