Virginia Tech basketball Texas a&m preview

#259 R.P.I. Texas a&m vs. #1o1 R.P.I. Virginia Tech:

Virginia Tech basketball heads back to the court on a short Association ‘esque looking ~2o hour turn vs. Texas a&m on Friday afternoon on ESPNU/ESPN2.atm-logo

The Aggies do catch about +3 bonus hours worth of rest thanks to their earlier Thanksgiving Day afternoon run vs. overwhelmed CSU Northridge, who was the traveling bug to the a&m windshield. As aTm beat the breaks off of Northridge by the tune of a 95-73 everybody plays and the starters save their legs for Friday. Courtesy of an out of conference curb-stomping that left the Northridge holiday wishbone, wish-broke. As the Aggies buckled down and held Northridge to a parsimonious 28 points in the first 20 minute of running. Accordingly, this one just got a little tougher than I had previously expected; as one could expect fatigue to be an issue, here.

Texas a&m at a glance:

  • 12th in Scoring D (54.4 ppg allowed)
  • 14th in blocks (7 bpg)
  • 18th in FG percentage allowed (33.4%)
  • 58th in offensive rebounding (14.33 o-rpg)
  • 299th in 3-point FG percentage (27.9%)
  • 321st in FT percentage (58.8%)

Head Coach: Billy Kennedy: age=52. Prior to landing the So.Eastern aTm gig, Kennedy had been the poster boy for mid-major name recognition stops that most sports-fans would have to G.P.S. Centenary, Southern Louisianan, and Murry State prior to College Station all say so. He did set a school single season win mark at his alma mater Southern Louisianan (26). He repeated this all-time single season win mark for Murry State (31) in 2010. He is 312 and 249 overall and 1o1-70 for Texas a&m. Kennedy is –God Bless here– an early-stage Parkinson’s Disease sufferer, although he is in the second year of a 5-year contract; so there is that fiscal Blessing indeed. Kennedy teams have been known for their never say die last second cardiac kids’ moments. Including a 12 point rally to win with 44 secs. remaining in last seasons opening round of March Madness.

Aggie Returning Starters=zero!

TAM Strengths:

  • The Aggies industrialize something almost of a committee via committee approach. As everyone in their Top-9 rotation averages not less than 4.4. ppg and not more than 13 ppg.
  • Or in other words this is about as balanced of a together everyone achieves more… or TEAM approach as you will see. Tough to key anyone like this, too.
  • Most pre-season mag’s have the Aggies picked to go dancing and basically in the mid-30’s in national terms.

    Bruising BIG here...
    Bruising BIG here…
  • The alpha Aggie appears to be one #34 Tyler Davis who leads a trio of hyped up super-Soph’s. Tyler is a rare fossilized back-to-the-basket low-post dinosaur otherwise known as a true-Center. All 6’10” and 265 lbs. of him mind you –good for a team leading 14 ppg, 7.3 boards, a swat and a team leading 61% from the floor. Lindy’s magazine went so far as to label Tyler the best offensive-rebounder in the entire South Eastern Conference. That being said, Tyler looked a little smaller on film to me, he has a massive hinged right-knee brace in place, although he does have an orthodox (right-handed) smart enough jump-hook down on the low-blocks. The knock here is whispered to be … conditioning or the lack thereof. In addition to the aforementioned knee issue(s) (the whispers say he blew it out two summers ago) big ole Tyler had some foot ills that cost him a few games last year as well. Still, most scouting services do project Tyler as a Pro’, not that there’s anything ‘rong with that.
  • Robert Williams is another potential frontcourt Pro’ according to the very same scouting services. Tyler goes 6’9” and tips the Toledo’s at 236 lbs. as a true-freshman P/F. Williams scores a third best 9 ppg and leads aTm in blocks at 2.7 bpg. Williams was Mr. Basketball for the state of Louisiana and is hinted to be something of a recruiting late bloomer or an outright recruiting coup. As this is a pretty mobile and athletic big; already; whose defense seems just a scosche ahead of his offense, for the moment. And he appears to be improving game-by-game.
  • Third in scoring is D.J. Hogg –great name! DeeJay is a 6’9” 220 lb. big who is on several pre-season award watch lists; and this suggests the potentially highest ceiling of them all. And yet this t-soph. is second in scoring (13 ppg) and second in board-work (7 rpg) as well. Hogg is a real match-up nightmare as an oversized S/F at the Three. He came on strong to finish S.e.c. play at the end of last year and he is one of two Aggies (42%) that you must honor from the outside. And this D.J. just went plum Hogg wide in game#1, 25 points on 75% from the field and from beyond the arc says so!

