Its that time of year again… time to block out your calendar for the ACC and NCAA tournaments. I’m not talking about the entire schedule, but there are three key days coming when you don’t want to risk having an important meeting scheduled while the Hokies run the floor:

ACC tournament games during the workday:

• Friday, March 12 — Just one time to block out this year, thanks to the sweet first-round bye — the Hokies don’t play until Friday at 2 PM, vs the winner of the miami vs wake game.

The Hokies look like a solid NCAA at-large bid, regardless of what happens on Friday, but solid isn’t certain. If a lot of Cinderella upsets happen in conference tournaments, the number of at-large bids available to teams in Tech’s position would be reduced, and the Hokies could need a little more quality on the resume. At least one win in the ACC Tournament seems like enough to push the Hokies clear into the Big Dance for sure, so this game is important in that regard.

NCAA tournament aside, this is the ACC Tournament we’re talking about, and it carries a helluva lot of weight in its own right. Some fans actually place the ACC Tourney as the more important of the two tournaments, as far as Tech’s goals and aspirations. Personally, I love the ACC Tourney. Its historically been the focal point of the conference, the marquee event, the event of the year on Tobacco Road, and one day we’re going to bust in on their fancy tea party and track maroon and orange mud all up in it. Maybe this is the year. And this year the Hokies are positioned nicely as a legitimate threat — well short of the favorite, but certainly not a dark horse.

So: Block your calendar NOW for 2-5 on Friday. Don’t get stuck in a meeting checking your Blackberry like a compulsive freak. Last year I wrote nearly the same thing and I STILL let myself get sucked into a meeting conflict. Dumb.

(Or if you’re a student and who expects to spend the week on spring break, (1) I salute you, and (2) watch out for Friday afternoon, it will sneak up on you… And please send pictures.)

NCAA tournament games during the workday:

• Thursday, March 18 — NCAA tourney Round of 64, 12-5 PM
• Friday, March 19 — NCAA tourney Round of 64, 12-5 PM

In all likelihood, the Hokies will be invited to the Big Dance, and on March 18 or 19 the Hokies will take the floor for their biggest game in three years. As interesting as the ACC Tournament is, it doesn’t come close to the pressure cooker of the NCAA tournament, when everyone is watching, and when every game could be the last. Independent of the Hokies’ run in the tourney, these are two of the finest days in the sports calendar, and fully half of the action takes place during the workday. Tracking scores and brackets on the internet while your friends carouse in the local bar is no way to earn a living.

Block your calendar NOW for the afternoons of March 18 and 19.

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According to Hokiesports.com, tonight’s game vs. maryland has been pushed back to 6:30 PM due to a “water main break”. Rumors online talk about a beer truck hitting a fire hydrant, and other problems spinning up off that one, causing flooding in some places on campus. More rumors say that Raycom will still broadcast the game, and it will be up to each local affiliate whether the game is shown. Or, maybe none of those rumors are true at all. In any case the game seems to be delayed.

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The Hokies put up a good fight on the road at duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, but Tech couldn’t overcome duke’s 3-pt shooting and great rebounding. The Hokies lost by 12, but the game was much closer than that, with duke icing it late with two deep threes.

The Cameron whistles weren’t really a story in this game (although opinions vary as always with ACC fans where duke is concerned), but as usual Jeff Allen was caught a couple times early. Allen had his second at 12:56 in the first half and went to the bench. Delaney picked up his second soon after, but stayed out and picked up his third late in the half.

In spite of a little foul trouble, the Hokies scrapped well throughout the half, leading early but eventually going down 34-23, before pulling back with the final 6 points of the half to close at 35-30. duke was laying bricks (25% shooting) through the first half, but the difference was 6 made threes and 15 made free throws.

In the second half, the Hokies came out well and the whistles went their way early. duke’s Lance Thomas picked up his 3rd early in the half, and would later foul out. The Hokies quickly closed the gap and eventually took the lead 45-44 with 9:51 left. But duke soon went on an 8-0 spurt to stretch out to 55-47.

