Boxscore

IT’S A BEAR FIGHT!  The Hokies b- smacked the ‘piac, winning 81-61!  Malcolm Delaney went ape, scoring 19 points in the first half, just one below his average.  Delaney finished with 25 points to lead the Hokies to an easy victory.  He hit four three-pointers in the first 20 to push Tech to a 12 point halftime lead.  The doctor was 9/15 from the floor and 4/8 on threes, his third great shooting game in his last four games (we know what happened in the other – miami – game).  [Random thought: How much would it stink if Malcolm went nuts throughout the NIT and declared for the NBA Draft based on that?]

Dorenzo Hudson was the story in the second half, scoring 14 of his 19 points.  He finished just 5/17 from the floor but was the Cash to Delaney’s Tango (sorry, really stretching my movie references).

For the bobcats, leading scorer James Feldeine (who averaged 17 ppg) was held to 0.  Yep, a goose-egg.  A donut.  Zippy.  An inner tube.  A Jeff Allen.  A Gilbert Arenas (minus the .40 caliber weapon).  Second leading scorer Justin Rutty had 22 on 10/13 shooting and James Johnson scored 17 (most in garbage time).  Other than that, no bobcat had more than 7 points.  In fact, only four guys had more than 3.

JT Thompson chipped in his typical 9 off the bench and Victor Davila stepped up in Allen’s place, also scoring 9.  The two hit 7/10 shots.

The bobcats tried to slow down the tempo and it simply didn’t work.  If this game was a movie, it would have been the Fast and the Furious (I was going to use Smokey and the Bandit but I’m not sure people would have known what that was).  Tech outscored quinnipiac 27 to 2 on fastbreak points.  VT was a Ferrari, qunnipiac was an AMC Gremlin.

Tech limited the bobcats at their #1 strength, offensive rebounding.  The bobcats, who get 41% of their misses on the season, were outrebounded on the offensive end 18-12 by Tech.  The Hokies grabbed 50% of their misses, getting 18 offensive rebounds in 36 opportunities!  VT had 16 second chance points to just 10 for the bobcats.

Jeff Allen, who had reached double digits in 10 of the last 12 games, scored just 6 points while battling foul trouble.  Jeff hit just 2/8 shots, but his services were not necessary tonight as the Hokies woodshedded the bobcats.  He did grab a game-high 9 rebounds though.

Both teams did a good job protecting the ball.  Tech had just two turnovers at the half and quinnipiac had just three.  VT finished with just seven turnovers while quinnipiac had 10.

Yet the Hokies enjoyed a lead of 12 at the break, 39-27.  Delaney’s 19 points were the key to that lead, along with cold shooting from the bobcats.

VirgiNIa Tech advances to the second round of the NIT for the third year in a row and will face the uconn huskies, who barely beat northeastern in their first round game.  The other huskies missed a three at the buzzer to win the game.  uconn is 6-1 against the Hokies, all in the last 10 years, but are just a #4 seed in the NIT.  Tech will get this game at home.  Hopefully more than 3,000 Hokie fans will show up, the estimated crowd at 10k seat Cassell Coliseum.

Tip of the cap to…:  Jeff Allen is now the only Hokie to be ranked in the Top 10 in rebounding, steals, and blocks.  He is 10th all time in rebounds at 767, 8th in steals at 187, and 6th in blocks at 122.  Only five Hokies rank in the Top 10 in three major categories: Dell Curry (points, assists, and steals), Bimbo Coles (ditto), Ace Custis (points, rebounds, and steals), and Zabian Dowdell (points, assists, and steals), along with Jeff Allen.

Random ugly stat: Erick Green has missed 17 consecutive shots.

THE SETUP:

“We’ve been coming to the same party for years and in no way is that depressing,” Ron Burgandy in Anchorman.

Yes, virgiNIa Tech is back in the NIT!  We don’t like you very much anymore, but you sure seem to like us.  The NIT has lost some of its luster to Hokie fans.  Two years ago they were on par with a pretty darn good looking chick.  Not hot, mind you, but good looking with a decent body.  Now the NIT is like many of the fat ladies I saw at that “club” in Greensboro last week.  At the end of the night, when you’ve got no other options, you settle for the NIT and you bring her back to your place.  And for the third year in a row the Hokies will be shacking up with the NIT, bringing someone home to the Cassell for the sixth time in that span.  If Tech plays their cards right, they’ll get to bring home two more cows to the Cassell.