TAM Weaknesses:

  • vis-à-vis there is no denying the Aggies backcourt is hind-dog to the alpha Aggie frontcourt.
  • Ditto the fact that aTm departed three major multi year starters from last years squad. So experience is thinner than coach Billy Kennedy would prefer at the moment. The best of the backcourt bunch is probably Admon Gilder. Gilder is a silky-smooth 6’4” 185 slasher who scores in the point and beyond the arc (35% career from downtown).

Aggie Bench: (depth=2 and 2 more with spot minutes)
Williams is the prime pine-squad guy here who probably starts anywhere else. 6’10” 2o7 lb. rookie year stretch-P/F Eric Vila (4.3 ppg and 3.4 rpg) is your quintessential Euro frontcourt import (Girona, Spain); who is tall, lean and comes with skills and range more so than bumps and grinds down low. Tavario Miller is a 6’8” 227  lb. relief Sr. year Four who will bump and grind a bit (4.7 ppg and 3.7 rpg) in the key and hails all the way from Long Island, Bahamas.

aandm-match-ups

The key to winning a <24 hour turn like this is ... what???

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Illation, conclusion (s) and OPT digits:

the takeaway:
The takeaway here is… that aTm just played 13 guys on a very truncated or short-rest Holiday turn…

  • Hogg=18 mins.
  • Davis=19 mins.
  • Hampton= 18 mins.
  • Gilder=27 mins.
  • Trocha-Morelos=18 mins.

Whereas Buzz and company just played eight guys on a very truncated or shorter-rest Holiday turn…

  • LeDay= 32 mins.
  • Allen= 14 mins. (foul trouble)
  • Bibbs= 26 mins.
  • Hill= 31 mins.
  • Robinson= 40 mins.!

Do you see a trend?

no relation, though strict just like Bobby was (R.I.P.)
no relation, though strict just like Bobby was (R.I.P.)

That being said; and yes, I know we need FT work at 335th best -and badly- and I further know we have to make a few more defensive improvements to crack the two main categorizes (ppg allowed 158th) and (defensive FG percentage allowed (124th) and at least get both of those never go cold metrics under the centennial national rankings mark to take that March Madness final step. That being said; what if we are one of the better small-ball teams in all the land?

As Buzz’s O looks vastly calmer, and therefore more regular or normalized if you will this year compared to last. Or in other words, not a whole whole lot of D-1 teams outta all 349 of them can take our A-game best offensive punch.

***

Still yet, none of that R.A.T.T. makes this towering internal match-up with close to 14′ of quality Aggie big’s any easier. As keeping LeDay and Sy out of foul-trouble early on might very well tell the tale later on come Friday night.  So I’ma gonna side with Buzz and company staying hot (46% from downtown in game #1); and hope that we  somehow mitigate the Aggie advantage in the paint; or merely out-shoot a team that looked just a bit stiff if not plodding in the Wooden Tournament opener early on Thanksgiving afternoon.

Ergo, therefore, to wit, Virginia Tech basketball scores just enough from the outside on the ~5:30pm Eastern tip in the highly inappropriately named Titan Gym; to steal one late from aTm.

(58% confidence interval)

Virginia Tech=72, Texas a&m=66

LETS GO!

Hokies!

 bourbonstreet**

V.A.D.A. approved

happy-turkey-day-snoop

2 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. Good comments. I am more of a football fan, but I thought the Hokies looked the best today of any team in a long time, especially this early in the season. Hope they play like that the rest of the weekend and the season for that matter.

    Go Hokies!!

    1. Well thanks rjh65.

      Not many come here and say that from football love to hoops.
      Made my nite.
      : )

      b.street

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