The Hokies stuck with it as expected — as we’ve come to enjoy this season — pulling to 61-55 on a nice Jeff Allen runner off the glass with a couple minutes left. But duke ran clock, and Tech seemed reluctant to foul duke’s excellent free-throw shooters. On consecutive possessions, duke worked the clock and drained a three, and that was the ballgame.

The Hokies lost tonight, but they played tough, and ACC wins on the road aren’t easy to come by. The Hokies didn’t appear rattled at all by the matchup or the hostile environment in Cameron. Tech played duke closer at Cameron than anyone else has in ACC play, and the late threes made the final score look worse than the game played out.

Other notes:
– duke student fans are extremely annoying. They don’t really do anything wrong per se, they just do a great job of being extremely irritating, which is their objective. Their location right on the floor certainly magnifies the effect. Its easy to see why so many people hate duke basketball.
– Dorenzo Hudson got a little lucky with the refs in a skirmish with Nolan Smith after a held-ball scrum on the floor. After some nose to nose jawing, Zo got his hand up with a half-shove, half-slap to Smith’s face. After a long review of the sequence, nothing more came of it than a duke possession on the held ball. Zo could have been ejected and suspended for the next game.
– Sweet win for US Hockey! 42 saves for US goalie Ryan Miller!
– This is the 1000th post on TechHoops.com, which is sorta cool.

The Hokies take the floor next on Wednesday night at boston college at 7 PM on ESPNU.

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Hokie fan-favorite and all-time human highlight film legend Deron Washington was waived yesterday by the Detroit Pistons. Deron is guaranteed a cool $250,000, which should ease the pain, but that falls well short of the millions that Deron is achingly close to if he can pick up a more permanent spot on an NBA roster somewhere.

What’s especially curious about this move is that Detroit apparently has a 15th roster spot available, which they have chosen to leave open, even though they’re paying Deron whether he’s on their roster or not — he was essentially available to them into January for nothing more than travel costs and meal per-diem. With flu tearing teams and organizations everywhere wide open, an extra young player seems worthwhile to have around.

Hopefully Deron will be able to pick up with someone, or perhaps more likely, find a nice spot overseas and continue to develop his game. Since he was waived, Detroit has no ongoing rights or ownership — Detroit will have to pay, but Deron is free and clear to go anywhere.

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This was one of the ugly ones, another agonizing cold start. The Hokies were thoroughly dominated at home, on national television, in the final game in a Hokie jersey for seniors Cheick Diakite and A.D. Vassallo. Twelve minutes into the game, the Hokies were down 22-5 on 1 of 17 shooting. The single made basket was a Jeff Allen dunk. At the 7:36 mark, Cheick Diakite finally broke this ridiculous shooting drought with a turnaround jumper in the lane. Malcolm Delaney followed with a three, and the Hokie offense was finally in the game — down by 15.

The Hokies struggled through the rest of the half, sprinkling a few baskets in with ugly turnovers and shaky defense, and Tech went into halftime losing badly, 41-21. At the break, baylor was shooting 67% (16/24) from the field while the Hokies were at 24% (7/29).  Even more telling, the bears were 12/14 in the first half on two-point shots.  The Hokies could not stop the bears from getting easy buckets.  Senior big man Josh Lomers came in averaging less than three points per game, but scored 12 in the first half on 5/6 shooting.  Most of his points were layups where baylor lobbed the ball over a Hokie big man, who was fronting Lomers, or a feed into the low post where Lomers would catch the ball less than five feet from the hoop and go to his right for a short hook.    A.D. Vassallo, Tech’s fifth all time leading scorer, was scoreless at the half.  Tech had no answer for the baylor zone — unable to shoot over it (2/11 on threes) and taking bad shots inside.

