THE SETUP

The Virginia Tech Hokies will look to whack the longwood lancers at the Cassell on Sunday afternoon in the annual “Here’s an excuse to take a few hours off from studying for finals” classic.  This is the first time the schools have ever met in basketball.  Before you just chalk this one up as a ‘W’ for the Hokies… nah, I’m not even going to try and sell you on how this might be a game.  Tech’s going to win this one. 

Or are they?!  The Hokies have won just one game by more than nine points, and they have yet to win a home game by double digits. 

Come on, forget it, Tech is going to win this game going away.

Or are they?!  longwood stiffened up on November 18th and beat gardner-webb 85-84, a team the Hokies beat by just three points. 

Give me a break.  Forget the transitive property logic.  By that you could somehow make uva a quality sports program.  Hmm, but I bet that would take a relationships.

Alright, I’ll just come out and say it.  Virginia Tech will leave longwood limp by Sunday evening.  The Hokies will come out and play loose in their only game in an 11 day span and thrust past longwood.

THE OPPONENT

• Location: Farmville, VA
• Nickname: lancers  (hmm… longwood… lancers… you do the math)
• Enrollment: 3700 undergrad, 700 grad
• Student Ratio: 65% chicks!
• History: Became a university in 2002
• Conference: None for basketball, they are an independent; they just entered D1 in June 2007
• Famous Students: Jerome Kersey (bball), Michael Tucker (baseball), Jason Mraz (awful, awful singer), and Pat McGee (singer)
• Other Boring Facts: KD and ZTA were founded at longwood
• The school was NOT named for Davey Woods, that’s for sure

Wins: va-wise, gardner-webb, @md-eastern shore, delaware state, and jmu (man is jmu awful at bball)

Losses: norfolk state, @wvu, @kentucky, and se missouri state

longwood is powered by 6’5″ junior wing man, Dana Smith.  He leads the team in scoring (16.4), rebounding (7.3), and steals (1.3).  He shoots an amazing 58% from the field, despite being 2/17 on threes.  That tells you Dana plays near the rim.  Tech must keep him off the offensive glass, where he averages three offensive rebounds per game.  They almost must force him to receive the ball away from the hoop, stop his penetration, and double him when he gets the ball near the rim.

Ryan Bogan is the lancers’ next best player on offense, averaging 14.2 ppg.  The 6’1″ senior guard is a good outside shooter, hitting 37% of his threes and making over two per game.

The other starters include C Antwan Carter (only 6’6″), G Durann Neil (6’1″), and G Kevin Swecker (6’1″).  Of the guys that see significant minutes off the bench, only one is over 6’2″.  Obviously the Hokies are much longer than longwood.  Tech should be able to post up just about anyone except for Hank Thorns.  The Hokies should pound the ball inside against longwood and let Jeff Allen and Victor Davila go to work, maybe even posting up A.D. Vassallo or Dorenzo Hudson.  The key will be keeping Allen out of foul trouble, which has been a problem of late.

That said, since the lancers will run a lot of guards at you, Tech must fall back on defense and eliminate transition buckets.  Also, help defense will be critical as the smaller guys for lu potentially beat the bigger Hokies off the dribble.

Overall, longwood cannot go deep (that’s what she said).  They are just 57/204 on three-pointers this season, a woeful 28%.  They aren’t all that great inside the arc either, hitting just 40% of their shots.  However, georgia was a pathetic offensive team and Virginia Tech let them explode for 38 first half points thanks to poor help and transition defense.  The Hokies have to get back to play aggressive, tough-nosed defense and really lock down opponents.  They need to sever the longwood offense and render it limp.

Again, the key is to stopping Smith.  Part of that is slowing down Bogan and not letting him drive and score or dish to Smith.