#8 seed Quinnipiac @ #1 seed Virginia Tech:
TV coverage: NONE, 7pm tip-off Wednesday nite
Vegas Line: VT-15, O/U=140.5

Q. Quinnipiac Bobcats?!?

Q. Not a 12th seed in the NC2A’s?

Let’s take the second question first — get over it!
Don’t cry over split O&M milk folks.
Suck it up, and move on.

Who is Quinnipiac? Coach Greenberg himself compared them to a mini-me version of the great UConn huskies. Quinnipiac is a Hamden Connecticut University known for it’s prestigious post-graduate schools in Business, Law, and Medicine. Good Hockey school, as most Nor-Easters are, with NO football team. Per such hoops is a bigger deal by the by for a campus like Quinnipiac than it is for a football hungry program like the star studded one found in the New River Valley. VERY much ditto getting into the N.I.T. Nice if you are a Hokiebird; epic for the Bobcats.

This is gonna be an interesting and testy preview; as mea coupla, I have z-e-r-o game film on Quinnipiac to base my scouting report on. I do however know the following, which tells me “The Q” is not all that bad, as they were only 1 single solitary basket removed from going dancing in the NC2A’s. That tells me that they do have a real live shot at VT; should VT end up playing The Q with a NCAA Selection Committee hangover from Sunday nite. Read the rest of this entry »

That did not taste good. The ass end of the proverbial stick never does.

However … before you go nuclear chicken-little all over the TSL.com message boards, let us candidly consider the following…

Most regular season wins ever in VT basketball history does not suck. Kudos to Seth Greenberg, his Staff and the 2009-2010 VT hoops players for such! If you predicted that you do not need to be on TSL.com. You need to be in Vegas breaking the bank and pronto!

Nor does the N.I.T. suck for a team that did not have any pre-season love at all. None.  Nadda. Zippo. Zilch. Nobody even said we had an N.I.T. shot way back in September. This might be an opportunity for extra practices as well compared to very possibly going one-and-done in NC2A play. Two-three weeks of extra hoops practice could help lay the foundation for the strategic 2011 big-picture VT basketball run folks.

That said … to the matter at hand, the 2010 NCAA Selection Committee snub … to me 3 things kept us out: Read the rest of this entry »

Couple of upsets already as Miami  is set to advance as I type, and france has advanced. Pretty game, gutty, gritty efforts for two understaffed squads.

That’s life in the one-n-done format folks.
france and Miami may not be able to win in a 2 outta 3 or best of 5 format; yet for one game they were good enough to live to fight another day. Congrats to both. (have something on Wake in a few)

Friday 12 noon: #9 france vs. #1 Duke (Duke-16.5)
First up, props to le` team for knocking off Boston College with their best player hopefully attending study-hall; second up, props to Chris Coleman for nailing that very upsetting call. france may be better on Defense sans landesberg folks. 41% allowed from the floor and 29% allowed from beyond the arc is not half-bad. Still … that was the first french win since the last time American won a World War for france. Or at least the first french win since 02.03.2010 or about 5 weeks. That’s not good, and there is no way in the world that france will be able to score with a Duke team that is quasi playing at home with +5 days worth of fresh legs. Gar-ron-tee france has 40 minutes left in their season or I will eat this post. Normally takes about 80 points to put Duke down on average, just don’t see that outta the 248^th best offense in all of D-1 hoops.
Prediction: Duke by 15+. (odds 82%) Read the rest of this entry »

In case you live under a rock, or have recently been struck by a rather large rock, you may not know that VT, yes, the Virginia Tech hoops team that basically nobody -including me- picked to go much of anywhere preseason … is the #4 seed in this years A.C.C. Men’s hoops tournament and therefore draws a 1st-Round bye.

That means that VT plays the #1 A.C.C. seed should VT actually advance. That means VT will draw a re-match with Duke that I personally know our team would love to get a big ole piece of. That however is putting the horse before the cart, as VT must first beat the Wake vs. Miami winner on Friday afternoon at 2pm. That and the fact that my Duke sources swear up and down that VT got lucky to catch Duke on a chilly shooting nite; which they feel if prohibitive a second time around. That and the fact that VT’s Top-3 scorers are all nursing various injuries of varying severity. (more on that below)

That might make for a 1 or 2 game stay in Greensboro, NC. That is what the always amorphous “they” will tell you. That is what “they” want you to believe. Read the rest of this entry »

#52 R.P.I. Virginia Tech @ #36 R.P.I. Georgia Tech:
TV coverage: 4pm Saturday Raycom
Vegas  line: VT+5, O/U=138.5

NC.State may not be a world-beater, they may not have a 2010 post-season, and they may even be the 12^th best A.C.C. team in Men’s hoops this year. Nevertheless, if that was not a big Hokie win, it was at least a right-sized one folks.