In the second half, the deficit quickly extended to 26, and baylor just wouldn’t stop scoring and defending. With nine minutes left, baylor led 62-34 — Malcolm Delaney was shooting 1 for 11, and Vassallo was 2 of 12.

The end of the game saw the Hokies pull back admirably with a nice 18-3 run spurred by a full court trapping press, and there was a little excitement when a baylor player clobbered Delaney while boxing out on a free throw. But that’s as far as it went — the Hokies recovered a little less embarrassment in the final box score, but in the end, baylor took the easy victory, 84-66.

The shooting stats tell the story of this game: baylor shot 62% overall and 48% from deep. VT went for 33% and 23%. Aside from his arctic-shooting start, Malcolm Delaney posted a nice stat sheet with 14 points, 10 assists, and 6 rebounds, leading the Hokies in all three categories. Dorenzo Hudson had another encouraging game, shooting 3 of 6 for 10 points and two steals that led to dunks. A.D. scored 12, Jeff Allen 9, and J.T. Thompson scored 8.

This concludes the Hokies’ 2008-2009 season with a 19-15 record, and A.D. Vassallo finishes his career in 5th place on the all-time scoring list for Virginia Tech. baylor moves on to play auburn for a trip to the NIT final four at Madison Square Garden.

Niemo’s Notes:

• Wow, was the crowd loud in the final eight minutes — if only we had a reason to cheer in the first 32 minutes.  Cassell was about 75% full at best.
• Props to the guy in the first row on the opposite side of us that participated in Shirtless Halftime!  We need more like you.
• Lomers’ 12 first half points for baylor almost tied his season high for a whole game of 14.  Tech was AWFUL at low post defense all season.  They need more bigs inside.  This is exposed more than ever when VT plays out of conferences teams that are more physical like georgia, baylor, mississippi, and wisconsin.
• VT’s two NIT opponents were 27/51 on threes (53%).  Tech did not fight over screens and were not doing a good job of running out on open perimeter players.  Throw in wisconsin’s 12/18 three point performance in December and you see a real issue at defending the three in out of conference play.  Tech must improve this in the offseason.
• To finish with a positive — Dorenzo Hudson has really stepped up the last few weeks.  He looks like he could become a legitimate scorer, and a decent shutdown defender for the Hokies.  But judging by Aaron Jackson’s 46 for duquesne and what baylor did today, I guess the jury is still out on that.  But he did have two great steals from behind on help D.  Many people have been waiting for him to show the promise he displayed as a scorer in AAU play, and we are starting to get a glimpse, much like how Delaney stepped up late last season.

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Its that time of year again… time to block out your calendar for the ACC and NCAA tournaments. I’m not talking about the entire schedule, but there are four key days coming when you don’t want to risk having an important meeting scheduled while the Hokies run the floor:

ACC tournament games during the workday:

• Thursday, March 12 — ACC tourney games tip off at noon (8 vs 9 seed) and at 2 PM (5 vs 12 seed)
• Friday, March 13 — ACC tourney games start at noon (1 vs 8/9 seed) and at 2 PM (4 vs 5/12 seed)

March 12 is the key afternoon that you want to keep clear. No matter what happens in the fsu game this weekend, the Hokies will be playing on March 12 for their NCAA tournament hopes. The Hokies will be a 7 or 8 seed in the ACC tourney, which means there’s half a chance they could be playing in the 8/9 game at noon next Thursday (in a near-empty Georgia Dome) against miami or nc state. So you need to clear your schedule NOW for next Thursday from 11:30 AM to 3 PM in case the Hokies end up in the eighth spot. If the Hokies don’t play in that noon game, they’ll play at 7 PM, easily in time to be home from work.

(Or if you’re a student who expects to spend the week in Key West, (1) I salute you, and (2) watch out for Thursday afternoon, it will sneak up on you.)

