Click on the image above to join our Yahoo! bracket challenge. If, for some reason, ricky “program bomb” stokes managed to screw up the link, the group ID is 161687, and the password is: programbomb.

Who’s got liberty going all the way? Personally, I’m going with Gene Swindle and the james madison dukes.

Introducing the first ever printable NCAA tournament bracket from TechHoops.com.

Click on the image above to view and download the PDF, or click here.

Update: JT Thompson’s charlotte team is playing in the NIT (though he’s out for the season with another knee injury) and Allan Chaney will be playing in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament for high point. That means Manny Atkins (georgia state) is the only one of nine former Hokies/commits who’s team isn’t playing in the postseason.

While Virginia Tech missed the NCAA Tournament for the sixth consecutive season (and 16 of 17), six guys who formerly played, or almost played, for the Hokies did make the Big Dance.

The table below shows the nine current Division I players who either: a) played for the Hokies at some point (this includes seven of the nine and I included Allan Chaney, who sat out two years at VT waiting to be cleared to play but never actually played in a game for VT), b) signed with Tech and were later released (Montrezl Harrell), or c) verbally committed to VT but never signed (Momo Jones).

I’ll repeat — of these nine guys, an amazing SIX will be playing (or redshirting as is the case with Doo Doo Finney-Smith) in the NCAA Tournament. And we aren’t just talking about basketball powers like louisville and florida, we are also talking about iona (2nd straight trip), jmu, valpo, and la salle (getting an at large bid, no less!).

While we are happy for some of these guys, in many cases it is a bitter pill to swallow and think “what might have been” had they stayed or even arrived at Tech. For example, Momo Jones averaged 23 ppg this year for iona, third in the nation behind our Erick Green and McDermott of creighton (he averaged just 6.6 ppg his freshman year at arizona — so he had a similar rise in scoring to Mr. Green). And Montrezl Harrell was the MVP of the Big East Championship Game in their win over syracuse Saturday night — as a freshman! Sure would have liked to see his big body in orange and maroon.

It is another disappointing season for the Hokies, and the days of being on the bubble are a distant memory now. Tech is closer to 10 years ago than their Humpty Dumpty days of a few years ago.

In other news, uva’s and maryland’s bubbles burst. uva’s finish to their season (home win over duke, struggle the rest of the way, not making the Big Dance) was a carbon copy of Tech’s situation two years ago. It was good to see at least uva was punished the same way VT was.

The ACC ended up with just four teams in the Big Dance — [Correction: 5 Atlantic 10 and Mountain West teams made the NCAAs! More than the ACC! How the mighty have fallen].

Each year at the ACC Tournament they honor a “legend” from each ACC school.  This year’s legend from Virginia Tech definitely fits into that category: Ace Custis.

The Virginia peninsula native is firmly one of Tech’s 10 greatest players (and nicest guys you’ll ever meet).  His jersey is one of four hanging from the rafters of Cassell Coliseum.  Ace helped Tech to a NIT Championship in 1995 and a NCAA Tournament berth in 1996.  He is 11th on Tech’s all time scoring list (Erick Green just knocked him out of the top 10) with more than 1,700 points, he’s 3rd in rebounds with 1,177, and 7th in steals with 199.  Ace was an unselfish player and a real stat stuffer.

Ace Runs into Niemo’s BP

Ace was even kind enough to stop by my bachelor party in Florida last year!  (Well, he was at port while on a cruise and we ran into him)

Two years ago, TechHoops.com ranked him the 7th greatest player in Hokies history.  Here’s a link to our interview with him and summary of his brilliant Tech career:

LINK TO ARTICLE AND INTERVIEW WITH ACE

The ACC also did an interview with him when they announced he was Tech’s legend for this year: LINK

Here are the plus/minus numbers from Thursday’s season-ending ACC Tournament loss to nc state for the Hokies.

Rankin had his second straight positive game (+1 – best of the regulars) and really finished the season strong and aggressive on offense (and he’s Tech’s best on-ball defender).

On the flip side, Raines had a -20 and Eddie a -21.

The Virginia Tech Hokies’ season ends with an 80-63 loss to nc state in the First Round of the ACC Tournament.  Erick Green, the ACC Player of the Year, scored 15 points, finishing the season with 801 points (first Hokie to eclipse the 800-mark) and 25.03 ppg to lead the nation.  Tech finishes the season at 13-19.

