#70 R.P.I. Virginia Tech @ #97 R.P.I. Maryland
TV coverage: Acc.net, 2:30pm
Vegas line: VT-3
o/u=13o
$-line: TBA
Yah, that was not one of our better outcomes at home vs. BYU and their oddball 1-3-1 zone defense on Wednesday night inside our very own Cassell that left VT 1 for January and only 4 games above .5oo overall while still at 1-4 and only a half game outta the last-place in the A.c.c.
See that orange line?
You could move it up a couple of spots and say that the A.c.c. may be looking at an unthinkable 3-5 teams with sub .5oo or L marks on the season this campaign. How ugly is that?
I’ll tell you how ugly … the N.I.T. is looking more and more inviting each and every day –and the C.B.I. would at least give Coach Seth and Co. and extra week or two of much needed practice for a slumping team that is finding new ways to live up to someone’s pre-season “middleocore” label with each subsequent game.
No do be clear … this is not a bad Virginia Tech basketball team right now any more than this is not a very good Virginia Tech basketball at the moment either.
Pedestrian, vanilla, ordinary, whatever; call this 2011-2012 hoops team what you will. The only question to me is where will you be calling them when March gets here?
Up next we catch the 12-7 Maryland Terrapins out on the road where Maryland is a hot 11-2 inside the Comcast Center up in College Park. The Terps are 2-3 inside the A.c.c. and in sixth place in Atlantic Coast overall terms.
Or in other words … every game’s a play-off from here on out men.
And VT needs to play its way in.
Maryland at a glance:
- 336th in steals (3.8)
- 302nd in assists (10.2)
- 280th in turnover margin (-2.1)
- 265th in FT percentage (65.2%)
- 82nd in rebounding margin (+3.4)
- 61st in blocks (4.5)
Maryland Frontcourt:
- N.B.A. pros= zero
- Injuries= C, 7`1“ 225 lb. Alexander Len of Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine) and his 7.1 ppg and 5.3 rebounds off the Terrapin bench are still hobbled by an ankle injury
Leading the way upfront would be James Padgett. James is a 6`8“ 235 lb. junior year Brooklyn native who is first-best in rebounding at 6.1 boards per game and third best in scoring at 9.1 ppg. James is a pure inside player who rarely ventures outside the paint. He is also known for being consistently inconsistent. At least everywhere except on the offensive glass where you need to put a body on James, maybe two, as he has already amassed a whopping 78 offensive rebounds this campaign. To put that into perspective for you, VT is a better rebounding team than average, and yet VT’s offensive rebounding leader trails Padgett by 26 boards and VT only has 2 players with more rebounds in totality than Padgett has in offensive rebounds alone!
Also starting upfront is 6`9“ 220 freshman year Brox native Ashton Pankey, As you can already divine, Maryland is not afraid to recruit outside of the regional or traditional A.c.c. geographic footprint. By my count the Terps enjoy the long reaching services of no less than 7 kids who are a long way from home. Pankey is one of ‘em and he antes up with 5.6 points and 4.7 boards in only 20 minutes of p.t. (playing time) as he has a history of stress-fractures in his foot and appears to still be limited in some measure from the most recent one.
As you can see above, monster sized 7`1“ #25 Alex Len is a real live big deal right in the middle of the Maryland defense, what with his team leading 2.0 blocks per game in very limited bench minutes that have dwindled to just above double-digits in playing-time in the last few games. 7.1 ppg and a second best 5.3 boards while leading the way at 62.2% shooting is pretty good work from a bench sub’ if you can get it. That is when you can get it as Alex’ had to sit out the opening 10 games this season after a sanctioning penalty for signing with a pro club overseas. Now mix in an ankle roll for the 7`1“ Ukrainian dunking machine and you have limited production from prospect who is way more precocious than the typical imported big-man “project” label would suggest. Also chipping in off the Terps frontcourt bench is Mr. Mychal Parker, a 6`5“ 195 lb. sophomore who nets you 4.9 ppg and 3.4 rebounds per contest. Parker is an industrious hard-working three (SF) who has earned his 300% increase in pt. over last year. 6`10“200 lb. senior year center Berend Weijs is a low-post Dutch-Boy import from Amsterdam who is every bit as long as he is lean. In his handful of spot-minutes per half Weijs gets you a couple of points and boards and will block a shot. Believe it or not, his current 200 lb. listing is the result of a massive weight-lifting campaign and a 5,000+ calorie per day diet this off-season.
