Winners of six in a row, Virginia Tech faces North Carolina on Saturday in Cassell Coliseum. Both teams will be looking for a big win to improve their respective NCAA Tournament resumes.

Ah, the NCAA Tournament. Yes, we are talking about that again. It was just a few weeks ago that the Hokies were 10-10, and we all figured they’d be 10-11 after a road trip to Florida State. Instead Tech is 16-10, and they’ve played their way back into the conversation. We’ll talk about the NCAA Tournament a little bit today, but I want to mainly focus on numbers that confirm Tech’s improved defensive play, and give some personal thoughts on what the Syracuse series has turned into over the years.

Improved Defense For Virginia Tech

On February 8, I wrote an article noting that Virginia Tech was No. 110 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency. That was just nine days ago, and since then the Hokies have moved all the way up to No. 79, according to the Ken Pomeroy metrics.

Perhaps there is no better indicator of Tech’s improved defense than what Storm Murphy and Sean Pedulla did on Monday night to UVA point guard Kihei Clark. The senior guard, who has won a National Championship and played against tons of good players in his career, finished with only two points and did not score until there was less than a minute remaining and the game had already been decided.

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