Erick Green (2009 verbal) recently played in the Reebok Summer Championships in Las Vegas. The tournament featured John Wall, #1 in the Class of 2009. In the quarterfinals, Erick helped lead Triple Threat to a victory with 18 points. This should silence some of his critics that say he faces only AA competition in the regular season.

In case you missed it, ESPN as part of their “Candyland” lifestyle developed Prestige Rankings for 300 Division I basketball programs over the last 24 seasons (since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams… later 65*).  It didn’t turn out well for Virginia Tech.  The O&M finished tied for #210.  Kick to the groin ouch!

The study used a points system based on things like NCAA Tournament appearances and wins, regular season and post-season conference titles, 20 or 30 win seasons, All-Americans, NIT appearances and titles, and NBA Draft picks (high picks).   You lose points for losing seasons or NCAA bans. 

The Hokies finished with negative points.  Here’s my best guess at their point total (ESPN didn’t share the actual number):

• NCAA Tournament Appearances: 4 (’85, ’86, ’96, ’07) – 4 points
• NCAA Tourney Wins: 2 (’96, ’07) – 6 points
• NIT Appearances: 3 (’95, ’05, ’08) – 3 points
• NIT Title: ’95 – 2 points
• 20-29 win seasons: 6 (’85, ’86, ’95, ’96, ’07, ’08) – 6 points
• AP 2nd-team All-American: Curry – 2 points
• Losing seasons: 13 (Moir – 1, Allen – 3, Foster – 3, Hussey – 2, stokes – 3, Greenberg -1) – (-39 points)
• I can’t remember if Tech got a NCAA Tournament ban in the late ’80s for Coach Allen’s efforts, but I believe they did, including a Metro Tournament ban in ’89.  So I won’t count this but that would be an additional -3.

Adds up to at least -16.  That’s, uh, not good.  That stinks.  I can’t blame stokes for all of it, but he sure didn’t help it.  Unfortunately, they don’t give points for “almosts” or “one-aways”, like almost made the Sweet 16 or one win from the ACC regular season title, etc.

Now that VT finally has a conference home (we hope), stability should help things. If you think about it, the Hokies have been in four conferences during this study: Metro (start of study to ’95), A-10 (’95-’00), Big East (’00-’04), and then the ACC. That certainly didn’t help things (nor did ricky stokes).

Only seven “BCS” schools are lower and VT is dead last in the ACC, 65 points behind miami. northwestern is the worst of the BCS schools. south florida is also in there, a former stopping point of Seth.

Since Seth arrived, the Hokies are +5 in his five seasons and +7 in the last two years!  So things are looking up (finally) and maybe VT can get in the black soon.

*Niemo’s Random Rant: Can someone explain why they went to 65?  Makes no sense.  68?  Maybe… then there’s a feeder for each #1 seed.  Or 72.  But 65???  I think the same guy (or girl) that decided on this is the same person that invented “half the distance to the goal line” in football.  Seriously, I’m going to commit a penalty, but the refs are only going to enforce half of it since the other team is close to scoring on us… so it is OK to cheat when you are up against the wall.  Can you imagine if the judicial system was this way?  Well, he should get 10 years for murder, but he’s only going to live another 10 so we’ll just have him serve 5.  Sweet.

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