ADVERTISEMENT

Yes Buzz is getting it done this year

Back to back wins vs UNC and Notre Dame at their place.

Al Clark is a phenom.
Buzz is clawing back. Those were must wins. Still a lot of work to do, but definitely not out of it yet. I’m not making any predictions at this point.

Chris Clarke got as many boards (14) as the rest of the team combined, and literally saved us from losing at the end after blowing a 15 point 2nd half lead. He refused to let his team lose.
 
2 really nice wins for VT.....to bad they dug such a hole....but they may climb out of it before the season ends.
 
2 really nice wins for VT.....to bad they dug such a hole....but they may climb out of it before the season ends.

We've got some good opportunities at home coming up. If we can steal a 'w' at BC, and dispatch Miami & NCSU at home, that would bring our top 50 victories to 3, with Miami being top 25, and State being close to top 50. Washington is #50 now, and since we shellacked them and they're OOC, we need them to keep on winning.

After that, we host Clemson (RPI #5), Louisville (RPI #20), and Duke (RPI #3). I don't see us winning @Duke, and certainly not @UVa, but we could conceivably sweep Miami, Louisville, Clemson and Duke at home. Unlikely, sure, but even 3-1 through that stretch would be great for our resume and with opportunities @Miami and @GT to bolster our body of work with road wins as well. Honestly, I think depending on who we beat, 5 wins gets us right on that bubble. Beating Duke and Clemson at home would be huge, but that's a tall order. I still don't feel like this is a tournament-caliber team, but I'll gladly eat my crow if it happens. I'm less concerned about the metrics than I am the team's ability to win.

Theoretically, I don't think getting into the NCAAs would be that difficult given our remaining schedule (even with the horrendous OOC, the ACC is absolutely STACKED to a ridiculous degree), but in reality this team just has too many flaws for me to feel comfortable getting too optimistic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kcwashing1
2 really nice wins for VT.....to bad they dug such a hole....but they may climb out of it before the season ends.
I don’t think we dug a hole in the ACC. Maybe by losing to St. Louis and/or just playing such a bad OOC schedule, but not our ACC games. Purely on foresight I would have picked us to go 3-5 in the first 8 ACC games, and we are actually sitting one game better at 4-4. I expected losses @ Syracuse, @Louisville, @ND, home losses to UVa and probably UNC which is usually a loss for us. I hoped for a home win against FSU and didn’t get it but the UNC win made up for that one. I expected wins against Pitt and Wake. I certainly didn’t expect to beat Kentucky on the road. Wins over UNC and ND make up for the shocking loss to St. Louis, so from a win-loss perspective I think our 15-6 record so far is probably consistent with expectations. The real blight on our season is just simply playing that atrocious OOC schedule, which tends to give the whole season a different feel. Thanks to that we now have to over-achieve in ACC play, so I sure hope Buzz got his fill of playing cupcakes this season enough to never, ever schedule such crap again.
 
I don’t think we dug a hole in the ACC. Maybe by losing to St. Louis and/or just playing such a bad OOC schedule, but not our ACC games. Purely on foresight I would have picked us to go 3-5 in the first 8 ACC games, and we are actually sitting one game better at 4-4. I expected losses @ Syracuse, @Louisville, @ND, home losses to UVa and probably UNC which is usually a loss for us. I hoped for a home win against FSU and didn’t get it but the UNC win made up for that one. I expected wins against Pitt and Wake. I certainly didn’t expect to beat Kentucky on the road. Wins over UNC and ND make up for the shocking loss to St. Louis, so from a win-loss perspective I think our 15-6 record so far is probably consistent with expectations. The real blight on our season is just simply playing that atrocious OOC schedule, which tends to give the whole season a different feel. Thanks to that we now have to over-achieve in ACC play, so I sure hope Buzz got his fill of playing cupcakes this season enough to never, ever schedule such crap again.
Good call on the cupcakes, it has not helped you. Buzz should know better.
 
There are enough quality teams on the OOC schedule to make it reasonable. The problem is the amount of above 250 and above 300 teams. 6 is way too many! 1 or 2, maybe, but not 6! Simply try to replace most of those types of teams with teams that are usually more in the 100-200 range and the schedule will be fine. Yes, the RPI numbers change from year to year, but it is not hard to look at the past and see which teams would usually fit in the below 200 range and schedule accordingly.

4-4 is a good conference start, and keeps us alive. I don't think there is a magic number of conference wins to reach to get in. What other bubble teams do, and who you beat will always be key and some years it might even be better to go 9-9 with 4 or 5 really good wins, especially if on the road, than 10-8 with only 2.
The UNC win was huge, but we need more. Heaks spelled it out very well. If we win 4 of our remaining home games against Miami, NCSU, Clem, Louisville, and Duke, that will give us at least 3 more top 50 wins. Hopefully, one of those is Duke because that would be an eye catching top 5 win. Then, win @ GT and @ BC and we get to 10-8 with at least 4 quality, top 50 wins, which should be good enough. Winning 4 of those home games seems like a tall task, so would winning 3 and going 9-9 get us in? That may or may not be enough, but trade 1 of those wins with a road win @ Duke or UVA and the resume looks a lot better.

And, as always, the ACC tourney will provide a chance to get another quality win or two if we are on the bubble following the regulae season.
 
I wouldn’t want to go in to the ACC tournament on the bubble with our OOC baggage. I thnk we need to be completely off the bubble by ACC tourney time. What we need now is some more marquee wins. UNC at home is not enough. Without our resume including a couple of upsets from the 4 games we have remaining with Duke, UVa, and Louisville, I don’t think we’ll be off that bubble and unfortunately left holding the worst OOC schedule among other bubble contenders. We’ve set the table where we’ve got to pull some big upsets. Even with 10 ACC wins they need to be the right wins or we will be NITing this year IMO. Buzz dug his team a big hole by playing all those cupcakes and without more marquee wins I think the committee will punish him for it. We’ve been left out with 10 ACC wins before.
 
Very big road win last night over a very good BC team. A month ago that would be a loss.

Starting to like what I’m seeing on the floor a lot better now. Two players in particular are really turning up their performances that’s making all the difference from where we were in bad performances in early ACC games. Justin Robinson’s floor game is taking over the team. His assist to turnover ratio has been phenominal over the past 3 games, eliminating almost entirely his earlier costly turnovers and setting up our other players for wide open looks. Alexander Walker is starting to play up to his 5 star recruiting hype the last couple games. The emergence of Alexander-Walker is a game changer for VT, raising their ceiling for the stretch run if he keeps it up.

Its clear this team just wasn’t ready to transition to conference play, probably from playing all the cupcakes. I think we will see a much more competitive game in the rematch at JPJ.
 
Very big road win last night over a very good BC team. A month ago that would be a loss.

Starting to like what I’m seeing on the floor a lot better now. Two players in particular are really turning up their performances that’s making all the difference from where we were in bad performances in early ACC games. Justin Robinson’s floor game is taking over the team. His assist to turnover ratio has been phenominal over the past 3 games, eliminating almost entirely his earlier costly turnovers and setting up our other players for wide open looks. Alexander Walker is starting to play up to his 5 star recruiting hype the last couple games. The emergence of Alexander-Walker is a game changer for VT, raising their ceiling for the stretch run if he keeps it up.

Its clear this team just wasn’t ready to transition to conference play, probably from playing all the cupcakes. I think we will see a much more competitive game in the rematch at JPJ.
I also believe VT will play better when you come to the JPJ.
 
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT