My undaunted belief in this team was finally shaken a little on Sunday afternoon.
In case you missed it or drank it away immediately afterward, an undermanned and outgunned Virginia Tech team ran off 16 consecutive points (as part of a greater 30-9 run that spanned both halves) and went up 43-33 in front of a rabid crowd, and we were certifiably on the ropes. It was bad, but luckily the team had better composure than I did. London drilled a three on Virginia’s first possession after Tech went up 10, and then Justin Anderson came alive, going off for 10 of his 12 points for the game in a 14-2 run that ended with us up five with two minutes to go and suddenly strangely confident.
The play of the day was obviously the lob to JA, something he claims to have asked for off the court as often as he seems to gesture for on it. Credit to: CTB for calling it at the perfect time (when we direly needed a jolt against an inexperienced VT zone), London for throwing a picture-perfect pass, and Justin, for rising to the occasion as he seems to just keep doing this season.
If you had withheld the end result and told me that we shot 34.7%, turned the ball over 13 times (22.8% of our possessions), and allowed Tech to make 60.8% of their two-pointers and go on the aforementioned run, I would have told you that we were toast. We weren’t, and we owe the preservation of our undefeated record to size and grit (12 offensive boards (37.5% of our misses), a 9-2 edge in second chance points for the game), and superior talent.
Our offense was befuddled by the zone, which seems to be a Tony Bennett tradition for the first game where we see a lot of it. The turnovers were bad (nine of our 13 came during the 30-9 stretch), some of the shots (London made some strange decisions, and the team as a whole took 18 threes) weren’t my favorite and even the ones I liked weren’t going in, and we didn’t really come up with a good way to get the bigs involved (which was disappointing against a short, skinny Tech team), as the primary three shot 8-17. I’m a little surprised that we didn’t see any of Malcolm in the high post like we did last season (perhaps CTB was keeping it close to the vest), and I still would love to see Gill utilized more away from the basket against zones, because it would give him some more room to operate and choose how to attack.
Whatever, I guess. We prevailed. Tech played a much better game than we did — especially relative to our respective capabilities — but we survived and won anyway. There’s some team building/experience mumbo jumbo to be gleaned from that, but I’d much rather us just win the fun way.
Notes:
- CTB went to Devon Hall in the first half, and he rewarded the choice by nailing a three. I’d like to see more of him, especially when teams go zone, because he has a bouncy willingness to go to the rim and look to create for himself and others, something sometimes lacking in the rest of these guys.
- If you’re scoring at home, Mike Tobey is now in a four game slump: over his last 57 minutes, he’s totaled as many combined fouls and turnovers (13) as made baskets, rebounds, and blocks (13). He’s been dishearteningly tentative, and while he seems more engaged on D than he sometimes does, he’s not really helping much.
- London Perrantes had a weird game, assisting on seven of our 17 baskets by himself, but not seeming as sharp as he usually does.
I’m glad that’s over. Duke’s up next.
