Let’s look at how VT did per my Keys to the Game from the preview:

• Defend the Three: (Grade: B) On paper, Virginia Tech did a good job defending Navy from behind the arc, especially in the first half.  But reality is the Middies had a lot of good looks.  It is hard shooting in a new environment, and Navy clearly struggling adjusting to the cavernous Verizon Center.  They hit just 2/14 three-pointers in the second half, many of which were uncontested.  In the second half, they hit 6/15 (a respectable 40%).  Some of those makes were with hands in their face, so give Navy credit there.
• Swallow the Whistles: (Grade: B+) Foul trouble for Tech’s low post players killed them in the elon and wisconsin games.  Jeff Allen, who committed a foul 17 seconds into the wisconsin game, waited until 38 seconds into this one to get called for an offensive foul on an illegal screen.  He left the game for a bit with an ankle injury.  But Jeff only committed one more foul in 30 minutes of additional playing time, so he did a good job of avoiding foul trouble.  Only Malcolm Delaney had 2 fouls in the first half, and the second came late in the half.  Navy actually was the team that had foul issues, committing 10 in the first half and 26 for the game (VT was only called for 14 fouls).  VT was in the bonus before the 10 minute mark in both halves.  Navy’s best player, Kaleo Kina, ended up fouling out.
• Intensity: (Grade: B-)The Hokies played hard early, going up 20-10, then seemed to take most of the rest of the half off.  Navy went on an 11-0 run to take the lead and finished the half outscoring Tech 24-8.  But Greenberg stoked the guys fire at halftime and VT came out and played their best offensive half of the season, scoring 51 points (a season high for a half) in the second stanza.  Kudos to the guys for their play in the second half.  They took control of the game quickly.

Other Notes:

• Hank Thorns had his best game of the season and hit double digits for the first time this year.  However, he is still struggling to get assists (he had two).
• Lewis Witcher also contributed positively against the Middies.  He had 4 points and 4 boards in 13 minutes.
• Malcolm Delaney hit all 11 of his free throws.  He is now 60/70 (86%) on the season.  An amazing 46% of his points are from the charity stripe this season.
• Allen did a good job battling through his ankle injury.  He played 30 minutes after spraining it, even though he was struggling with it at times.  We will see if he has any ill effects in Tuesday’s game against georgia considering the short turnaround.  Allen’s dunk midway through the second half was just plain awesome as he flew through the sky and threw it down with one hand.  Very Jordan-esque.
• While Tech forgot how to make threes since the wisconsin game, they won this game at the line.  The Hokies hit 29/34 (85%).  Navy had just 10 points from the line.
• The Hokies used a full court trap (1-3-1 with Witcher at the top) for the first time this year to my knowledge (not counting at the end of games when Tech was behind).  I think that was a great idea by Seth, considering VT’s struggles to get their fast break going.  Navy seemed to beat it fairly easily, and got some good looks on threes out of it as VT fell back.  But with time Tech should get more adept at it.  We shall see if they break it out for georgia, also.
• VT did a tremendous job on the glass against the smaller Navy lineup.  The Hokies held the Midshipmen to just 6 offensive rebounds, while collecting 11 themselves.
• It continues to be a block party for the Hokies.  They had 7 rejections on the game, to just 1 for Navy.  VT is averaging 6 stuffs per game on the year.

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Box Score | Recap

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Box Score

The Hokies used a strong second half and a 45-28 edge in rebounding to hold off a gritty Navy squad, 79-70, in the BB&T Classic. Malcolm Delaney led all scorers with 21 points – he also had six rebounds, five assists, two blocks and a steal. Niemo texted me immediately following the game; “Delaney player of the game.” Jeff Allen and A.D. Vassallo both had 17 points and Hank Thorns gave Tech 10 points off the bench.

