Categorized | 2012-13 Season, Game Recaps

Game Recap | gsu (4-5) 78, VT (8-2) 73

Posted on15 December 2012. Tags: ,

Boxscore

Chalk this one up as the first ‘embarrassing’ loss in the James Johnson era as a 3-5 georgia southern team that was 1-5 against Division I opponents on the year and 0-2 in the Southern Conference came into Blacksburg and picked up their first ever win over an ACC team with a 78-73 win over the Hokies.

The sad thing is the game wasn’t as close as the final score.  Tech never led in this game.  I repeat, the Hokies never led in this game, and other than 0-0, VT never tied this game.  The Hokies trailed for the entire final 39:44 of the game.

The Hokies did make it interesting though.  Tech trailed by 14 with 5 minutes to go, but cut it to 3 with 54 seconds left and had the ball with 30 seconds to go.  But Erick Green missed a 3-pointer to tie the game with 23 seconds left and that was all she wrote.

How could we lose to an absolutely awful team, you ask?  Well, if you read this site a lot, one stat will tell it all: gsu was 11/26 (42%) on 3-pointers, VT was 6/27 (22%) and that was after starting 0/11 from deep.  Tech didn’t make their first 3-pointer until 3 minutes into the 2nd half.  Jarell Eddie, who was shooting 51% from deep coming in, started 0/7 from long range and finished 3/13.

Meanwhile, Reed and Roberts knocked down 9/17 from deep for gsu.  They were shooting 50% from deep combined coming in, so apparently the Hokies didn’t get the memo.   For the second time in three games Tech got destroyed by 3-point shooting.

Tech’s other bugaboo came into play, too.  While Tech grabbed 18 offensive rebounds (42% of their misses), they allowed the eagles to get 44% of their misses (16 offensive rebounds).  gsu regularly could launch a three and know that it would either go in 42% of the time, or they’d get their miss another 44% of the time.

The lone bright spot in this game was Erick Green extended his 20+ point streak to 10 games with a career-high tying 28 points.  He was 12/22 from the field.  The rest of the team was 15/46 (33%).

Robert Brown produced a whopping 4 points (he had 4 against mvsu, too) and Cadarian Raines, who was basically benched for Joey van Zegeren much of the game, was held scoreless for the second straight game.

Pardon me if I’m being too negative, but this was a BAD loss.  And I’m not just talking NCAA Tournament (because you can put your Bracketology dreams back in the attic for a while).  I’m just saying an ACC team should not lose, let alone get dominated (again, don’t let the final score fool you – gsu dominated this game) by an 0-2 Southern Conference team.

Luckily, Tech automatically advances to the ‘big boys’ bracket of the Las Vegas Classic and will face bradley next Saturday.  gsu will have to play mvsu in the semi-finals of the lil boys bracket.

This post was written by:

- who has written 1106 posts on Tech Hoops.

Niemo is a member of the VT Class of '98. Attended every home basketball game during his 4 years at VT after missing the first home game. Has attended 122 straight VT football home games (every game since '94), eclipsing the 100 mark in September of '09. During the final home basketball game of his senior year, he was brought onto the court and was awarded 2 passes to the Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament in Philly during a timeout. The Hokie Bird made the award on behalf of Athletic Director Jim Weaver. Niemo was known to be in the front row of every home game with his familiar red afro hairdo. Niemo currently lives in DC and speaks the Hokie gospel as often as possible. He watches over 50% of all ACC games, making him one of the most knowledgeable experts on ACC basketball.

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  • Chris

    You’re not being overly negative, Niemo. You’re probably being too kind actually. I had the same “Bracketology dreams” up until about an hour ago, but it goes without saying they’ve been dashed. I’m just going to take it game-by-game with the team at this point, and just hope to see improvement as the season goes on.

