Virginia Tech Radford basketball preview

 #186 R.P.I. Virginia Tech @ #158 R.P.I. Radford:

Coach Buzz and company make about the shortest roadie possible, and the biggest deal in the other neighborly campus town when we drive about 25 minutes to go play Big South Conference and 5-4 Radford down in the New River Valley Wednesday night.ru logo

Clearly this is a big big deal on the Radford smaller gym campus folks.

We are their visiting Power Conference Final-4 all rolled into one and you just have to know that coach Mike Jones and Radford would love nothing more than to leave their A.c.c. visitor with a humdinger of a out of conference hangover come Thursday A.M. in Blacksburg Va.

Can they however is a different animal all together.

Although I’m pretty dang sure Radford will be sky high on the try.

Radford at a glance:

  • 324th in FT percentage (62.2%)
  • 314th fewest Turnovers (14.2 tpg)
  • 57th in Steals (7 spg)
  • 55th in offensive rebounding (13.67 orpg)
  • NO injuries listed

Radford Returning Starters=2

Highlanders Strengths:

  • honestly, both RU strengths are gone: as R.J. Price and Javonte Green would agree.

    RD RU
    mighty mite 1o1…
  • the current -and surprise- leading scorer for the Highlanders is 5’11” 186 lb. baby-faced final year #5 Rashun Davis. 7.7 ppg last year up to a club leading 14.8 ppg as one of the better FT-shooters (8th place all-time) in school history does not suck. It may even be code for Most Improved. Nevertheless, it also seems to be code for something unexpected, odd and/or not right as this ascent in play speaks not only favorably to Mr. Davis, it makes you wonder out-loud what is going on with the 2 returning starters listed down below.
  • Ed Polite Jr. is a 6’6” 210 lb. rookie year Swing who too is quite the surprise thus far. 9.9 ppg on a team leading 5.9 boards per contest is pretty fair 18 year old work, if you can get it. However, raise you hand if you saw this one coming? Me neither, or at least neither did anything other than Lindy’s pre-season magazine which only bothers to mention Polite’s name, and nothing more.
  • Cameron Jones is the third leading RU scorer with 12.4 ppg outta Roanoke Va. Cameron is a senior at 6’4” 180 lbs. who seems to have a knack for dialing long distance at 45% from range last year and a very respectable 41% from beyond the arc thus far this campaign.

Highlanders Weaknesses:

  • the 3rd leading Swing scorer last year is now the 6th leading scorer this year. As 6’2” 195 lb. senior G, YaYa Anderson had dropped from close to 10 ppg down to 4.7 ppg on 25% shooting. That’s not good and YaYa (fun name) along with 6’7” 215 lb. Sr. year Center Brandon Holcomb are now subbing in off the pine! As unexpected as that may be.
  • the RU playing rotation is really small, nobody north of 215 lbs. and nobody above 6’7” in height. (nobody taller than 6’8” on the whole entire roster, for that matter)
  • very bipolar Class Rank squad as well, 6 t-freshmen and 7 seniors overall says so.

RU Bench: (depth=3 to 4 deep, including last years starting Center and Swing)

RU match ups

This A.c.c. Virginia Tech visit to Radford is what?

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Illation, conclusion (s) and OPT digits:

the takeaway:
The takeaway here is… that after a school and Big South Conference record setting back-to-back post-season births; by and large, the pre-season consensus was that Radford was a mid-tier men’s basketball program in Big South Conference terms. This can happen when you depart 2 of the Top-5 scorers in school history at the very same time. That is a whole lotta oomph for a smaller school -or for any school for that matter- to absorb all at once.

Jones(ing) for Tech!
Jones(ing) for Tech!

The Radford metrics (statistics) look pretty dang topsy-turvy as well. With two significant former starters now way down on the box score pecking order.

And then three guys leading the way who were forecast to be moderate to middle of the pack contributors at most. Go fig’?

Virginia Tech is +1 in rest here, although Radford played a pretty dang decent J.m.u. squad to within 1-single shot at home a few weeks ago, (68-7o). Coach Buzz and company hold a very solid +12 rebounding margin advantage head-to-head and the Hokies appear to be the better defensive team by the bye (4%). On top of that, the Highlanders are the lesser FT shooting team (4%) and Tech appears to be more potent on offense overall as well. Additionally, that very same offensive and FT-shooting advantages have widened a bit in both teams most recent contests.

***

Last year? I’d toyed with this upset pick in the cramped almost private school scholastic looking Radford gym. Right now I’m hopeful that defense and rebounding never go cold; as those should always be effort driven stats.

If the Virginia Tech offense keeps pace the Hokies slowly pull away for an over-matched comfortable win. If not I still suspect the effort based metrics will be enough, albeit it by less than double-digits.

(78% confidence interval)
Virginia Tech
=76, Radford=63

LETS GO!

Hokies!

 bourbonstreet**