It’s not the way Erick Green wanted to end his career, but with the way the Hokies have played this season, today’s 17-point loss to nc state is hardly surprising.

Green hit his first two shots of the game, back-to-back threes, but was ice cold from that point on, scoring just 15 points on 5 of 19 shooting, as the 12th-seeded Hokies lost 63-80 to the 4th-seeded wolfpack.

The Winchester Rifle(man) really struggled. He had four turnovers in the first half, equalling his season-high for a game. Lorenzo Brown did a terrific job of shutting down the ACC Player of the Year. Of course, Green still got 15 points, so even on a bad day, he’s still good enough for 15.

Jarell Eddie played his best game in more than two months, scoring 21 points in the loss, the most he’s scored since he had 21 in a home loss to boston college on Jan. 9.

Outside of Eddie and Green, the Hokies didn’t get much from the rest of the team. Cadarian Raines had 8 points, pretty much all on dunks, and Marquis Rankin also had 8 points.

Tech managed to keep it relatively close in the first half and even led for a bit, but Richard Howell pretty much had his way with the Hokies inside the paint. Howell scored a game-high 22 points, but got help from C.J. Leslie, who had 15, while Scott Wood and T.J. Warren each added 13 points.

The Hokies have one of the worst defenses in the country and it was on full display Thursday afternoon.

It’s sad to think that this was how Erick Green ended his career at Virginia Tech. There is no post-season. No NIT. No CBI. Nothing. He’s done as a college player.

Earlier in the week, it was reported that the Hokies practiced with metal chairs on the court, presumably as teammates, sympbolizing the level of help Green got from the rest of the team this season. Apparently that didn’t help with motivation.

The Hokies, under first-year head coach James Johnson, finish 13-19, their worst season in 10 years, when they went 12-17 under ricky “program bomb” stokes.

Spread: nc state by 11.5.

The Hokies try to put an atrocious ACC regular season behind them and make some noise in the ACC Tournament starting Thursday. Their opponent will be another disappointment, the nc state wolfpack, in the second game of the early session on Thursday, tipping off around 2:20 to 2:40 PM.

nc state was picked to win the ACC by the media in the preseason, featured the Preseason POTY (C.J. Leslie) and the ROTY (T.J. Warren, another stud state freshman, is the one who will likely win it). And while they are #28 in the RPI and all but a lock for the Big Dance, they struggled to an 11-7 ACC regular season record. It was partially due to PG Lorenzo Brown missing a few games due to injury, and it is partially due to the fact that they are nc state and always seem to underachieve. You don’t build a team around a guy like C.J. “Derrick Coleman, Jr.” Leslie. I could also call him 50-cent, as in he only plays hard 50% of the time. He ended up just 3rd Team All ACC.

For the Hokies, I say we go for broke and do everything we can to win this game with no regard for Friday. Forget saving guys for the long haul of back-to-back-to-back-to-back games in the ACC-T format. I say we do everything we can to survive this one, especially considering we will be huge underdogs and likely won’t survive to live another day. I’d like to see Coach JJ, fresh off his first ever technical foul, implement the things he wants to do next year, like the full court press. I’d use it from the get-go. He wants to run it next year, so why not put it in during practice the next three days and go for broke with it Thursday. state has no depth (they really only play 7 guys), so picking up the tempo could wear them out in the 2nd half. That said, nc state has a very good offense (12th most productive/efficient in the nation out of 347 teams), so this could backfire, they could shred the press and hit a dozen alley-oop dunks and win by 40… So what? We are huge underdogs and expected to lose. I’d like to see us try something different and start to look to the future in terms of JJ’s “system”. Why not? That’s my 2 cents.

The winner of this game will face the hated wahoos at the same time Friday in the ACC Quarterfinals. uva will look to end their pathetic trend in the ACC Tournament in that contest — the hoos haven’t made it to ACC Tournament Semi-Final Saturday since 1995. That’s a streak of losing in the First Round or Quarterfinals for each of the previous 17 ACC Tournaments. They just have to win one, against VT or state, this year to end that streak.