And if the Hokies do end up slotted in that March 12 noon game, they’ll be playing for a spot in the noon game on Friday March 13 against dook, unc, or wake. The Hokies would play that Friday game for a spot in the NCAA tourney, and would probably be matched up with dook or unc, so you definitely won’t want to be stuck in a meeting while that’s underway. That means you need to clear your schedule NOW for next Friday from 11:30 AM to 3 PM.

NCAA tournament games during the workday:

• Thursday, March 19 — NCAA tourney Round of 64, 12-5 PM
• Friday, March 20 — NCAA tourney Round of 64, 12-5 PM

Whether or not the Hokies make it to the Big Dance, these are two of the finest days in the sports calendar, and fully half of the action takes place during the workday. Tracking scores and brackets on the internet while your friends carouse in the local bar is no way to earn a living. Block your calendar NOW for the afternoons of March 19 and 20.

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Highlights | Box Score

The Hokies saw a 15 point late lead trimmed to one but held on to secure their first ACC win of the season against the rival hoos.  The victory marked Tech’s third in a row against uva.

Tech led 66-51 with 4:56 to go.  That’s when uva’s mustapha farrakhan went nuts.  He hit four three-pointers and converted 3/3 from the foul line over the next 4:05 to cut the lead to 2 with 51 seconds to go.  Thanks to some clutch foul shooting and a key runner from Vassallo in the final minute, the Hokies held on.

A.D. Vassallo helped hold off the hoos with 29 points, including 14 of the final 17 VT points.  Vassallo moved into 14th place on VT’s all time scoring list.  A.D. now has 1457 points, surpassing Shawn Smith and Howard Pardue on the list.

Malcolm Delaney added 24 points and may have had his best game of the season, hitting 10/17 shots and 3/6 threes.  On the flip side, Jeff Allen really struggled.  He did not score in the first half and finished with just 3 points, all from the foul line.  He was 0/7 from the floor.

Virginia Tech trailed most of the first half, but uva’s super-freshman Sylven Landesberg went down with a rolled ankle and the Hokies closed on a nice run to end the half with a seven-point lead. The Hokies led the entire second half, pulled out to a double-digit lead, and nursed it home over the final four minutes as uva made it interesting but fell short.

The Hokies came out of a timeout with the ball and a two-point lead with 25 seconds left in the second half. Tech ran a clearout for A.D. Vassallo, who nailed a very sweet spinning fadeaway jumper. The wahoos made a driving layup to bring it back to two, and A.D. went to the line with 9.3 seconds left. A.D. nailed them both, pulling the Hokies back out to four, and the hoos quickly brought the ball up and nailed a three. Once again A.D. went to the line, this time with 1.9 seconds left, and once again he nailed them both. The hoos heaved a desperation three, potentially causing Hokies around the globe to smash their TV sets, but fortunately it was well off the mark and time expired.

The wahoos have a couple of freshmen that looked very impressive in Landesberg and Assane Sene. Landsberg was scoring at will in the first half, and Assan Sene proved he’s got the shot blocking as advertised, and he’s got some touch around the basket too.

However, the Hokies’ Vassallo and Malcolm Delaney were too much for the wahoos, and the Hokies pulled in a great win to go to 1-1 in the ACC.  The hoos are also now 1-1 in conference play.

Also of note: Jeff Allen had a tough game with Sene, but he made his presence felt with two crushing screens separated by just a couple minutes in the second half as the Hokies brought the ball up the court. Each time a wahoo defender was left sprawled on the court.

Tech returns to action on Wednesday for their final non-conference tilt against richmond.

Cope-acabana’s Thoughts:

I was on the floor for this game and it was a very physical contest. It also seemed to me that these teams genuinely do not like each other. Not like in football where after the game players from each team gather for a prayer, no, these players really seemed to loathe anyone wearing a different colored jersey.

The Hokies were plagued with brick hands and butter fingers in the paint during this game. There was one stretch in the second half where Victor Davila must have missed three or four putbacks before losing the rebound to the cavs. It was frustrating to watch the Hokies struggle with their inside game as Davila and Allen combined for just nine points.