Big difference between o-5 to close the 2010 show and 1-4, which also brings 2-3 into play if we can upset the ATL de factor NBAD league team in their own house. That’s no small thing, yet beating the Wrambling Wreck in their backyard might also be code for getting our tix punched to the Big Dance.

In holding serve against a NC.State team that had been playing some smart basketball of late, Virginia Tech demonstrated what VT is all about. Toughness, backbone, fortitude, will power. Call it what you will, yet do call the plucky A.C.C. school from Blacksburg, VA. the toughest dog in the fight.

VT will need that on the road in the ATL, where GT is a stellar 14-1 at home, and 19-10 overall, yet a less than attractive 7-8 in A.C.C. play. Which is code for GT also needs to win this one after having dropped 5 of their last 8 games overall. Read the rest of this entry »

#107 R.P.I. NC.State @ #52  R.P.I. Virginia Tech:
TV coverage: Wednesday 7pm, NONE
Vegas line: VT-8, O/U=134

We had been getting about 18 minutes outta Jeff Allen. We got 44 minutes, 25 points, 15 boards, 11 FTA’s, 1 steal, 1 assist at home and we still got beat?

Even with double-OT inflation being such as it is, that’s pretty remarkable when you think that Jeff’s participation percentage hiked all the way up to 88% vs. Maryland. The maths on that is pretty easy, it basically double, and Jeff had his best game of the year. MD-20/20 had 27, Hud’ (who was really hurting to close the show) had 21, J.T. even had 15. Not often do you see four Hokies in double-digits vs. a team not named V.M.I. We also shot 46%, and had a whopping +7 Rebounding Margin edge (the Terps sure play smaller than they are, don’t they).

And we still got beat, at home, to extend our L streak to 3.

Maryland is good, though that 3 game skid is no good sports fans.

Now we catch a semi mini-me resurgent NC.State team that is feeling no pain, can play care-free basketball and could still backdoor a N.I.T. or C.B.I. bid with two more wins; which would get them to 18 on the year. That and a little A.C.C. calling-card cachet might just do the post-season trick for NC.State. Just like Kevin Nash and Scott Hall once warned … “don’t turn your back on the Wolfpac.” Read the rest of this entry »

I hope you’re not looking at BC’s 13-13 (4-8) record and their 105 RPI ranking and thinking the Hokies have got this one in the bag. Quite the contrary. A win tonight would please me greatly, because everything points to this game being a tough one.

The Hokies managed to eke out a narrow 63-62 win against the Eagles back on January 23rd, thanks to a critical held ball call and a layup by Dorenzo Hudson with 9 seconds left. It was nip and tuck the whole way, and BC’s strategy against the Hokies was sound. The Eagles used reserve wing Dallas Elmore (6-5, 210) to hound Malcolm Delaney into a 4-of-15 shooting performance.

Elmore averages just 14.8 minutes per game, but he played 29 minutes against Delaney, and was physical with him. That BC game was the start of a shooting slump for Delaney that has dragged his percentages down. MD was hitting 41.9% (38.1% on threes) before that game, and is now shooting 39.0% (31.2% on threes).

Read the rest of this entry »

#44 R.P.I. Virginia Tech @ #104 R.P.I. Boston College:
TV coverage: 7pm Wednesday, ESPNU
Vegas line: VT+1, O/U=133

Well, the “buffoon”(s) at Duke beat us. No shock there.

We did hang around; we did maintain my buzzword of “contact” for most of the game. Duke is not the lesser team here, though you may be damn sure that VT is not one of Duke’s better match-up’s either. The Duke players themselves spoke –some might say cried- about how physical VT was. I knew J.T. and Bell would really muck with Duke, I just wish they had mucked with them a bit more.

Now VT must ascend up to Chestnut Hill up in Boston. (Celtic voice inflection insert here) Will we be in a bit of a letdown trap here? That’s not umpossible. We did expend quite a few mental and emotional bullets at Duke for our troubles. B.C. did just upset UNC, this year is the year for that. However, they are .500 overall -13 up, 13 down, 12^th best overall record in the A.C.C. – and only 4-8 in conference play. Boston College does not have the look and feel of a post-season team right now. Barring a closing regular season and or A.C.C. tournament run these Eagles spring break wings appear to be clipped.

Boston College did however give VT a 1 point fit of a game inside of Cassell last time out, and this one is up on the impoverished man’s parquet. Read the rest of this entry »

Just a few blog thoughts the morning after …

The Hokies lost at Duke last night (67-55) like we thought they might lose: the Blue Devils pounded Tech from the three-point line, outscoring the Hokies 30-6 from beyond the arc. That’s to be expected, because it’s the way Duke plays. They move the ball better than almost any other team in the country, and they find open shooters, no matter how good your defense is.

Read the rest of this entry »