Box Score

Blacksburg, VA – The Virginia Tech men’s hoops team improved to 6-4 this season with a 79-57 win over longwood this afternoon at Cassell Coliseum. Sophomore Jeff Allen dominated the game, notching a monster double-double, scoring 19 points and grabbing a career-high 21 rebounds. Meanwhile, senior A.D. Vassallo led all scorers with 21 points, and was one rebound shy of a double-double of his own. Sophomore Terrell Bell scored a career high 12 points and was named player of the game.

Even though the 22-point victory — Tech’s first double-digit home win this season — looks impressive in the final box score, the Hokies were fortunate to win this game. Seth Greenberg’s team turned the ball over a season-high 23 times, including five times in the first 2-1/2 minutes of the second half. Luckily for the Hokies, the lancers were atrocious from the field, making only 20 of 67 attempts for a 29.9 percent average. The lancers missed 47 shots… the Hokies attempted 52.

Once again, Seth’s boys got off to a slow start, letting longwood hang around and build confidence en route to an 6-9 lead. The Hokies used a 12-3 run to take a six-point lead, which they stretched to 16 at the half, but it wasn’t easy. Tech struggled with longwood’s man defense which led to many of the Hokies’ 13 first-half turnovers.

The Hokies had a significant height advantage over longwood, yet they never really established dominance in the paint on offense. The size disparity did show up on the stat sheet as the good guys out-rebounded longwood 52-27. The 52 boards was a season-high for the Hokies.

The second half began with a 16-point Tech lead, but five turnovers in the first 2-1/2 minutes cut short any hope that the Hokies would be able to put this game away early in the half. Meanwhile, longwood used an 8-2 run to cut Tech’s lead to 10. The lancers would get that lead down to single digits, but only briefly. Trailing by 11, longwood’s e.j. dawson scored a bucket to cut the Hokie lead to nine, but on Tech’s ensuing possession, sophomore Terrell Bell got open along baseline, got the ball and went strong to the rim virtually uncontested for a two-handed flush that put Tech back up by eleven.

The visiting lancers, playing the Hokies for the first time ever, would manage to trim the lead back down to as little as five points, but a 16-0 run midway through the second half put the game out of reach. The lancers played a very aggressive and physical game, which ultimately led to two of their starters — Dana Smith and Antwan Carter — fouling out. Tech went to the free throw line 35 times, scoring 26 points.

When you shoot less than 30 percent, lose two starters to foul trouble, and send your opponent to the charity stripe 35 times, you are going to have a tough time winning games.

Bottom line: Tech won by 22, which is great, but they need to take better care of the ball because 23 turnovers against unc or duke ain’t gonna cut it.

Note: J.T. Thompson was supposed to make his season debut, but sat out due to a sprained foot.  However, his hernia injury has been cleared and it is hopeful that he will return for the Holiday Festival Tournament next week at the ‘Most Famous Arena in the World’ in NYC.

Scoring Between Media Timeouts (overall score in parenthesis):

First Half:

• 20:00-15:48: lu 9-8 (lu 9-8)
• 15:48-11:40: VT 2-0 (VT 10-9)
• 11:40-7:59: VT 8-5 (VT 18-14)
• 7:59-3:44: VT 8-5 (VT 26-19)
• 3:44-Halftime: VT 11-2 (VT 37-21)

Second Half:

• 20:00-15:00: lu 11-10 (VT 47-32)
• 15:00-11:39: lu 14-5 (VT 52-46)
• 11:39-7:51: 4-4 (VT 56-50)
• 7:51-3:12: VT 14-0 (VT 70-50)
• 3:12-End of Game: VT 9-7 (VT 79-57)

Niemo’s End of Game Nuggets:

• Jeff Allen went absolutely nuts this afternoon, scoring 19 points and grabbing a career high 21 rebounds.  His previous rebound high was 17 against seton hall earlier this year. The only negative for him was his 6 turnovers, giving him 10 in his last two games.
• VT went on a 16-0 run from the 8:13 mark of the second half to the 2:44 mark to blow open a 56-50 lead.
• longwood had a STD (ShooTing Dysfunction) in the last 12 minutes of the second half, going 9 minutes without a field goal from the 11:44 mark to the 2:44 mark.

