Washington Virginia Tech basketball preview

#117 R.P.I. Washington vs. #38 R.P.I. Virginia Tech:

Virginia Tech men’s basketball just got 6 point upset by 13.5 point underdog St.Louis and if you read that preview I suppose the are closer to being the numeral uno in the A-10 than I had thought. And per my Instant Reply Jerry Kramer well ingrained sporting ethos… congrats @St.Louis! Helluva a Hokie busting -or maybe even a bracket busting- win come March Madness.

The Hokies had the looking and feel of a team that was NYC buzzing off-court or recovering from the same. As is this Providence winners bracket now gone 3rd/4th place or bronze medal preview. As I had friar’ed this one up pretty good; or so I thought, and methinks I’ll just leave the Friar look in place just in case anyone wants that to be the bettor man in the nite-cap. As this is exactly what a rushed, full-court press of a shortie hoops preview of the Washington Huskies in 60 mins. or less looks like… (scroll to the bottom if that is all you wants)…

 Providence Head Coach: : age=, – overall, at . Has a rep’ for:
$00,000.oo

Friars at a glance:

  • is in

Providence Returning Starters=all 5!

Providence Strengths:

  • very balanced attack with nine different Friars averaging between 6 ppg and 11 ppg; i.e. tough to find anyone to truly key/stop here.
  • Being listed as the Top Playmaker in the Big East never sucks; and neither does Kyron Cartwright. Kyron is a 5′11″, 187 lb. final year One who is the returning Big East assist leader who can shoot the three; though is said to need more offensive growth overall. Kyron can finish off the dribble, he is a very solid backcourt defender, his 11 ppg lead Providence and his 9.5 dimes per/game lead the Big East. 83% on his FTA’s, 2.o spg, nearly 4 boards and 41% from deep is a box score suffer indeed. As Kyron is prolly an overseas Pro’, literally, Straight Outta Compton (Ca.), NTTAWWT. Good on him!
  • Hampton, Va. escapee one #5, 6′8″, 220 lb. senior Rodney Bullock is another all-around kinda deep Friar as the stat-sheet goes. 15.7 ppg and 6.4 caroms per contest have dipped a bit; though nearly all of my preseason rags ratify Bullock as da bull of th’ woods here. Bullock is said to lack range (31.% on three’s), and he has had a few turnover issues in the past; although a lotta D-1 teams wish they had his problems. Though he has had some bad-break leg surgery problems as well; God Bless here. 35th outta high school and he is macaroni fanatic; whatever that means, though he too prolly means overseas business.
  • Alpha Diallo

Providence Weaknesses:

  • 6`7“, 24o lb. third year F Emmitt Holt is out indefinitely with a recent abdominal/stomach surgery! Yikes and God Bless here as his 12.4 ppg and 5.4 boards are out as well. Rough looking injury here folks.

Friars Bench: (depth=4)

Salvaging a now buzzkill trip to the Big Apple is now all about... what???

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Illation, conclusion (s) and OPT digits:

Number of Huskies who could start @Tech=1 maybe 1.5.

the takeaway:
The takeaway here is… from what I can gleam in this hour and two previews… these Huskies are a two-trick-pony.

  • Power conference PAC-12 team.
  • though tabbed 10th/11th outta 12.
  • new to head coaching, coach Mike Hopkins takes over and Mike is said to be a 2-3 match-up zone Jim Boeheim disciple. That being the case, tempo and points may be hard(er) to come by here.
  • 3 starters return. Though Michael Porter Jr. and several other **** signees did not after Washington fired 15 year big whistle coach Lo.Romar and the decommit floodgates opened wide open indeed.
  • Best of the lot that did stick is clearly 6′8″, 245 lb. -nearly transferred himself- third year Forward Noah Dickerson. 13 ppg and nearly 9 boards last year and nearly an 18 ppg finish in the last two Husky months says so.  The book on Dickerson says he’s got a long body that can bang inside, scrap for rebounds and step-outside and net a three or two if need be. (Dickerson just dropped a cool Madison Square 22 and 28 if you need him by the way!)
  • Also back is 6′5″, 185 lb. S/F or Swing Matisse Thybulle. Mat.Tee is in his third year and he has a rep’ for actually being unselfish; possibly even to a fault as he has been encouraged to step his offensive game up this campaign. 41% on the 3-ball does not suck, nor does his 14 and change per game.
  • 4-star or **** blue-chip Jaylen Nowell is the one recruit who stayed the Husky course. Right now he is leading Washington in scoring at 6′5″, 191 lbs. as a 2-Guard dropping a smooth 24 ppg thus far. 4 rpg, 2 spg and a dime dropped are nearly gravy here as this guy is a pure deep scorer whose range is basically the gym, if he’s in it, he’s… open. I did not see any Sr. year scholastic stats for Nowell, so maybe he was unwell that final year? Though he did pocket 2 gold-medals before that as the Seattle native stayed instate and was true to his school.
  • The other returning starter is 6′11″, 271 lb. sophomore Sam Timmins. Sam is a Kiwi import from Dunedin, New Zealand and he’s a bigger/stronger looking kid this season compared to last from what I just saw. That said, he’s still pretty offensively raw, more of a defender/banger down-low. 4.5 ppg and 3.5 rpg at the moment.
  • David Crisp likewise returned and some did favor him to win the One spot and start as the Huskies alpha Pt.G. this season. Crisp is a 6′ 185 lb. pure hit or miss streak scorer. 14.4 ppg last year do not truly tell his streaky tale. Though make no mistake here folks; a crispy Gotham night from Mister Crisp and the view of these Huskies may never change.
  • Washington has an 8 man rotation so fatigue could be a problem as they are -3 hours on rest and this is indeed an N.b.a. next day turn.
  • Likewise, this is not the biggest frontcourt power conference team I’ve ever crammed/studied before.
  • And nobody from the Husky pine-squad averages more than 4 ppg or 3.5 rebounds as I type.

 ***

From what I could run down, Washington was bad on D last year; really bad at 329th worst in ppg allowed. As ex-coach Romar favored a mini-me Golden State freewheeling G centric attack and he sure did go through some smart enough looking backcourt talent for his 1-3 focused small-ball approach.

That praise rightfully bestowed, this sure looks like a team in flux if not fluxed up after all those transfers to me. As you have to wonder out-loud just how well these backcourt-o-phile parts fit any 2-3 zone?

the call...

Writing under a deadline full-court-press and in the absence of anything else, I gotta favor Virginia Tech here as if nothing else, the Hokies look like the deeper team and hopefully that means something later on in the second half of this early bird 5:30pm, ESPN2 tip-off on late Friday afternoon.

Though I do gotta admit, unless our team went puerile growing/traveling pain(s) wild-out on they everything you can name to do NYC town on Wednesday night… or unless St.Louis was just one of those once every thirty games kinda chilly nights?

I’m really not sure what just happened; and that leaves me pretty unsure, here.

(6o% confidence interval)
Virginia Tech
=76, Washington=63

LETS GO!

Hokies!

 bourbonstreet**