Cool, crisp, refreshing, and with a little bit of a kick. That’s Niemo.
Sunday Update:
- maryland blew a 20 point lead with under 12 minutes to go and lost to clemson. This is a very good thing for the Hokies. It means that with a win on Tuesday, Tech will clinch finishing ahead of maryland, wake, and georgia tech, in addition to the other four teams VT has clinched finishing ahead of already. So with a win Tuesday, the Hokies can finish no worse than 5th in the regular season and will be within a miami loss (2 games left) or VT win over clemson of clinching a bye in the ACC Tournament. If Tech wins out, they will have the #3 seed in the ACC Tourney.
Random Thoughts:
- With the Hokies’ win at maryland last week, Tech has now won at 9 of the 11 ACC away venues. Actually, VT has won at every one that doesn’t have “state” in the name. Yep, fsu and nc state are the only places the Hokies have yet to scratch out a win. VT is 0-3 at both.
- I was happy to see Tech being less selfish on the break recently. For most of the season, whomever had the ball on the fastbreak might have well been alone. Tech’s players weren’t passing on the break, instead going at the hoop and getting fouled, or not scoring at all. Now, Hokies are looking to dish on the break and the result has been some easy buckets. Even Jeff Allen made a great pass to Malcolm Delaney on the break against bc this past week.
- While I sometimes question how good of an offensive coach Seth Greenberg is, he certainly does a great job of teaching guards to value the ball. Tech’s freshman point guards don’t commit many turnovers, a must when you play grind-it-out games and need to value each possession. Hank Thorns is 5th in the ACC in assist-turnover ratio (1.9) and is the only freshman in the top nine. Malcolm Delaney also has a solid 1.33 ratio.
- The Hokies must win their next 3 games to make the NCAAs. Period. If Tech loses any of the next three, they are NIT bound. If they win the next three, pencil them in. And if Tech wins their next two, they will be the #3 seed in the ACC Tourney.
- And you thought VT struggled with guarding guards? Tyrese Rice had 34 points AT THE HALF against unc on Saturday. But bc still managed to blow an 18 point 2nd half lead and lose big as Rice finished with 46. sean singletary had 41 against miami (and they lost), while Jack McClinton had a career high 34.
- Went to see Semi-Pro last night, the new “basketball” movie with Will Ferrell as an ABA team owner/coach/player. To be honest, I don’t remember a lot of it after several hours of Rockband and tallboys beforehand. I think it was pretty funny though. And I know for sure everyone in the theater hated our group.
- Did you happen to see the highlight of the duke blue devil mascot blowing out his knee on Thursday night? If not, check this out: Watch out for that one foot drop Sad, but REALLY funny.
Random Stats:
- In ACC play, VT is 6-0 when outrebounding, shooting more free throws, and having fewer turnovers than their opponent (or at least tying in each category). VT is 2-3 when winning two of those three things. And VT is 0-3 when losing at least two of those three categories.
- The Hokies are 11-0 when leading at the half and 4-0 in ACC play.
- Tech is 8-0 in games they have led at any point in the 2nd half in ACC play since the first wake game back in December. Yep, that’s right, they have not led in the 2nd half of any of their five losses since then. Conversely, Tech has trailed at some point in the 2nd half in 5 of their 8 ACC wins. Pretty crazy. Really demonstrates how good VT is in tight games and with a lead.
- VT is 13-3 this season in games where neither team reached the 70 point mark in regulation, including 11-1 since the Hokies got back from their Alaska/penn state trip. Tech is just 4-8 when either team surpasses 70 in regulation. The power of 69 continues!
Just for Davey:
- Turnover margin is a great indicator of who wins the game. VT has lost the turnover margin battle in 9 of their 11 losses (nc state and miami were the exceptions). To the contrary, Tech has won or tied in turnover margin in 16 of their 17 wins. At uva is the lone exception, and VT lost the turnover margin by just 1 in that game.Â
- The Hokies averaged 14.1 turnovers out of conference and 16.0 in conference. Not bad considering ACC defenses are better than what Tech faced OOC.Â
- Tech has had more than 17 turnovers in just 3 of their last 15 games, after eclipsing the 20 mark in 3 of 4 December games. So the freshman guards do seem to be getting more comfortable with the level of competition.
Just for VTH50: Tech’s bench has outscored the opponent’s bench in 8 of the 14 ACC games. The Hokies are 6-2 when getting more bench points than the opposition; 2-4 when they don’t.
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Thought you said you’d look up the bench scoring during the by week… that is if our bench outscores our opponent’s bench lol.
It’s still the bye week, chief. I have until Tuesday.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology
So, TechHoopsters, check out the latest new arrival to Bracketology at ESPN… Joe Lunardi has us in the bracket!!! Granted, we’re a 13 seed… which basically makes us one of the last four at-large seeds… but what progress!!!
StatBoy: How have turnovers and turnover ratio changed over the season? It seems like that’s gone from a new freshmen weakness to the good old reliability in just a couple months.
You are right on with the NCAA prediction with one caveat. We need to win 3 games, doesn’t have to be the next 3. I think we are still in if we win 1 of our final 2 and 2 in the tourney, but that’s really wishful thinking. 3 is the magic number though. I don’t see how we get in going 2-1 the next 3.
We need 20 wins to get to the tournament… because our RPI is weak.
According to Bill Dyer of the Virginia Tech Athletic Communications office (Bill focuses on basketball), we are 10-4 when our bench outscores our opponent’s bench. The four
losses are NC State, Wake Forest, Gonzaga, Butler.
Haven’t we played 28 games?
When our opponent’s bench outscores our bench, we are 7-7.
I was just looking at ACC games, hence why I said in ACC games.
maryland blew an 18 point lead to clemson… that is hilarious… I think the turtle’s bubble was burst tonight… this leaves Virginia Tech in sole possession of 4th place in the ACC…
If you all recall, I said we’d have to really Virginia Tech must watch oglelsby when he’s in the game for clemson when we play them… maryland did not do that tonight and he killed the terps… hopefully, Seth has a game plan to deny that oglesby the ball.
in fact, I might be understating the lead that the terps blew… it might have been in the low 20′s..
Yeah, they were up 59-39. Clemson went on a 14-1 run, then maryland took the lead back out to about 13; it was pretty much all clemson after that. This all came with hammonds and rivers doing absolutely nothing. They have some ridiculous talent inside and quite the outside threat in oglesby.