    Yes, on paper, the 3 point shooting was the difference. If we had made a couple of more and them a couple less, I’m sure we would have won. However, that’s not the big story, IMO. This will probably be construed as overly negative but… our bigs are soft. Tissue paper soft. There is absolutely no excuse to get out-rebounded by a team 1-5 vs Div 1A schools. None. They don’t box out, they don’t fight for loose balls, and far too often are they pushed around by guys smaller than them. Maybe they’re afraid of getting in foul trouble, I don’t know. But it’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen as pitiful at rebounding as this one.

    If the rebounding doesn’t get improved, we’re going to get manhandled by ACC teams.

    Absolutely inexcusable loss. Curious to see how they play in Vegas now. Do they continue to play lethargic, or do they play angry? Bradley and (potentially) Colorado St. would be solid wins. We’ll see what happens.

  • 69HOKIE

    Dittos to Chris. We need SOMEBODY (even a walk-on) to be a demon on the boards. What’s with Raines? What happened to the chemistry and passion during the first 7 or 8 games?

    I’m still pulling for them, but it will be an interesting next 5 or 6 games.

    • Niemo

      To be fair to Raines, he got benched. Not sure why other than a quick foul. But he got taken out of this game.

      I also thought JJ did a poor job of NOT using his timeouts.

  • http://www.saturdaysinblacksburg.tumblr.com Blue Collar Hokie

    facepalm

  • 69HOKIE

    This is where JJ starts earning his money. With him being a rookie, it will be interesting to watch him, and also how the team reacts.

    I’m hoping he figures it out, and the team responds with a much better effort. We can still have a good season, but they have to want it.

    • Niemo

      To your point, 69, it is easy being a ‘players coach’ when you are winning. It is much harder when you are losing and veterans like Raines are sitting the bench. How this team responds the next 3 games will go a long way. If we continue to play poorly entering ACC play, it could be a long winter. If we get back to being scrappy, then we can compete in a down ACC. It is up to the players as to how much effort they want to put out.

      • 69HOKIE

        I agree. Kinda makes you wonder what’s going on. What changed? Is there some issue?

        I still think we could have a decent season. Let’s hope it gets fixed.

  • King

    Frustrating loss. 100% agree with Chris. Our front court is Downy soft, reminiscent of Davila. Raines should be playing like a beast and he’s not. I think the young guys follow his lead and emulate his style style. This is going to haunt us all season unless they toughen up and start sticking their nose in traffic.

    Once again, saw us doubling the post WAY out by the 3 point line, leading to a wide open layup. Why do we continue to do this? It doesn’t work. Stop it.

    Marshall Wood needs to stop chucking 3s. He should be fighting for offensive rebound put-backs for now. We don’t need another 3 point shooter. We need someone crashing the offensive glass.

    Let Green go for 30-35 points every night. He can get it. He’s a star and we should be turning him loose.

    We seem to be playing slower and slower every game, settling in to a half-court offense. We picked up the D late when we were trailing. We should be starting games that way. Way too many uncontested 3s for Georgia Southern. We looked a lot like last year’s team.

    • http://www.thegarycope.com Cope-acabana

      I sat with Will Stewart at the game and we both said the same thing. Sometimes we’d double a guy out to mid-court and then give up an easy basket. Not sure what the strategy is with that defense, but if it doesn’t work against mississippi valley state and gsu, then you can be darn sure that it won’t work against ACC teams.

      And our bigs are unbelievably soft. I’ve said it more than a few times, but JvZ is a pushover. Maybe it’s the Euro style in him, but my God, he doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body. Barksdale, who has been a disappointment this season, was the only guy out there crashing the boards with any semblance of consistency. Hell, Christian Beyer makes more of an effort to get a rebound.

      • Chris_atl

        Any chance the bigs are soft because they are afraid of getting in foul trouble? If that’s the case it’s backfiring of course.

        • Les

          Raines doesn’t appear to have the same mobility as he did at the end of last year. He stands around under the rim waiting for the ball (white man’s disease).

          Don’t know if it’s attributable to his foot or knee (no obvious signs), poor conditioning, or weight gain. He was also a fresh body at the end of last season, so he doesn’t have that advantage on anyone this year.