First Meeting:

The game was a seesaw battle in the first half with neither team leading by more than 5 and Tech took a two point lead to the break. In the second half, the Hokies jumped ahead by 7 twice, including with 7:49 to go. But a 14-0 nc state run flipped the game to a 7-point state advantage with 3:30 remaining. Tech was down 6 with 20 seconds left, but a Rankin layup, Eddie 3, and 2/4 FTs for state gave Tech the ball down 3 with 8 seconds left. Green was intentionally fouled and hit his first FT. The next FT was one of the great Tech plays of the year — Green intentionally missed the foul shot off the right part of the rim, it bounced off the backboard, off to the right side of the lane, where a streaking Jarell Eddie rushed in from beyond the 3-point line (possibly too early), caught the ball, and put it in to tie the score.

In OT, Tech took an 84-83 lead behind two Eddie 3s, but state rattled off 6 straight FTs (they shot 43 FTs compared to 7 for the Hokies) and won 90-86 in overtime in Raleigh. Green had 29 for VT.

• Recap
• Highlights
• Plus Minus Stats
• Breakdown

Here are some of the game, but mostly Erick Green’s, highlights from wake’s 90-79 win over the Hokies on Sunday.

Erick did move into 10th on the Virginia Tech career scoring list during the game with 1,727 points (passing Ace Custis), set a single season points mark for VT with 786 points (passing Bimbo Coles’s of 1989-90), and tied his career single game high of 35 points.

Marquis Rankin also chipped in a career high 15 points (not shown).

LINK TO VT ALL TIME LEADERS PAGE

The Hokies delivered a dud of a regular season finale on the road against wake forest, losing 79-90. This game was never close. The final score is not an accurate representation of how soundly the Hokies were beaten today, especially in the paint.

The good news is that Erick Green went off for 35 points, tied for his career-high, and in doing so, gave him 786 for the season, one more than Bimbo Coles’ school record of 785. We should say Coles’ OLD record because Erick “The Winchester Rifleman” Green is the new sheriff in town.

Erick also moved into the top 10 on the Virginia Tech all time scoring list.  His 15th point on the day moved him past Ace Custis. He now has 1,727 career points (Ace had 1706).  Baring a deep ACC Tournament run, he’ll finish in 10th.

And in case anyone is wondering, Green’s 786 points came in 31 games. Bimbo’s 785 points also came in 31 games. So to quote Techsideline.com, “it’s a legit record.”

Although it was already locked up, it’s pretty much official that Green will finish the regular season as the nation’s and ACC’s leading scorer. And get this, he’s the first ACC player since south carolina’s (yes, they used to be in the ACC) Grady Wallace did so in 1957. Think of all the ACC greats that ever accomplished that feat: Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, Ralph Sampson, etc., etc., etc.

Outside of those two highlights, that was about it. Virginia Tech’s “big men” played pretty small today. As Bill Roth said during the game, “Hokies giving up layup after layup.” It was about ugly as a game as we’ve seen all season. And how many times have we said that this year?

After the game, ACC broadcaster and former virginia player Cory Alexander gave his vote for ACC player of the year to Green. All the votes are due by 9 p.m., Sunday night (tonight), so we should probably hear something later this evening.

If you want to recap the play-by-play, go to HokieSports.com and look up the box score and relive the agony of defeat.

Want numbers of who scored what? Here you go:

The Virginia Tech Hokies drop their 6th straight game to duke in the last 24 months, falling 85-57 on the road to duke. The blue devils beat Tech by a combined 60 points in two games this season. Erick Green, the nation’s leading scorer, hit his average exactly with 25 points.

The Hokies fall on the road against duke, 85-57, despite 25 points from Erick Green. It was senior night for duke (thank the gods), which finished it’s 2012-13 home schedule a perfect 16-0.

This game was closer than the final score would have you believe. Tech trailed by just three at the half (38-35), and actually led for a large chunk of the first half.

Jarell Eddie got things started on a good now for the Hokies early on, burying back-to-back threes to put Tech up 6-1. Green, however, was the only Tech players to put together a solid game start to finish. Eddie started strong, but duke shut him and everyone else down from then on. Eddie finished with 13 points.

Tech actually played a decent game. They committed only 10 turnovers, which isn’t bad considering some of their previous performances. But, duke only turned it over three times.