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THE SETUP

The Virginia Tech Hokies will look to whack the longwood lancers at the Cassell on Sunday afternoon in the annual “Here’s an excuse to take a few hours off from studying for finals” classic.  This is the first time the schools have ever met in basketball.  Before you just chalk this one up as a ‘W’ for the Hokies… nah, I’m not even going to try and sell you on how this might be a game.  Tech’s going to win this one. 

Or are they?!  The Hokies have won just one game by more than nine points, and they have yet to win a home game by double digits. 

Come on, forget it, Tech is going to win this game going away.

Or are they?!  longwood stiffened up on November 18th and beat gardner-webb 85-84, a team the Hokies beat by just three points. 

Give me a break.  Forget the transitive property logic.  By that you could somehow make uva a quality sports program.  Hmm, but I bet that would take a relationships.

Alright, I’ll just come out and say it.  Virginia Tech will leave longwood limp by Sunday evening.  The Hokies will come out and play loose in their only game in an 11 day span and thrust past longwood.

THE OPPONENT

• Location: Farmville, VA
• Nickname: lancers  (hmm… longwood… lancers… you do the math)
• Enrollment: 3700 undergrad, 700 grad
• Student Ratio: 65% chicks!
• History: Became a university in 2002
• Conference: None for basketball, they are an independent; they just entered D1 in June 2007
• Famous Students: Jerome Kersey (bball), Michael Tucker (baseball), Jason Mraz (awful, awful singer), and Pat McGee (singer)
• Other Boring Facts: KD and ZTA were founded at longwood
• The school was NOT named for Davey Woods, that’s for sure

Wins: va-wise, gardner-webb, @md-eastern shore, delaware state, and jmu (man is jmu awful at bball)

Losses: norfolk state, @wvu, @kentucky, and se missouri state

longwood is powered by 6’5″ junior wing man, Dana Smith.  He leads the team in scoring (16.4), rebounding (7.3), and steals (1.3).  He shoots an amazing 58% from the field, despite being 2/17 on threes.  That tells you Dana plays near the rim.  Tech must keep him off the offensive glass, where he averages three offensive rebounds per game.  They almost must force him to receive the ball away from the hoop, stop his penetration, and double him when he gets the ball near the rim.

Ryan Bogan is the lancers’ next best player on offense, averaging 14.2 ppg.  The 6’1″ senior guard is a good outside shooter, hitting 37% of his threes and making over two per game.

The other starters include C Antwan Carter (only 6’6″), G Durann Neil (6’1″), and G Kevin Swecker (6’1″).  Of the guys that see significant minutes off the bench, only one is over 6’2″.  Obviously the Hokies are much longer than longwood.  Tech should be able to post up just about anyone except for Hank Thorns.  The Hokies should pound the ball inside against longwood and let Jeff Allen and Victor Davila go to work, maybe even posting up A.D. Vassallo or Dorenzo Hudson.  The key will be keeping Allen out of foul trouble, which has been a problem of late.

That said, since the lancers will run a lot of guards at you, Tech must fall back on defense and eliminate transition buckets.  Also, help defense will be critical as the smaller guys for lu potentially beat the bigger Hokies off the dribble.

Overall, longwood cannot go deep (that’s what she said).  They are just 57/204 on three-pointers this season, a woeful 28%.  They aren’t all that great inside the arc either, hitting just 40% of their shots.  However, georgia was a pathetic offensive team and Virginia Tech let them explode for 38 first half points thanks to poor help and transition defense.  The Hokies have to get back to play aggressive, tough-nosed defense and really lock down opponents.  They need to sever the longwood offense and render it limp.

Again, the key is to stopping Smith.  Part of that is slowing down Bogan and not letting him drive and score or dish to Smith.

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