Vassallo and Delaney carried the team tonight with 53 of the team’s 78 points. The next highest point total was six from Davila and Lewis Witcher. I was really disappointed that J.T. Thompson didn’t have a better game. He was virtually non-existent in 17 minutes of play. Speaking of minutes, Terrell Bell played 23 (he averages just under 16) and had five points, three assists and a steal. He played a solid game.

I haven’t watched the game tape yet, but there were two occasions in the game where Seth Greenberg was waving his arms to the crowd, almost willing them to stand and cheer for the Hokies and it worked both times. But from my vantage point, it was almost like he was annoyed that he was having to do this. I’m not sure if he wanted the fans on their feet the whole time or if would rather his players help out a little.

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Virginia Tech has announced that unused student section seats will be made available to students on a first-come, first-served basis for the next three Virginia Tech men’s basketball home games, hosting virginia, richmond, and the newly minted giant killers from boston college (I’m still celebrating that fantastic upset in Chapel Hill).

In a related move, a program to enable electronic transfers by public season ticket holders for all games throughout the season has been announced. “Hokie Share” will reportedly allow ticket holders to transfer tickets to the recipient of their choosing. This sounds like a brilliant, much-needed solution to the empty seats often seen in out-of-conference games in Cassell — but there’s a tragic catch: each ticket transfer will incur a $4 fee.

So if you want to give a couple tickets to the Boy’s and Girl’s Club you’ll just have to dig out your tickets, log in, figure out how to use Hokie Share, and then pony up $8 to give away your tickets. I looked at it for a few minutes, in two different browsers, and I can’t figure out how it works. So, hooray for ticket transfers, and boo for the fee and the confusing website.

Here’s a link to the full article on HokieSports.com: click here

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xavier beat missouri 75-71 this afternoon, leading to a matchup between the Hokies and the musketeers tomorrow at 1:30 PM EST on ESPNU. Check back tonight for Niemo’s thoughts on the matchup.

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Here’s an interesting letter from Coach Greenberg, rallying the students for a big showing on Saturday. Seth rocks.

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Breaking News: The Hokies are in first place in the ACC following the twerps’ 89-87 win over carolina in College Park tonight. Technically tied for first at 10-4 with carolina and the hoos, Virginia Tech owns tiebreakers over each team and, for now, VT is effectively in outright first place in the conference.

Having already clinched an ACC tourney first-round bye, Virginia Tech can seal the ACC regular-season title and top seed in the ACC tourney with wins over uva on Thursday at The John and at home against clemson on Sunday in the regular season finale.

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Hey, who’s watching UMass at Fordham!? Sweet A-10 tilt. I just spotted it on ESPN2… And,… I surfed on by to Pay it Forward briefly before landing on a South Park rerun.

This is what I’m talking about: I literally don’t know where Fordham is — in fact the only thing I do know about Fordham is that it has a basketball team in the A-10, and I feel like they maybe had a tourney run a few years ago. I suspect that as a member of the A-10, Fordham is likely near the Atlantic coast. I’m going to guess its in… Philly. Or NYC, maybe. It feels like NYC too. Let’s see…

OK… Fordham appears to be scattered around The Big Apple. Terrific, now I know — thank you Larry and Sergey. So how exciting is a UMass at Fordham game to sports fans in Virginia? Not very exciting, really. Really?

I remember the A-10 days all too well. I clearly remember thinking
1) where the @#$% are these schools located?
2) why does our conference @#$%ing suck so bad?
3) ACC basketball is muhney

When I arrived as a freshman at Virginia Tech in August 1988, Hokie athletics was a train wreck, nobody farther out than Roanoke could point to VT on a map, and admission to Tech required only a pulse and an application submission. A few years later I went back home to Blacksburg for a one-year grad program in 1997-98. I was busy as hell, I’ve never worked harder in my life, and I don’t think I attended one A-10 game (although I did log my 7th of 8 spring breaks — some things rise above the mundane pursuit of education and achievement).