          The team is getting beat a lot on half-court traps and high picks and screens, not just the big men.

  • Danram

    It’s pretty simple, actually.

    When we’re hitting our outside shots, we’re a pretty darn good team.

    When we’re not, we’re gonna struggle. We’re not good enough in any other facet of the game to make up for crappy shooting.

    I figured that our 3-point % would drop as the season went along but at the same time, I expect us to be able to do better than 21% (For most of the game, it was around 15%.) Jarrell Eddie and Robert Brown have to start hitting the open looks that they were regularly draining during our 7-game win streak. Our outside shooting opens up everything else for us.

    • Chris_atl

      Agree on this. We are totally dependent on outside shooting. We have little inside offense or defense. And our defense overall is not that good. You can’t play an uptempo offense in you don’t rebound on the defensive end.

      ACC teams are going to let Green get his points and just focus on limiting the contributions from everyone else, which apparently will not be that difficult.

      I had said a couple games ago that our bball team’s success was a nice Christmas present after the football team gave us a lump of coal. Unfortunately, the present got lost in the mail and my VT fan stocking just got a lot heavier.

    • hokiegrad

      for most of the game it was 0%. :(

      • Les

        About a quarter of the points is coming from foul shouts. GSU did a good job of holding back from fouling when they allowed dribble penetration. Without a post-up center that demands much double-teaming, opposing teams extend the perimeter defense to deny open 3s and force the “big 3″ to put the ball on the floor and make runners.

  • Hank

    Now we are seeing what the loss of DFS and Harrell has done to the team…..no inside presence on this team at all. For those who thought we could easily get past the loss, a little Southern Conference team proved that it is going to be rough sledding until we develop some big guys.

    • hokiegrad

      Connecting DFS to inside presence just made me laugh

      • Hank

        DFS rebounded better than any of the current guys are doing this year.

        • Niemo

          I’d agree with the statement that doo-doo was our best rebounder last year. I also think Eddie has made great strides in that area this year and JvZ is better than I expected, but the simple fact is that is still our biggest weakness (along with depth) and has been for years. Same story, new year.

  • Ryan

    Wheres Jeff Allen when you need him?

  • schmitty

    this is bad as the temple loss in football some time ago, u all remember. i know we will never have the best talent but damn we recruit some men with some fight, damn i miss schmitty and da boys from 1995


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2012-13 Schedule

November
11/10 Hokies 80, etsu 62
11/12 Hokies 69, rhode island 50
11/15 Hokies 95, vmi 80
11/19 Hokies 96, unc-g 87
11/23 Hokies 87, appalachian state 76
**ACC/BIG Ten Challenge**
11/27 Hokies 95, iowa 79
December
12/1 Hokies 81, #15 oklahoma state 71
12/8 wvu 68, Hokies 67
**Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic**
12/10 Hokies 70, mvsu 49
12/15 Georgia Southern 78, Hokies 73
12/22 Hokies 66, bradley 65, OT
12/23 colorado state 88, Hokies 52
**Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic**
12/29 byu 97, Hokies 71
January
1/5 maryland 94, Hokies 71
1/9 boston college 86, Hokies 75
1/12 Hokies 70, georgia tech 65
1/19 Hokies 66, wake forest 65
1/24 virginia 74, Hokies 58
1/27 clemson 77, Hokies 70
1/30 miami 73, Hokies 64
February
2/2 unc 72, Hokies 60, OT
2/7 maryland 60, Hokies 55
2/9 Georgia Tech 64, hokies 54
2/12 virginia 73, Hokies 55
2/16 nc state 90, Hokies 86
2/21 duke 88, Hokies 56
2/24 Hokies 80, fsu 70
2/27 miami 76, Hokies 58
March
3/2 Hokies 69, clemson 61
3/5 duke 85, Hokies 57
3/10 wake 90, Hokies 79
**ACC Tournament in Greensboro**
3/14 vs. nc state, 2:30 p.m.
3/15 Quarterfinals
3/16 Semifinals
3/17 Finals

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