Maryland Backcourt:
- Association pros= Terrell Stoglin is a Pro at some level somewhere, kinda a mini-me version of a Curry third-cousin twice removed
- Hurts= zero
Swag' 1o1:
I could almost begin and end this preview with one #12, mister Terrell Stoglin, a 6“ 185 lbs. sophomoric P.A.C.-12 geographic footprint import Guard all the way from Arizona who leads the Terps and likewise the whole darn A.c.c. in scoring at 20.9 ppg (points per game). Stoglin is a pure scorer and nothing less than a pure scorer. Terrell leads the Terps with 151 3-point attempts on the season which gives him 220% more 3-point attempts than any other Terrapin. Yah; I’d say you might wanna close-out on this guy when he puts two hands on the ball and picks up his dribble beyond the arc as he is a 39.7% shooter from the outside. However, he also leads the Terrapins in FTA’s with 129 on the year where he is a reasonable 75.2% from the charity-stripe. Such gives Terrell that rarefied outside-in penetrating game that can also bomb away from downtown –that makes Terrell a very tough cover as you must honor both the outside J (jumper) and the dribble-drive to the hoop. Stoglin is known to be the quickest backcourt cover in the A.c.c. and he is one scrappy and outright feisty floor-leader. Make no mistake about it, this is his team and he will let you know whose team it is from the word go.
Sean Mosley is a 6`4“ 210 lb. senior year lead-guard who was expected to blossom and take over the leadership reins up in College Park before the pint-sized A.c.c. phenom’ otherwise known as Stoglin took over. I’m not want to say that Mr. Mosely is having a bad senior campaign; so much as I am willing to put my name beside having said that this is not the curtain call that most had forecast. 10 points per game, on a team leading 42% from downtown and 5.3 floor burning rebounds is no bad thing. It is however the second consecutive year of being capped or possibly even something of a minor regression for a baller who appears to have never really gotten around to improving. That said, last time I checked 21+10+7 gives you 38 backcourt points from the Terrapin backcourt starting 3-guard rotation and that also brings us to 6.9 ppg scorer Pe’Shon Howard. The Los Angeles native stands 6`3“ and tips the Toledo’s at 195 sophomoric pounds worth of VHT (very highly touted) Cali or west-coast baller. Pe’Shon is a combo-guard by trade and bounces back and forth between shooting-guard and an on-the-ball point-guard rather fluently. Pe’Shon also gets you 4 boards and leads Maryland with 3.9 assists. That said, you can sag a bit on this kid as his stroke needs some work at 38% from the floor and 24% from beyond the arc. Nick Faust is a 6`6“ 175 lb. freshman shooting-guard who leads the way off the Terrapin bench with 7.7 ppg. Nick is a quality blend of shooting, rebounding and defense, and it is really the ladder two qualities that are keeping Nick out on the court at this stage as his shooting has been slumped all year despite a reputation for marksmanship as a recruit.
Conclusion(s), illation, OPT digits:
Right now VT is at something of a tipping-point, or perhaps even just beyond the same as the 2011-2012 hoops season goes. Is this a post-season VT hoops team –or not? What is the offensive identity of this basketball squad –and for that matter what is their stem to stern identity overall?
20 games (or 2/3rds) of the season in, and I am recalcitrant to publish an answer. As William DaFoe once said in Flight of the Intruder, “Normally I’m blabby…” However riddling out where things go from here is one tough nut to crack. As things stand at this very minute (pun intended), VT has 8 winnable games remaining on the 2012 docket, with 3 games left vs. ranked teams, with 6 at home and 5 away, plus at least one A.c.c. tournament game. That means VT could press for high teens as wins go, or finish somewhere at or around 16-15 with the need to win one in the A.c.c. tourney big and bold in order to secure a post-season bid from the N.I.T. or even from the lesser ilk of the C.B.I. The recent trend is indeed a downward one, as VT is averaging precisely 59.0 points per game on offense during their recent 1-5 run otherwise known as the month of January itself. The VT defense however has held 3 of those aforementioned 6 under 63 points and 4 of the 5 to 70 or less. So defense is not the problem, although deductive reasoning tells us that the O&M margin of error is.