Tech started off sluggishly and their first half shooting was abysmal. They were 0-8 from behind the arc in the first half and finished 2/13 for the game. Vassallo couldn’t find his rhythm until the second half.  Even with an improved shooting effort in the final 20 minutes, he finished 0-5 on threes.

The Hokies built up a 20-10 lead in the first half with the help of an 11-0 run. But, the Midshipmen used a a gnat-like defense to force Tech into some costly turnovers and closed the half with a 24-8 run putting Navy up 34-28 at the half.

The second half was a completely different story. Tech finally found its stroke and ripped off an 18-2 run to start the half and didn’t commit a turnover until six minutes into the half. Though Navy would use some stellar three-point shooting to keep the game respectable, the Hokies dominated the boards and shot 85 percent from the charity stripe (29/34) to put the game away.

The Big Three (Vassallo, Delaney and Allen) scored 55 of the team’s 79 points. Seth Greenberg did get 20 points from his bench tonight. True freshman Victor Davila had a quiet game with just 4 points in 14 minutes. When he was in the game, Navy double and tripled teamed him down low as part of their very physical style of play.

The win at the Verizon Center snaps the Hokies two-game losing streak in the “phone booth” as well as Navy’s seven-game winning streak. Next up for Tech, a road game against lowercase georgia, 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 9.

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THE SETUP

The Hokies travel to the Verizon Center for the third time in five seasons on Sunday for the first game of the BB&T Classic.  Keep in mind, this is not a tournament — that would make too much sense and make the games too interesting.  Instead, this is just two games on Sunday with Navy/Virginia Tech leading things off and then gwu and maryland in the nightcap.

Since joining the ACC, the “Phone Booth” (the nickname for the Verizon Center) has not been kind to Virginia Tech.  The Hokies have dropped two in a row there, losing to georgia tech in the quarterfinals of the 2005 ACC Tournament, and losing to george washington in the 2006 BB&T Classic.  Tech did defeat georgetown at Verizon back in March of 2004, while still a member of the Big East.  The Weekend Warrior put on quite a show in his luxury suite at that game (“The suite on the right, the suite on the right, the suite on the right SUCKS!”) and he will be making an appearance at this Classic.  All time, VT is 1-3 at the Phone Booth, including a 96-68 loss to georgetown in 2001 that included the worst half of basketball I’ve ever seen the Hokies play.  Tech went almost an entire media timeout stretch (four minutes) without being able to get the ball across half court against the hoya press.  Who was VT’s coach back then?  Oh yeah, ricky stokes.  Let’s move on…

[Editor's note: Daveywoods was in a not-catered suite for the '01 gtown game, possibly with The Wick. The Hokies stunk it up bad and we paid something like $100 for a case of warm canned Heineken. Whee.]

THE OPPONENT

All Time Series: Navy 3-2 (but the teams haven’t played since 1964)

Streak: VT – 2 in a row

Navy comes into this game riding the gravy train with biscuit wheels.  Since dropping their opener to towson, the Midshipmen have reeled off seven straight victories, including wins over bill & mary and radford.  Navy also defeated penn on Friday night.

Navy generally scores in the high 60s to mid 70s, but put up 102 on w&m in a triple-overtime thriller.  Kaleo Kina had 10 points in the third overtime alone as the Middies mercifully ended the 55-minute affair.  The radford game also went to overtime.

Kina is Navy’s best player.  The 6’4″ senior guard leads the team in scoring at 19.4 ppg, is second in rebounds with 5.9 rpg, and third in assists at 2.4 apg.  However, he turns the ball over 4 times a game, so pressure can rattle him into bad passes or mistakes that can feed the Hokie fast break.

Kina is joined in the backcourt by 6’2″ junior Chris Harris.  Harris is originally from Mechanicsville, VA.  He scores 16.3 ppg and is a better three-point threat than Kina (34% compared to 29%).  Harris loves to shoot it from deep, averaging close to 10 three-point attempts per contest.  Twice this season he has attempted 14 in one game. 