On Wednesday night the Hokies will do battle with the quinnipiac… hold on, let me look up their nickname… bobcats!  YOU CAN THROW OUT THE RECORDS WHEN THE HOKIES MEET THE bobcats!  Eche los tocadiscos!  Lots of bad blood between these two teams!

In all seriousness, please do head to the Cassell and support this team that has worked so hard all season.  Show them some support and give them some grief therapy for not making the dance.  They did about everything they could, let’s do the same in return.  As of Monday night, Tech had only sold 1,400 tickets.  That is not acceptable.

The Hokies won’t have Ben Boggs for this game.  He hurt his ankle over the weekend.  Dorenzo Hudson, who has been in a boot for two months and hasn’t been practicing much all year, went in practice on Monday and will be good to go.  He has been a warrior.  I’d also expect to see guys like Manny Atkins, Erick Green, and Cadarian Raines (if his shoulder is OK) see good minutes.  At this point you are building for next year in some ways, and it isn’t worth throwing Delaney and Hudson out there for 38 minutes each in the NIT.

TRIPLE SHOT OF KEYS TO WINNING:

Head Coach Seth Greenberg said it best on Tech Talk Live Monday night:

• Rebound
• Fight through ball screens
• Be Virginia Tech

To me, the last bullet there is the most important one.  If the Hokies come out and play like the Hokie team we’ve seen all season, this will be a Bear Fight margin of victory (over 20 points).  If Tech mopes around, feeling sorry for themselves, who knows what could happen.   VT almost lost to duquesne (who was a NIT 7-seed) last year, finally pulling it out in double overtime after duquesne missed on chances to win at the end of regulation and the first extra session.  The Hokies need to win 50/50 balls, crash the boards, get out and run, and pound it at the bobcats.  Do that, and Tech moves on.  Don’t do that, and VT gives the Selection Committee and doubters another reason to crap on the Hokies.

Rebounding will without a doubt be a major focus of the Hokies.  quinnipiac ranks third in the nation in Offensive Rebounding Percentage, grabbing over 41% of their misses.  Only odu and wvu were better.  Tech grabs just 67% of the Defensive Rebounds, so this will be a factor.  While you may wonder how much that had to do with competition levels, they did grab 39% of their misses against rhode island (a 2-seed in the NIT) and 50% against umass, so they are good at crashing the boards.  Justin Rutty is their main man on the glass.  The 6’7″ forward grabbed 158 offensive rebounds this year, just under 5 per game.  quinnipiac is not a great shooting team, hitting 45% of their shots, so stopping them on the glass will help neutralize their offense.

Seth also talked about how they run a lot of ball screens.  They aren’t a great three-point shooting team, hitting 34% and making just 4 per game, so Tech can afford to run underneath screens on the perimeter.  Just 20% of the bobcat shots are threes, so don’t expect a lot of them.  But the Hokies will have to do a good job of help defense when the screens do rub off the defender, and watch for pick-and-rolls to the hoop.

THE opponent:

While quinnipiac is a great rebounding team, the Northeast Conference regular season champs do have weaknesses.  The bobcats turn the ball over on 20% of their possessions.  Since Tech is great at causing takeaways, this should play into the Hokies’ hands.  VT can use the turnovers to feed their transition game.

Another weakness of the bobcats is their defense.  They are just 221st in the nation in Defensive Efficiency.  In other words, teams don’t have much trouble scoring on them.  VT, in contrast, is 11th in the land in that category.

If the bobcats score, chances are it was someone with a name starting with ‘J’ that did it.  All five of their starters, and six of their top seven scorers, have names that start with a ‘J’.  James Feldeine leads the team at 17 ppg, while big man Justin Ruddy averages a double-double with 15 ppg and 11 rebounds.  James Johnson, their point guard, averages 12 ppg and 4 assists.  Feldeine, Johnson, and Deontay Twyman (off the bench) are their best three-point shooters but none of them have reached 40 makes on the season.

The bobcats are good from the line, hitting 72%.  They get to the line a good amount, too.  About 25% of their 73 ppg come from the foul line.  Hopefully if they are getting fouled they won’t be on Allen, or even Delaney who has had some recent foul problems.

Let’s meet quinnipiac:

• Located in Hamden, CT
• Private
• Established in 1929
• 6k undergraduates and 2 postgrads
• Colors are blue and gold
• Mascot is Boomer
• Conference is the Northeast Conference.  They won the regular season basketball title but lost by 2 in the title game to Robert Morris.  They received an automatic bid to the NIT for winning the Northeast.

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