virginia A.c.c. basketball game preview:

#80 R.P.I. Virginia Tech @ #34 R.P.I. virginia

TV coverage: ESPNU, 6pm
Vegas line: uva-8
o/u=111 (opener, now 117)
$-line: VT is a 1:2.65 under-dog, UVA is a 3.25:1 favorite

Tough to say that VT looks to be in a good spot for this one after expending so very many emotional and focus based minutes vs. #7 ranked North Carolina at home on Thursday night inside our very own Cassell Coliseum. In a game that Vah.Tech actually lead by 5 points at the intermission.

That said and for all the ‘rong reasons, this game is not quite so lopsided of a Commonwealth Cup rivalry game a match-up as I had originally thought. (see: uva Frontcourt below)

Anytime your 7` defensive anchor goes bye-bye you Sir have a problem and you have a very big problem when he appears to be out until at least early March as a preliminary diagnosis goes –Godspeed to #5 and his right-ankle in post-op.

Not the way you wanna gain a real-live match-up advantage –is it?

This is precisely the morally discounted or cheapened kinda deal that feels no better than dirty-pool. Or the kinda deal that gives you a sporting version of acid-reflux and leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Sport is a cruel-mistress indeed folks.

That in-state sportsmanship firmly in place, the injury to Mr. Sene does afford Virginia Tech a much more sporting chance match-up wise heading up to uva on Sunday nite in a game that will still favor the wahoos to win no doubt. Although it now favors them a good deal less in my considered evaluation.

virginia at a glance:

• 2^nd in defensive points allowed (50.4 ppg)
• 2^nd in defensive 3 point percentage allowed (25.7%)
• 4^th in defensive rebounding
• 18^th in defensive FG percentage allowed (38.3%)
• 24^th fewest turnovers per game (11.5)
• 31^st in rebounding margin

uva Frontcourt:
N.B.A. pros=1
Injuries:=1
7` 239 lb. St.Louis Senegal native Mr. Assane Sene and his Pack-Line defensive anchor, 5 points and 4 boards and a block are all out for at least 6 weeks with an ugly ankle fracture that requite surgery right after the Thursday nite road game down in the ATL @ Georgia Tech. Coach God Bless Sene and grant him a speedy recovery indeed. That said, this is a very tough break for Coach Tony Bennet (no relation) and his much balloyhooed Pack-Line defense indeed, as this awful looking hurt to poor Mr. Sene has really opened the key up for Virginia Tech.

Leading the way upfront and on the lead or near the lead for A.c.c. player of the year is r-senior power-forward and 6`8“ 237 lb. #23 Mike Scott. 17 points, 9 boards on 58% shooting from the floor and 80% from the FT-line with 38% behind that from the 3-point arc is what I call playing some damn efficacious basketball in my book. Mr. Scoot is almost something of a smaller version of an impoverished mans Zach Randolph of Memphis Grizzly fame. What with his vertically extended release point and his leaning if not fall-away jumper –both of which conspire to make his shot very difficult to block. Mister Scott also leads the way with 98 FTA’s on the season and is a reasonable enough low-post defender despite a few footwork limitations. I’m not sure how good of an N.B.A. player Mike Scott will make, though I am sure he is an Association Pro who will get paid accordingly. Good for “two-three”.

Helping Scott out upfront is Akil Mitchell. Akil is a 6`8“ 221 lb. sophomore year baller whose intelligence and skill belies his bulky right-mass set frame. Akil gives you a second best 4 boards and 4 points off the Wahoo bench in frontcourt relief. The only other real remaining true frontcourter in Coach Bennett’s 7 to 9 man playing rotation is Darion Atkins. Darion is a 6`8“ 222 lb. freshman year player who gets you 3 points and rebounds alike off the Cavs bench on a team leading 67% from the floor. That said, with Sene now gone for the foreseeable future, you might just catch a peak at 6`9“ 234 lbs. r-freshman and surprise healthy red-shirt from a year ago, one Mr. James Johnson. James was a Top-100 recruit outta Cali’ last year who apparently needed a year to get D-1 bigger and stronger. Oddly enough J.J. has yet to score from the floor this season though he has already gotten to the FT-stripe 17 times in just 6 games.  (UPDATE/CORRECTION: Johnson transferred out to close the fall semester –leaving the hoo frontcourt all the thinner for it)

All that to say, this is now a perilously thin Wahoo frontcourt sans Sene and any version of early-game foul trouble to “great” Scott could prove crippling indeed.

uva Backcourt:
Association pros=zero
Injuries=none

The Hoo backcourt is lead by 6`1“ 184 lb. senior year Philly non-street-baller Sammy Zeglinski (see: pic). Sammy is nothing if not steady, reliable, and dependable as you can pencil him in for 8-9 points per contest even though he has never shot better than 39% from the floor for his entire career. Curiously, Sammy has also shot 37% or better from downtown for the past three seasons. That said, Sammy has had a history of knee trouble that limits what precious little explosiveness he does posses in the first place. Point of fact, Sammy underwent knee surgery last October and missed the opening two games to this year. Sammy has also run a bit hot-n-cold as he has been 25%, 25% and 0% from the floor in three outta his last five games. Although his on the ball defense has improved a bit as he now averages 1.6 steals per game.

