No one's mentioned basketball.
- Thread starter bschroed
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Hokies will be fun to watch this year. Should make the tournament. Just avoid any bad loss. No ACC game would be a bad loss. The conference is very good this year.
Lol, I was just about to make a basketball thread! Yeah, Buzz is building something with this team. I'm really impressed with how he has taken a group with almost no interior presence whatsoever to a 6-1 start and very nearly 7-0. I think this is an NCAA team. If we head into the Duke game 11-1 it may be the first ranked matchup between the two teams since 2006-2007.
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Also, it's nice to see a smart, efficient offense after years of Greenberg's stubbornly stupid and hideous so-called offense. I don't think I've seen such swift ball movement and effectively spreading the perimeter so well at Tech. It's also awesome to see a small team who are so aggressive driving to the basket and completely undaunted by physically bigger teams.
I did not know basketball season had started. We still have ACC championship football game to play and a bowl game to go to. Silly me.
Who talks football during Basketball season....especially when you are in a Basketball conference.
Why are the two mutually exclusive to you? I can't imagine focusing on both at the same time is that mentally and emotionally taxing.
I love the attitude of this team. We're small again this season with Blackshear injured, but they make up for it in the way they make every game into a 40 minute fight. They aren't going to be an easy out for any of their opponents. They have no quit in them.
VT will have to have a really good record in Conference play if they want to make the NCAA Tourney.....the OOC schedule is weak and you will not get much credit for most of these wins. Buzz needs to step it up out of Conference. Maybe the schedule was set before Buzz, it sure, but he should have tried to change a couple of these to better opponents to strengthen the RPI.
Not really. 9 puts us on the bubble and 10 gets us in. Assuming, of course, we win the remainder of our non-conference slate, which we should. Nebraska, A&M and Michigan are all top 100 in the RPI and New Mexico isn't that far out either. Conceivably, A&M and Michigan will both climb over the course of the season and I expect both of those teams to be in the tournament. Additionally, we get Ole Miss at home, a very winnable game, and they are top 50 in the RPI. The key is to avoid bad losses and do respectably in ACC play.
This is a very solid VT team and a potentially dangerous one when Blackshear returns. While the ACC is arguably better this year, you can make the same case for a VT team who won 10 last year in conference and could have won 12 if not for meltdowns @ND and @Syracuse. This team is going to surprise people (yet again) and I expect them to be in on selection Sunday.
Selection committee has been known to screw VT before. I always joke if we can go undefeated and win ACC tournament, we might get an at large bid in west regional and a 16 seed
The key thing that kept VT out of the dance last year was the opening loss to Alabama State. Without that bad loss we likely would have made it in off the bubble last season. This year's OOC is better than last year's and the key, again, is to avoid that bad loss. We also have a quality road win at Michigan and we didn't have any quality OOC road wins last season. Our best OOC win last season was a neutral site win over UAB. While I would generally agree I would like to see the OOC schedule upgraded more, this OOC resume will not keep us out of the dance this season if we win 10 regular season ACC games again. I think we would go with 9 wins too, but maybe need a 1st round ACCT win to go with it. But I think this team will be better than that and can win as many as 12 ACC games this season.
after seeing the eer's press I think we take 2 from the hoos this season .
We are overrated since losing Nichols.....we should be around 15-20 at best. Burg congrats on Blacksburg advancing.
thanks Birdie, I think losing Brogdon and Gill hurts more. I would pressure London for every step, you flow how he goes
The Michigan win was a comeback away game win against a major opponent. Tremendous building block. Buzz keeps impressing with his ability to get the most from the guys and this is an unselfish group. Tough. Michigan is a notoriously hard place to play and they were in shock at the end of the game. Tech's D is tenacious and keeps them in the game during their cold shooting periods.
Didn't get to see the WVU/Va game but it looks like you can press UVa more this year. WVU is off the charts in the press and that's what will get us a W against UVa if we can keep the pressure up. If I were a UVa fan, I'd like to see Perrantes look for his shot more often
Didn't get to see the WVU/Va game but it looks like you can press UVa more this year. WVU is off the charts in the press and that's what will get us a W against UVa if we can keep the pressure up. If I were a UVa fan, I'd like to see Perrantes look for his shot more often
I don't now if it will be off the press because Buzz hasn't shown a lot of pressure, but turnovers (however we get them) are definitely a key to beating UVA. Bennett's teams don't turn it over much, and last year that was pretty much the difference when we beat them. In that game they had uncharacteristically high 16 TO's and it will be needed again. That, and getting defensive rebounds and some run outs rather than letting them get set up in their half court defense. Also need to shoot 50% plus in that game because their style of play limits the number of possessions. I think they are still a really good team despite their graduation losses.
Good observations....the press didn't hurt UVA as much as the lack of inside play. We gave WVU to many 2nd and 3rd chances. We had too many turnovers but they were stupid turnovers not caused by the press. We also missed too many free throws, especially front ends of one and ones. The loss of Austin Nichols will be much bigger than some believe because we don't have the toughness inside without him (especially after losing Gill and Tobey). We have some really talented freshman but they lack the toughness at this point. The defense is still incredibly good and will keep us in just about every game. As I posted earlier we are (were) way to high in the polls after losing Nichols. I believe we will battle to finish somewhere around 4-6 in the ACC, very strong conference.
