Categorized | 2012-13 Season

Wild Turkey Breakdown | byu: The Negatives

Posted on29 December 2012.

Obviously I was kidding in the ‘Positives’ post for shock value.  There are some positives as a Hokie fan right now:

  1. The guys did not quit in the 2nd half of this game despite being behind by 30.  They played hard, real hard, in the final 12 minutes and made it respectable-ish (almost got it under a reverse Bear Fight).
  2. Football season is over.
  3. Most of us aren’t mormon and can drink Wild Turkey to help get us through basketball season.

As for byu, I haven’t seen a cougar as hot as Tyler Haws since Jennifer Coolidge in American Pie.

And there are some negatives:

  1. Between the 2nd half of the colorado state game and the 1st half of the byu game, VT was outscored 111-56.
  2. The opponents shot 35/60 (58%) from the field and 15/26 (58%) on 3s.  VT was 17/56 (30%) and 5/21 (24%).
  3. This was byu’s 2nd largest margin of victory this year against a D1 team and the last game was colorado state’s largest win.  VT should not be that level of patsy.

In Tech’s last 6 games:

Last6Games

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • VT has trailed by double digits during the 1st half in 4 of those games, and trailed by 6 or more at the half in 5 games.
  • Note that a lot of Eddie’s points and 3s lately have come in complete garbage time.  He’s the king of the 3-run HR with his team down 12 runs.
  • Tech is getting doubled in terms of 3s made (51 to 25).  For a team that depends on its guards, that says it all.  In Tech’s first 7 games, they had 57 makes to 39 by their opponents.
  • Eddie was hitting over 50% of his shots, including 3-pointers, heading into this 6 game stretch (19/36 on 3s).
  • Brown was 40% on 3s heading into this stretch.
  • Raines was averaging 9.1 ppg after 7 games.
  • VT was outscoring teams 86-72 heading into the wvu game, it has been 66.5 to 74.2 since.

I’m not trying to be overly negative, but quite simply there is nothing positive to take from the way the Hokies have played since the start of the wvu game.  Nothing.  This team isn’t just leaking oil, they are in nuclear meltdown.  The good news is Tech is 0-0 in the ACC, and who knows, maybe with just a 250 mile trip (instead of 2,500 miles) on Saturday at maryland, they can turn it around.

Final Thought: Again, eff Doo Doo Finney-Smith and eff Montrezl Harrell (and Ben Boggs and Manny Atkins and Ty Garland).

This post was written by:

- who has written 1107 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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  • RK in Roanoke

    I will take you word for point #1. After that hot mess of a first half, I could not watch the second.
    The D is non-existent.

    On your final thought, I am not going to eff Boggs. He was getting no playing time and his teammates did not include him in anything they did. He needed to go someplace else so that he could have a college experience he would look back on and smile, much like we all do. That was not happening at VT for him. Manny and Seth seemed to not be able to coexist. Maybe if they had made the call on Seth a year earlier he might still be here.

    Brown hit a couple runners in the first half that I thought would get him going, but didn’t really help is long range jumper.

    Not sure that the two most into the game weren’t beyer and johnston. That is sad.

    • Niemo

      RK – I don’t blame the past guys like Boggs or Atkins or Garland, that’s why they were in parenthesis. Doo Doo and Fo-trezl are another story.

      • chuck

        Doe Doe was garbage…a jack of all trades master of none, shied away from the spotlight….didn’t want the responsibility. He’d just be a body, depth on an already struggling team….i find it exceedingly difficult to believe he’d be a value-add in any of the trouble areas you describe.

        Harrell, though i wish he was in our uni, had the right to play for the coach of his choice….most of these decisions on where to go are heavily based on the coach in place. I’d rather play for Pitino too….over Greenberg? No brainer. Over an unknown on a short lease like JJ? Absolute no brainer.

  • Chris_atl

    Early on it was noted that the players seem to be having more fun this year. I think it’s because they aren’t required to play defense. So as long as losing doesn’t bother them they should enjoy the rest of the season as well.