But the turnovers weren’t what won this game for the home team. It all came down to shooting percentages and duke was pretty much unstoppable. The little devils hit 52 percent from the field (30/58) and 52 percent from three-point range, connecting on 12 of 23 attempts. The Hokies shot 37 percent from the field (22/57) and 29 percent from three (5/17).

The officiating, as you’d imagine, seemed to favor the home team, but the Hokies did get some calls go their way, which usually sent Coach K into his usual spittle spewing tirades.

Look, no one was disillusioned enough to think the Hokies could actually pull of an upset of the dookies on the road, on senior night, with a healthy Ryan Kelly back in the lineup. What was a little surprising was how close the game was.

Four duke players scored in double digits: Seth Curry has 20, Kelly 18, Quinn Cook and Mason Plumlee both had 14. The Hokies had only two players, Green (25) and Eddie (13), reached double digits.

Not a single Tech player register a plus rating in this game.

Just one more regular season game left for Coach James Johnson and his team.

Spread: wake by 5.5.

Updated post-duke: #11 is now 11th on the Hokies’ all time scoring list. Erick Green needs just 15 points to make it into the top 10 on the Virginia Tech all time scoring list! He’ll bump Ace Custis from the top 10 when he does.

The loser of the VT @ wake game will finish as the #12 seed (last) in the ACC Tournament. If VT loses, they will finish all alone in last place.

Spread: duke by 20.

The Hokies close out the regular season with two Tobacco Road games, Tuesday at #3 duke and Sunday at wake forest. The blue devils have owned the Hokies of late, winning 5 in a row and 9 of 10. Conversely, Tech has holds the mortgage on the deacons, paid clean and free. The Hokies are 9-3 against wake since joining the ACC and winners of 9 of 11, including earlier this year in Blacksburg.

duke MATCH-UP:

This is the 7th time these two teams will have met in the last 24 months and one week (each of the last two ACC Tourneys and home and away the last two years). duke won the first meeting just two weeks ago by 32 in Blacksburg (Tech’s worst home loss since their very first ACC home game back in 2004 vs unc)… And that was without Ryan Kelly who just scored 36 against the c-a-n-e-s on Saturday. Seth Curry had 19 in the first half and duke led 48-28 at the break on their way to an 88-56 win. At one point duke was 9/10 from 3-point land and finished the game hitting 12/17 (71%). Tech was 1/16 from deep (6%).

But the Hokies did take the devils to OT in Durham last year! With two shots to win it at the end (Green and Raines) before fading in OT. So who knows. Just don’t hold your breath.

THE FIRST MEETING:

• RECAP AND BOXSCORE
• HIGHLIGHTS
• PLUS MINUS
• GAME BREAKDOWN

wake MATCH-UP:

This might be the last time the Hokies see wake coach Jeff Bzdelik, the worst coach in the ACC. He’s 10-38 in ACC play in 3 seasons (21% win-pct) and 1-23 in ACC road games with a game at nc state pending this week (even Paul Hewitt was better than that… barely – he averaged one road win per year at gt). So Bzdelik is more than on the hot seat.

wake is 0-8 on the road in the ACC this year and Bzdelik is something like 1-42 in conference road games between his time at wake and colorado before that (I’m not making that up). But this game is at wake, where the deacs are 5-3 in ACC play this year including wins over nc state and miami, so this will be a tough draw for the Hokies (aren’t they all?).

THE FIRST MEETING:

• RECAP AND BOXSCORE
• HIGHLIGHTS
• PLUS MINUS
• GAME BREAKDOWN

Relive Erick Green’s magical Senior Night over and over again – here are the highlights featuring plenty of the Winchester Rifle, including his standing ovation as he was removed from the game!

Oh, and the Hokies won 69-61 to finish their home schedule at 10-7.  The home team has won 6 straight in this series.

BOXSCORE

The Hokies wrapped up their home schedule with a 69-61 victory over the clemson tigers on SENIOR DAY! And my, what a day it was for Tech’s senior starter, Erick Green. Erick scored 17 first half points on his way to 29 points in his final game at the Cassell and chants of “Green Machine” filled the Coliseum as he iced the game away from the line. Green was 8/12 from the field and an amazing 5/7 from behind the arc. Erick now has 1,667 career points. He is just 40 points away from surpassing Ace Custis and entering the VT Top 10 scoring list.