We'll never know how big the loss of Nichols is because he wasn't around long enough to see how he would fit into Bennett's system. Its really all about Bennett's system this year, and keeping Perrantes healthy and on the floor. Bennett's got good enough upperclassmen, not superstars, but solid fundamentally sound players with good talent, to execute his game controlling style as a unit. The freshmen don't have to play major minutes (15-20+) until they are ready. Nothing like VT's freshmen had to play last year because Buzz didn't have returning upperclassmen. I think your prediction of finishing 4-6 in the ACC is valid (unless you lose Perrantes for some reason, which would be catastrophic).
So, after today's win against Ole Miss we move to 8-1, and have three cupcakes before our conference opener against Duke. That should put us at 11-1, if all goes according to plan, before our first ACC game with some solid wins and no bad losses.
As it stands now, by the numbers, our RPI is 78, with our only loss being to Texas A&M (RPI #64). Ole Miss (RPI #32), Michigan (RPI #59), and Nebraska (#57) are all top 100 wins. New Mexico's RPI is #123, and could conceivably be a top-100 RPI team by season's end. Escaping the OOC gauntlet with no bad losses would be huge, and getting Duke at home for our first game is a chance to get an RPI top 25 win and make a statement early on. I think 9-9 in conference play gets us in, but we need to have some cosmetic victories to burnish our resume, and I think 10-8 gets us in squarely.
As it stands now, by the numbers, our RPI is 78, with our only loss being to Texas A&M (RPI #64). Ole Miss (RPI #32), Michigan (RPI #59), and Nebraska (#57) are all top 100 wins. New Mexico's RPI is #123, and could conceivably be a top-100 RPI team by season's end. Escaping the OOC gauntlet with no bad losses would be huge, and getting Duke at home for our first game is a chance to get an RPI top 25 win and make a statement early on. I think 9-9 in conference play gets us in, but we need to have some cosmetic victories to burnish our resume, and I think 10-8 gets us in squarely.
I agree with you on 10-8 getting you in.....9-9 would probably be on the bubble without any top 50 wins. You could get that top 50 or better win in conference play. It's going to be interesting to see how the conference shakes out after the top 2-3 teams.
Unlike football, the basketball schedule is made or finalized just months before the season starts, so Buzz would have had time to get some quality games. Not sure why he is still sticking with easy OOC games. I think that costed us NCAA bid last year.
Maybe when the Hoos start caring about football too they can quit sucking at it. Just a thought.
Kind of like Louisville needs to start paying attention to academics....really pulling ACC down with your poor academic showing. Just sayin.....
Just saw the strength of schedules and VT is 157.....better have a great ACC season. Buzz definitely needs to step up the early schedule it will only help in the long run.
We already have a top 50 win against Ole Miss (#31 in the RPI). Every team in the ACC with the exception of VT, Boston College, GT, Clemson, Miami and Syracuse are in the top 50. VT is just outside the RPI top 50 right now at 54. As it stands, Wake, UVa, Duke and Notre Dame all visit Blacksburg and all are top 50 RPI. I wouldn't be surprised to see us split those 4. I think our athleticism will give UVa some serious problems, and I'm not sold on Wake, but they're #13 in the RPI. We also get about 6-7 opportunities on the road for a top 50 win and I don't see us losing all of those.
We played in a tournament across the country with (likely 4) future NCAA tournament teams in it. Had we beaten A&M like we should have, we would have replaced Nebraska with UCLA which would have given our SOS and RPI a significant boost -- win or lose. A lot of these preseason tournaments are invitationals, too, so you don't always have the luxury of choosing between a bunch of them. The B10-ACC challenge is out of our hands, to a degree, and Michigan, who have been ranked this season, are just barely outside the top 50 (#52 RPI). So, even with Buzz not "stepping it up" (which is hilarious and hyperbolic considering our SOS was 53 last year, and 89 the year before), we still have a top 50 OOC win, and I am confident it will be 2 as Michigan's season continues. Even Nebraska is #58 in the RPI, and if they do better than expected that could be 3 OOC wins.
Like I said before: don't lose any bad games, and we should be okay with 9 wins, and 10 wins gets us in easily. A middling SOS really only hurts with awful losses, so long as everything else looks good.
You go .500 in the ACC and your SOS will be huge.....but as I said earlier you can help yourself by beating good teams in conference. I think VT has a talented team, that's why I question Buzz going with a weak OOC schedule. It can still hurt you especially if you are a bubble team and you are compared to teams that stepped it up before conference play.
Not really, unless we manage to beat no one but GT and Clemson 9 times. Conference wins are qualified differently every year and this year 9 wins in the ACC would all but guarantee a handful of top 50 wins on top of victories over Michigan and Ole Miss (should they end top 50).
Also, there are no bubble teams at this point in the season. Conference play hasn't even begun. No one has any tangible advantage at this point.
LOL.....unless you have the Duke, UNCheat or Kentucky name on your jersey.
I'm not worried about our schedule rank right now wherever you saw it. It will improve as we play conference games and we're moving up anyway in Lunardi's bracketology. We jumped from 11th seed to 9th seed after beating Ole Miss. That's a good sign that our schedule isn't hurting us as much as you think. As Heaks said we just need to avoid bad losses. I think this team is good enough to do that even though we're not even playing our best right now. If this team can hit the stride it hit late last season, a little earlier this year, we will be in the dance.
As I always say. anything less than 29-1, and winning ACC tournament, it will be hard for VT to get in NCAA tournament. Committee simply doesn't like VT.
Hard to overcome their "flop" technique.....they get more calls than a 911 operator.
