THE SETUP

The Opposing View #1: Q&A ESPN’s Jay Bilas (duke grad)

The Opposing View #2: Q&A with the duke Basketball Report

Virginia Tech gets the royal screw job from the ACC, and themselves, this week.  First, the ACC schedules Tech to have to play at boston college (12-5, 3-1) just 41 hours after the Hokies finish up their game with #4 duke (15-1, 3-0) at home on Thursday night (ESPN, 7 PM).  Boston just happens to be the second furthest destination in the ACC for the Hokies, a solid 700 miles away.  To make matters worse, bc doesn’t have a game mid-week, so they will be well rested.  However, Tech did win at miami last year (and played great) after a short turnaround.  VT beat maryland at home on a Sunday night, then had to turn around and play at miami less than 48 hours later a mere 900 miles away.

Adding to the fun is the fact that Tech’s leading rebounder, leader in steals, second leading scorer, and second in blocks is suspended for both games this week after bumping an official upon fouling out against georgia tech on Saturday.  ACC Commissioner John Swofford suspended Jeff Allen on Sunday.  Never mind the fact duke’s gerald henderson only got a one game suspension for breaking the nose of unc’s tyler hansbrough last year on a flagrant foul.  I guess (tap on official) > (broken unc player’s nose).  But I digress.

THE NUMBERS

Good Stat: VT is 7-0 at home this season and 15-10 at home in ACC play.

Bad Stat: A.D. Vassallo is 5th in the ACC in turnovers.  That’s bad enough on its own, until you consider the fact that three of the guys ahead of him are true point guards and the other, super punk vasquez, has played the point off-and-on the last month. A.D. has 18 TOs in ACC and play and has had 7 in each of VT’s ACC losses.

Good Stat 2 (for good karma): VT was 11th in the ACC in Rebounding Margin at -0.6 last year, but is 5th so far this season at +4.8 and Tech has won the rebounding battle in all 4 ACC games.

THE GAMES

duke

There are a few pieces of good news for VT in this game:

• duke’s only legitimate low post player, 7’1″ brian zoubek, is out with an injury.  As a result, duke will play basically five guys that are guards or wing-type players.  Expect Tech to go small, filling Allen’s starting spot with another guard – Dorenzo Hudson.
• Virginia Tech is 7-0 at home this season.  With one more win (they have seven tries), Tech will clinch a winning home record at the Cassell for the 46th time in 47 seasons in the Cassell [yep, you guessed it, the one losing season was under ricky stokes]. 
• That’s about it.  Maybe duke will get food poisoning?

duke is not extremely deep, but they are talented.  They have five players that average more than one three per game, and four of them shoot better than 40% from behind the arc.  Virginia Tech has two – Delaney and Vassallo.  Also, because of their ability to shoot the three, duke forces your defense to spread out deep. This can lead to offensive boards for duke. Tech must collapse and find a body to check after the shot goes up.

Every duke player can also take it to the hole, expect for paulus. 

The duke bench is not deep but have two scoring threats in jon scheyer (11.4 ppg) and taylor king.  king, a 6’6″ freshman, averages 9 points per game in just 13 minutes!

Expect duke to press the Baby Hokie guards. It isn’t an aggressive press like clemson employs, but will force Tech to make smart passes and take care of the rock off the dribble.

For the Hokies to win this, they are going to have to hit a minimum of seven threes and win the turnover margin by five or more.  Tech must find ways to get easy hoops. 

bc

If I asked you who has owned Tech the most of these two opponents, the average person would say duke.  But VT has won two of the last four against duke and one of those losses was on a 45-foot shot at the buzzer at duke in 2005.

The eagles, on the other hand, have beaten the Hokies as regularly as Tech has been uva in football.  Tech is just 2-9 against bc since joining the Big East in 2000 and is 0-6 in Boston during that span. 

Well, there’s a first for everything, right?  It’s still better than clemson, who has NEVER won at unc.  The tigers are 0-52 at unc.  So we still have a ways to go to top that one.

The eagles are led by Richmond native tyrese rice.  He averages 19.6 ppg, second in the ACC behind hansbrough.  And, as the rumors have it, rice would have loved to come to VT but Tech took marquie cooke instead.

bc is not deep, going just three deep on their bench.  They basically only have one sub at guard, wing, and down low.  So foul trouble could impact them.  Again, if Tech is aggressive and pushes the tempo, they could draw fouls and force bc to go deeper on their bench than they want to. 

The eagles are also young.  Just three of their eight players that play are upperclassmen. 

Amazingly, bc is not near the top in any ACC statistical category except for shot blocks.  There, they are led by 6’11″ tyrell blair who averages over 4 per game.  But, Deron Washington dunked on him last year at bc, and I mean ON HIM.  Tech must take it at him, but be smart.  He’ll gamble for the block so an extra dish in the paint could pay off if VT’s guys go at the hoop.

Tech can win this game if they can defend bc’s starting guards.  VT must do a better job of defending the three in this game, though that’s not really bc’s main weapon.  bc wants to drive to the hoop.  The Hokies must cut off bc’s penetration and force them to chuck it from deep – contested, at least.  Not wide open like at georgia tech.

THE LINEUPS

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