Which brings us to: 2007

The Hokies have achieved a perpetual state of national recognition, new academic and athletic facilities (and highways) are sprouting everywhere, admissions standards have skyrocketed, and the Hokie sports fan experience is utterly unrecognizable by comparison to 1988.

Imagine — students today are attending VT as members of the ACC. In three years they have seen home wins in basketball over duk, carolacky, the twerps, the wreck, the pack, the hoos, wake, and clemson. If I was in school again I’d be at every single home game without exception. This year the students are enjoying something they can’t possibly appreciate fully — VT is legitimately challenging for the ACC regular season title, with reasonable expectations for a run in the ACC and NCAA tourneys.

I am jealous, to say the least. I don’t think I can swing a third enrollment in college but I’m not ruling it out.

Anyhow. My Bigfoot Ale is empty, and I think South Park ended. The point is, these are great days we’re living. We just SMASHED the hoos and beat cackolickity in the deandome. Virginia Tech is in the ACC and that is freaking amazing. The shift from A-10 to ACC is truly a rags to riches metamorphosis.

How did we get here? I just can’t say this enough, we have to recognize the unbelievable sea change in circumstances our basketball program and Athletic Department in general are enjoying right now. Accepting the risk of beating a mostly dead horse, I offer this once more: Virginia Tech is in the ACC.

So what about tonight’s big A-10 game? Ooh, UMass 63 Fordham 47, still underway. I’m definitely in bunches now. Me and Holpe are probably the only people in Richmond actually watching at the moment. And that’s not going to last long for me. Looks like Rome is coming on HBO…

So I think I’ll sneak in a scotchy nightcap. This cat in my lap won’t appreciate that — sorry, cat. Nite nite all y’all.

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So Virginia Tech lost a couple games? Big deal. The sky is not falling. The Hokies lost one game against the ‘pack that we probably should have won, but then the ‘pack went and beat unc too. The Hokies also lost a game on the road to a tough bc team. This happens — good teams lose sometimes. We’re probably going to lose again this season.

After sharing these sentiments last week with one of the more excitable contributors to this site (rhymes with squeemo), I was pleased to see this quote from Will Stewart on Techsideline.com: “For their part, the fans need to stop flipping out over individual losses, or even a couple of losses strung together. It happens all the time in basketball.”

After the nc state game, one comment on TechHoops predicted that the Hokies would miss the tourney, “folding up the tent and collapsing.” While this is certainly a possibility, there is no good reason to count it as a likely outcome — let’s take a deep breath and manage expectations a little. We’re going to win some, we’re going to lose some — but this is still the team that already beat unc, duk, md, and gt. They are who we thought they were! (gratuitous and somewhat senseless Dennis Green reference).

—–

Have I mentioned how awesome it is to be in the ACC? Yeah, I think I said that in my last post. Well its has continued to be fantastic… I’m a pretty versatile sports fan, but not historically a big college basketball fan during the regular season – like most folks, I’ve always gotten fired up for March. Now, with the Hokies in the ACC (and competetive!), suddenly a midweek uva at md game is compelling… Suddenly I know that gt put up an 18-0 run in a comback win over nc state… Suddenly beating duk is a winter ritual.

And perhaps more to the point, suddenly Virginia Tech is a two sport school, and we’re all along for the ride. Joining the ACC has been incredible. Thank you John Casteen, you fantastic dopey wahoo.

 —–

Today is national signing day for college football… Perhaps due to the rebirth of the Hokie basketball program and the added excitement generated by participation in the ACC conference schedule, I haven’t had much thought today about the football program — coming from a fairly obsessive Hokie football fan, that’s saying something on signing day. A clemson friend e-mailed me about VT’s recruiting class, and I realized 23 new football signees came in today unbeknowst to me while I was fretting over whether Z and Jamon will be able to shut down reynolds and singletary on Saturday.