Jontel Evans is a 5`11“ 188 lb. junior season Hampton baller who nets you 6 points, pulls down a couple of rebounds and leads the way with 3.7 assists for Coach Bennett. I’m not entirely sold if J.Evans is a true point-guard or not, although his 2:1 assist to turnover ratio is no bad thing. Jontel also leads the way on 43% from 3-point land so the Hokies do need to close him out on the perimeter. The third guard in Coach Bennett’s starting-line up is Joe Harris. Joe is 6`6“ 202 lb. sophomore marksman from the outside who is second in scoring for the Cavs with 13 solid points per game (ppg) and first in steals at 1.7. Joe also manages to run down 4 boards and a couple of assists after just having put in the best 3-point shooting season by an A.c.c. rookie since 1990.

Chipping in with backcourt contributions off of Coach Bennett’s bench would be 6`6“ 191 lb. freshman year Paul Jesperson and fellow rookie year 6`5“ 215 lb. Malcom Brogdon. Jeperson is said to have range to out beyond 25` and is a catch and shoot specialist that you would rather see put the ball on the floor who gives you 3 ppg off the UVA pine. Jeperson is a pure throwback shooting-guard in every sense that could put on a one-man textbook shooting clinic at a basketball camp near you. Brogdon is yet another, yup, you guessed it, pure shooter who knocks down 7 points, 3 rebounds and a couple of assists off the Hoo bench while leading the way at 81% from the FT-line.

Conclusion(s), illation, OPT digits:
I tend to think of uva’s recent contributions to this Commonwealth Cup rivalry series as a unicorn … I’ve never seen one, and I doubt that I ever will.

Well, at least I was until the hoos talked all that pre-game and (early) in-game smack vs. VT last Thanksgiving that inspired not one, not two … no less than three full hell and brimstone speeches as to why Virginia Tech really, truly, madly, deeply needed to kick uva’s ass good and hard during our last revenue-sport visit to Charlottesville.

In hoopology terms however, the boo-hoos have indeed managed to hunt and peck and slowly notch several aquarian  ‘esque wins of late out on the hardwood floor. Such is too their credit and yet they still are herbivore at the end of the uppity day of Googleing promo codes to L.L Bean’s on-line checkout catalogue while their one ‘beamer that won’t run is in the shop for repairs.

That said, I’ll cut straight to the chase and go ahead and say it –I was all set to pick hooVa to win by about 10-15 points vs. what I expected to be an emotionally worn-down and physically beat-up Seth Greenberg coached Virginia Tech basketball team after the blitzkrieg performance that U.N.C. ushered in to open the second-half of play that had a fair amount of Cassell heading for the exits at approximately the 5 minute mark of the second half. However, after seeing the dreadful injury to poor Mr. Sene, you have to feel that there is a much improved chance for A.c.c. cellar-dwelling (o-4 in conference) Virginia Tech to steal one from #17 uva hoo has been fundamentally beaten by only 2 shots on the season.

---

My apologies for the errors above, that’s on me and me as a singular pronoun alone.

That said, as Mr. Johnson has left the neighborhood, that tells me that Virginia’s pack-line defense is even thinner than I had thought, which segues me into typing that VT’s chances to pull a medium if no major upset are like the same. i.e. better than I had thought

So I sat here and crunched the most recent 5-game metrics for both teams, then I looked at and studied the so-called Fourm Guide of Graham Houston parentage. Guess hoo they both picked to win? uva you say? Oui-oui, and UVA would have won with Sene in the line-up. I’d estimate it at 65-50 or thereabouts in the Wahoos favor. That however is pretty much a game of hoo is the tallest midget.

At the risk of drowning in a stream of consciousness, I’ma gonna dabble in intrinsics as opposed to my typical objectification.

• VT is smarting
• o-4 in the A.c.c. and no wins since last year will do that to a team
• VT needs a win
• VT has cracked 59 points once since last year and UVA plays the slowest tempo in all of D-1

VT is also two other key things…

1. VT is very young (or inexperienced –whereas UVA is VT’s polar seniorfied opposite)
2. VT is a much improved outside shooting team this season

Such immediately tells me a couple of things. First up you need to be able to shoot the rock in order to beat the pack-line defense which encourages outside shooting at the defense of a modified sagging-zone approach to defending the rim. VT just shot 42% from beyond the arc vs. #8 ranked North Carolina, so I’m fairly encouraged there. Ditto the fact that VT is the superior FT-shooting team by 11% in both teams last five games taken head-to-head.

The wildcard or X-factor if you will is how will all of VT’s inexperience fare during their first look at the Flexbone of Georgia Tech’s football team in A.c.c. hooping terms vs. Coach Bennett’s much ballyhooed pack-line defense. I realize the odds do not support this, and I freely concede the UVA is still the rightful home A.c.c. favorite even sans Sene. However, the absence of his presence opens up the key and it will take the Cavs a few games to get used to playing without his baseline anchor and ability to flash to the high-post with just enough footwork and plenty of hustle to fuel any recovery-speed. That’s, well, huge (pardon the pun) to me. Such is a big-deal and such is precisely why VT is gonna sneak up on a wounded UVA @ Charlottesville and steal one late via a big time A.c.c. flush up in The John in a game that will effectively amount to a race to double-nickles. First one to 55 points, wins.

 Virginia Tech=58, france=55

“LETS GO!”

“HOKIES!”

bourbonstreet**