I had hoped this would make for our Hokies taking a nice out-of-conference (University of Georgia;
or UGA) scalp from a name conference (the South Eastern Conference).
But I’m not so sure?
I’m unsure twofold. First up, we have not started off like most expected; a bit lower if you will. Second of all, UGA is a vastly different animal to tame at home than they are on the road. At home down between the hoops hedges; these Bulldogs pack a lot of bite. But who will win? Lets take a closer look at UGA to find out.
UGA at a glance:
- These Bulldogs are a very well pedigreed basketball team on defense. 40th in Scoring Defense, 64th defending the 3-ball, 49th in Blocks and 59th in Steals says so.
- UGA’s backcourt numbers on offense are not all that great; but be fully awares that this is more about Tempo (i.e. UGA likes a slower game) than it is talent.
- Good offensive rebounding team, average defensive rebounding team.
- UGA plays 9 different ballers 16 minutes or more. i.e. fatigue could be an issue
UGA is paced by Terrance Woodbury and Howard Tompkins. Terrance Woodbury is a 6-7
swingman from Va. Beach who is both nimble and athletic. Howard Tomplins is more of a bruiser at the 4-spot (Power-Forward), and he is basically an all-world recruit for UGA. That’s him in a dunk contest on the right. Tompkins technically leads UGA in rebounding; but this is truly a rebounding via committee team; as five different Bulldogs average between 4.0 boards per game and Tompkins team leading 5.5 swipes off the glass. Along with Tompkins, UGA sports the nearly as highly recruited Travis Leslie. Who is a big get as a 6`5“ scoring 2-Guard from homespun Decantur Georgia (shown below). Clearly the Bulldogs best hoops is ahead of them with so much young superstar talent.
So we can see that UGA is a stop-unit oriented hoops program. But they are also much tougher at home. On their homecourt, UGA improves by 6% shooting from the Floor, and clamps down by allowing 4% less of opposing shots to find the home nets. In fact, every single major team vital, except FT% allowed, improves at home. But when you add that shooting percentage up and view such as an aggregate, UGA is almost 10% better in their own house. That’s huge folks. You seldom see an overall margin tilt by more than 5-6%.
The other major nugget that jumped out at me handicapping this game was the fact that UGA
has beaten nobody with much of anything. The Bulldogs have buried the bones on three teams that combo to rate at no better than 1-22 on the year. On top of that UGA, was beaten by a sub .5oo Nowhere Loyola (not the one you are thinking of). This remind you of Navy’s soft-touch approach that I document last time out? Me too, and that did not float Navy’s boat vs. our Hokies.
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But still, if this game was in Cassell, I might even pick us to win by 10. Being that it is in the Peach State, that narrows things to nearly a toss-up. We do appear to be the better team, but UGA will play better at home. That calls for overtime to me, but I’m gonna pick us to have a good extra period.
Virginia Tech=70 Georgia=63 in one OT
b’street