    • RyanC

      I am pretty surprised at the poor defense given the Coach Johnson’s history on defense.

      -3 time Defensive Player of the Year
      -Defensive Assistant at George Mason during Final Four run

      Maybe he’s just not an X’s and O’s kind of guy?

  • chuck

    This year was going to be a relative waste, been saying that since March.

    Weaver delayed the inevitable and now this is what we get….he’s the one who needs to go…before Stinespring, before Greenberg even…the job is overmatching him at this point, he looks worse every time i see him….i’m sorry to say that i do believe there is a correlation between his performance and his failing health. The fact he hasn’t announced a firm resignation date is stubborn, and it’s counter-intuitive…we need a plan.

    Right now, we’ve got an interim coach, who doesn’t think in terms of what’s best for our program, because he doesn’t know who his new boss will be, and if he would be retained anyhow. He also is operating with the impression that if he isn’t successful here, that he’s not going to land a head job anywhere else (per the outgoing Colorado football coach, he made a good point about minorities not getting 2nd chances)….

    We have 7 viable D-1 players who are exhausted….and have to pick between offense or defense. They don’t have the energy, and we don’t have the reserves to play hard both ends of the floor. We should probably be happy that we even have a shot at the VT Invitational at this point.

    We are not even able to judge this team against the typical rubric one gets measured against. Right now, we’re probably overachieving on the aggregate.

    • RyanC

      I don’t buy the tired argument.

      We have an 8/9 man rotation and most teams don’t get much bigger rotations than that anyway. They also had a week of rest before Vegas and a week of rest before BYU.

      • Chris_atl

        I also agree that tired is not an excuse. On radio the announcers kept talking about the burden of having to make two cross-country plane rides in a week. Were they playing basketball on the plane? I recall a couple of times that SG played the tired card last year and got fried for it. However, I do agree with Chuck that its hard to expect much from this team given the off-season. The team spoiled me after the hot start and I wanted to believe the coaching change was producing magical results. Naive, I know. I am seriously let down but probably would have settled for our current record at this point before the season started. I think this does prove that having an up-tempo offense is not just a matter of coaching preference. It takes the right personnel to do it against good teams. Our defensive rebounding is too weak to run an effective up-tempo offense.

        That said, I have always heard that defense is a matter of effort. If their energy is limited because of depth I would prefer they expend more effort on defense even if does mean a more boring and lower scoring game. Being out of games after a half sucks.

        • Niemo

          Chris – you hit it on the head about rebounding – when you have to send 4 or even 5 guys to the defensive glass, you can’t run an effective up-tempo offensive. Teams like carolina do it well because they KNOW their bigs are going to get the rebounds, so the guards can leak out early and be partially up the court by the time the rebound is gathered and advance the ball quickly with the pass to get odd man numbers on the break. VT has everyone going after the rebound, which means their is no momentum up the court and so the defense has time to get back.

      • Les

        Acclimation to high altitude. If it was merely fatigue, VT would’ve stayed with BYU in the first half. Instead, they were then blown out in the first half. You could clearly see they were tired on the close-ups.

      • chuck

        Of the 8-9 men, 6 are viable D-1 contributors at this point, even intermittently. The other 3 are huge – players who can’t be trusted with extended minutes.

        Exhaustion is a present concern. The coach and team admit it. There is no way to condition for this with what we have.

    • Niemo

      Chuck – I don’t know if I agree Weaver needs to go before stiney (luckily that seems to already be a done deal), but I do agree Weaver needs to retire. But at least he was qualified for his position and had a few good years, unlike the other person mentioned.

      As for the colorado coach, while I agree that is a problem for minority coaches, I’d call it a cop out in his case. Going 1-11 at a BCS school is why he won’t get another job. Although ricky program bomb stokes got another job so who knows.

      • chuck

        The prior to Stiney argument was just to generate attention. He’s been due for 7-8 years.

        We are in limbo, and it only gets worse with each passing day.

        Yeah, the Colorado coach was horrible, but he’s probably right about his chances. It’s just something all minority coaches have to worry about.


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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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