Navy is not deep — they may only use two or three reserves for significant minutes.  Jordan Sugars plays sparingly.  Sugars was a teammate of Erick Green, a VT 2009 signee, on their Virginia AA State Championship team last year at Millbrook HS in Winchester, VA.

Navy may have as many as four guards on the floor at one time.  They love to go small ball.  The Naval Academy used to have a *height restriction at 6’8″ upon enrollment, but this may have been lifted, especially considering their centers are 6’10″ Jeremy Wilson and 6’11″ Mark Veazey.  The only forward that sees any quality minutes is 6’8″ Adam Teague, who averages 11.0 ppg.

KEYS TO THE GAME

• Defend the Three: As I mentioned, Harris for Navy will launch a lot of threes.  Considering how poorly VT defended the three against wisconsin (the badgers hit 12/18), this could be an issue.  The man guarding Harris must either not drop down into the post to double team low post players that get the ball, or the other guard on the perimeter must locate and rotate to Harris if his man does leave him to double the ball.
• Swallow the Whistles: In each of Tech’s last two games, fouls have been called very tight on the Hokies’ low post players, leading to early foul trouble.  Against elon, Jeff Allen, Cheick Diakite, and Lewis Witcher each had two fouls in the first half.  In the wisconsin game, Allen had two fouls before the first media timeout and sat the rest of the half.  The result was Tech digging themselves into holes in both games and not having all their weapons at their disposal.  Let’s hope the officials Sunday are a little less whistle happy.  Allen can help that to happen by being less aggressive on high screens.
• Intensity: The Hokies need to treat each game with relative importance.  If they want to keep hope alive for a NCAA Tournament bid, they cannot afford a bad loss.  Despite Navy’s record, this would be a bad loss.  Also, Tech has only had one blowout, fairfield, which was VT’s only double-digit win.  It would be nice to come out and bury a team early instead of having to scratch and claw their way to victory.

BORING FACTS ABOUT NAVY

• TechHoops.com has decided to capitalize “Navy”.  This is one of the few opponents TechHoops.com will do this for.  That is because of our respect for those individuals that serve our country.  The reason we do not capitalize other opponents is because we are jerks and like disrespecting other, lesser schools.
• Location: Annapolis, MD
• Undergrads: ~4400
• Mascot: Bill the Goat
• Colors: Navy (duh!) and gold
• Conference: Patriot League
• Founded: 1845 by Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft
• Rank structure: Somewhat similar to uva (only better), Middies are classified as fourth, third, second, or first class.  Fourth class, or “plebes”, is actually the lowest class. 
• The campus is known as “The Yard” and this is where the expression “Stomp the Yard” came from… just kidding.
• The movie Annapolis is pretty crappy, I don’t recommend it.  It is about a poor kid who goes on to the Naval Academy and tries to be the school boxing champ.
• Women were not allowed in until 1976.
• Daveywoods attended wrestling camp at Navy in 1985 and Summer Seminar at Navy in 1987.
• Famous Alums: Too many to name, but David Robinson is obviously their most famous basketball player.  The Admiral attended Osbourn Park HS in Manassas, VA before heading to Navy.  He grew from 6’7″ well past the Navy’s 6’8″ height limit to a robust 7′.  Navy does not deny admission to students who grow past the height restriction after enrollment.  He was a two-time NBA Champion with the San Antonio Spurs and was the 1995 NBA MVP.
• OK, here’s some other alums: H. Ross Perot, President Jimmy Carter, Roger Staubach, Alan Shepard, Charlie Wilson (yes, of the movie), John McCain, and more.
• Army/Navy Football Rivalry: On Saturday, my favorite football rivalry is renewed as Army takes on Navy.  The all-time series is in Navy’s favor at 52-49-7.  Navy has won six in a row, the longest winning streak in series history, thanks in large part to Paul Johnson who is now georgia tech’s head coach.

 * I could not verify if the service academy height restriction is still in place.

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