Loading ...As in VT’s margin of error is indeed paper thin right about now, as VT is at a Greenberg era low water mark in FGA’s per game (by almost 5 less on average). Those five less FGA’s represent 10 points worth of FG’s from the floor, and even more from range. Now for the killer part, VT just attempted more shots than 4 of those 6 teams did and went 1-5 straight-up for their O&M troubles. Paper thin I said? VT’s margin of error may now officially be less than that as we head into the Atlantic Coast stretch run in something of a leaky looking O&M ship.
At this point the key question to me is who will be that ships rudder? Can Erick Green really give you any more than he already has? Does Hud’s knee have anything better left in it to offer up? Is there a freshman who can surmount the proverbial wall and kick things into a higher offensive gear? That’s what you need folks, just a couple of extra baskets here and there could make all the difference and get this 2012 hoops team back on course. Don’t believe me? Just ask the 5 games that VT has already dropped by 2 shots or less.
Right now (mid-Friday afternoon) I am a tad reluctant to pick a VT hoops team that averages 53 points out on the Atlantic Coast road to beat a Maryland basketball squad that averages 70 and change at home. Ditto I am likewise disinclined to pick a VT basketball club that is netting 37.9% of its shots from the floor in A.c.c. play –as the VT offense or individual offensive limitations have officially been figured out (thanks to in-depth in-conference Atlantic Coast scouting reports and effusive breaking of game-tape). As I just told someone “…I’m not so much seeing improvement (out of VT) as I am seeing a team beating its offensive head against its offensive ceiling and the ceiling is winning.” Both of these teams need a win folks, as VT has one win in their last 6 (games) and Maryland has one positive scratch mark in the “dub-ah-u” or W column in their last 4. That’s 2 outta 10 combined which means someone is due to break outta their funk and get well soon.
When in doubt side with the A.c.c. home team where the Atlantic Coast visitor gets beaten almost 70% of the time historically; or simply side with the team who has the best player (Stoglin); all the more so when that player is playing at home.
Virginia Tech=56, Maryland=61
“LETS GO!”
“HOKIES!”
bourbonstreet**
I am encouraged but not sure what that computes to in wins and losses. I haven’t been studying the opponents upcoming but more focused on the Hokies and how they are doing. Last night I saw DoDo becoming more aggressive, driving to the basket in the first half though he wasn’t able to score. But he was clearly trying to be more active on offense and my guess is that is a result of coaching. I say Jarrell taking and making some shots off the dribble. That wasn’t the case earlier on. I saw Raines and Davilla being strong on the boards and with the ball. So now we have some good depth in the 5 spot. Finally I saw Brown seeming to play with some confidence. Starting and getting some quality minutes seems to have allowed him to relax and play the game. If we can just get a run where Zo’s knee holds up and Rankin doesn’t get sick, etc. We are due for some luck. I like this team and while it is likely early into a 2 year cycle I am encouraged and enjoy watching the team play.
I thank you for that reply; as it got me thinking framville.
(and we all know just how dangerous that can be)
I kicked it around with C2 today off-MB.
I actually disagry on the improvement.
To me it is more parts ceiling and less parts upward mobility.
b’street
Where is DoDo offensively? Is he playing out of his natural position? I feel for him. He has the talent physically, I hope the light comes on offensively and totally so he can begin to start having fun playing.
They have told me he is just not an offensive player. Rebounder, defender, facilitator, and just not a pure offensive force.
b’street
DFS is not passing or rebounding like he was earlier in the year. I think he’s playing nervous now.
Could be hitting that freshman wall as well.
Some guys just wear thin then out later in their rookie year at the next level.
b’street