HATS OFF TO YOU, MR. GREEN! It has been a pleasure watching you these last six years (since he committed to VT during his junior year at Millbrook HS on his way to a state title).

And major props to the hundreds of fans that wore green to honor Erick Green! That was awesome. It was a great crowd tonight (although a small crowd – just 5,100) from start to buzzer from the fans that were there.

C.J. Barksdale had another great game with 14 points. He’s averaged over 14 ppg in his last 4 games (he had scored just 21 total points in his previous 9 games).

Robert Brown added an ACC career high of 13 points on 6/8 FGs (11 points in the first half).

The Hokies shot an amazing 63% from the field in the first half on their way to an 11-point lead at the break, 36-25. That was thanks in part to a 14-4 run that turned a 15-11 deficit into a 25-19 lead with 7:30 left in the first half. The 11-point halftime lead was Tech’s largest halftime lead in ACC play and their biggest lead at the break since the vmi game (game #3 back in November).

They led by as many as 15 in the second half until clemson utilized a full court trap-press. Tech started turning the ball over at will and the tigers took advantage, going on an 8-0 run to cut the VT lead to 3 at 46-43 with 11:30 to go. clemson would score on 7 straight possessions and get within 2, but no closer and the Hokies held on to win.

Once again free throws were key for VT. They hit 9/10 in the final 2:12 to keep clemson in the rear view mirror (it was a 3-point game most of the final 2 minutes).

Tech shot 55% from the field for the game and 6/13 (46%) on 3s. The only negative for the Hokies was their inability to handle the clemson press in the 2nd half, and as a result, committing 16 turnovers (5 by Brown and 4 by Green).

The home team has now won 6 straight in this series (and VT won at a neutral site, the ACC Tourney, last year).

clemson was without stud K.J. McDaniels who had 5 dunks at VT last year and 17 points in the first meeting at clemson, including 5/7 on 3s.

Milton Jennings, who had 28 in the game at clemson, was held to 13 tonight. Devin Booker led clemson with 17.

Tech finishes the season 10-7 at the Cassell (3-6 in ACC play). They have two ACC road games remaining with duke on Tuesday and wake on Sunday.

Well, what did you expect the Hokies to do on the road against the 5th ranked team in the country, which was coming off an embarrassing blowout loss to wake forest?

Virginia Tech got manhandled Wednesday night in Coral Gables, losing to the hurricanes 76-58 behind 22 points from Shane Larkin and 20 points from Kenny Kadji.

Erick Green failed to score 20 points in a game for just the third time this season. He lead the Hokies with 16 points. C.J. Barksdale scored 12, giving him three straight games with in double-digits. He’s really starting to come on strong – a good sign for Hokie hoop heads thinking ahead to next season. Barks also led the team with seven rebounds.

Robert Brown added 12 points, all in the second half. It tied his career-high for points in a regular ACC game. He scored 16 against duke in last year’s ACC tournament.

Green appeared to roll his right ankle, though there was speculation that it might have been his hip, about midway through the first half. He sat for a couple of minutes and appeared to be in excruciating pain, but did return the game. He had only six points in the first half.

The canes held a 15-14 lead and the Hokies were in the game with Miami struggling to score. And then the dam levies broke and the canes surged ahead courtesy of a 23-5 run to end the half and take a 38-19 lead into the half.

The second half was more of the same. Sure, the Hokies scored twice as many points in the second half (39) as they did in the first half (19), but they couldn’t guard miami, who scored another 38 points in the second half.

Tech shot a hair under 40 percent from the field (21/53) and just 19 percent from behind the arc (3/16). Against FSU, the Hokies were deadly from the charity stripe, against miami, not so much. They hit just 68 percent of their free throws (13/19).

Meanwhile, the canes shot an even 50 percent from the field on 23-of-46 shooting; made 73 percent of their free throws (22/30); and 8/21 three-pointers (38 percent). The canes made more free throws (22) than the Hokies attempted (19).

Next up, clemson. Saturday night, 8 p.m., at the Cassell. It’s senior night, so wear Green in honor of Erick Green, who will play his final home game. Let the sobbing begin.