Yay football signing day. Hoorah. Talk to me in April. Until then we’ve got business in Cassell Coliseum to attend to.

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Player of the game: Zabian Dowdell.

Take a look at this stat line: 30 points, 7-of-10 shooting, 15-18 free-throws, 4 steals, 5 assists… and no turnovers! The Hokie from Pahokee was dialed in last night.

————

5-1 in the ACC! How did we get here? Let’s see, we were in the A-10 a few years ago, playing teams I can’t remember from schools whose home state I couldn’t reliably guess. Then there were a few joyless Big East years. Then out of left-field Donna Shalayla and John Swofford shook everything up and out popped… VT dominating ACC football, which is a pleasant surprise, and VT at 5-1 in ACC basketball, which is utterly shocking.

If you reset to a 2004 perspective and examine our position today it is truly glorious: here in our third season we are 5-1 in conference with wins over duk (again!), unc, md, and wake. Take a moment to smell that — its fantastic.

————

And let’s throw out some big ups to Seth Greenberg. Here’s a side take: How much money has Seth earned in future contracts with these two little wins over duk and unc? Millions.

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January 13, 2007: The day the Hokies gave the baby blue Tarholes a mighty ass-whippin’ in Cassell Coliseum.

My story is fairly mundane but that’s alot of what blogging is all about: mundane historical context.

My wife and I recently bought a house, so we were moving out of our Fan apartment in Richmond. I was fairly bummed about missing the game but I was busy as hell and it couldn’t be helped. When 3:30 rolled in I was sweepin’ and cleanin’ and switching the radio over from music to Bill and Mike. My buddy Snipes and my wife Lori were working around the apartment as we settled into the game. I reminded everyone (which would continue all day) that Wick and icecoldballa Rob were at the game and that I was very jealous.

And suddenly it was something like a 17-9 UNC lead. Dammit. I went down to the basement where I couldn’t hear the radio for some more cleaning and figured the magical day was not to be. When I went out to load a bunch of crap in my truck in the back alley I thought I heard UNC was up a bunch on a huge run. Dammit again. But something was bugging me, I thought I might have heard it wrong, and when I got back in the truck to move it I discovered that the Hokies were on a massive run and up something like 27-20. Cassell was in full throat, and the Hokie seniors were running inexperienced UNC off the court.

Everyone knows what happened for the next 20 minutes. The Hokies blew it open. I feel like I remember most of the play — somehow listening on the radio makes it more vivid in recollection — that and being mostly sober. I remember making senseless guttural caveman noises upon hearing the 10 point halftime margin, and I remember thinking we really *might* win when we went up 23. I remember Vasallo threes and Deron flying and CC dunking and dunking and dunking. I was pacing around the empty apartment wiping stuff down and pacing and wiping and getting increasingly giddy and agitated.

By this time Snipes had bailed up to Buddy’s. Lori and I had about 15 minutes total of work left to do before closing up the apartment for good, but we couldn’t stand it — we headed up to Buddy’s too. We arrived there in our cleaning clothes with a truck full of miscellaneous crap parked right out front on Stuart. We grabbed a few delicious beers and settled in to soak up the amazing blowout.

And then that torturous final four minutes kicked in. Instantly the lead was down to 16, to 9, to 6, and, incredibly, down to 3 points with 16 seconds remaining. UNC was on an unbelievable hot streak, and the Hokies couldn’t break the press. I was making a complete ass of myself in the bar, to my wife’s horror. This is nothing new, she explained to the other patrons.

And then it was over — we pulled through. Jamon Gordon sunk two free throws with 4 seconds remaining and that just barely shut the door on UNC’s impressive but futile comeback.

The rest of the evening was a continued march of delicious cold beers at Buddy’s and finally a boozy passout at Snipes place. January 13, 2007 was a very very good day indeed.

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