Good evening, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) men’s basketball fans.
This will be a very quick post. It took five games, but the Virginia Tech Hokies Men’s Basketball team finally ended a five-game losing streak tonight.
The Hokies took it to Pittsburgh (you will find the stats here, which I reference below courtesy of HokiesSports.com) – and won this game for several reasons:
- The Hokies took care of the basketball. Generally, the “sweet spot” as they say for many teams is limit your turnovers to ten or loss. Tonight, Virginia Tech had ten turnovers.
- The Hokies had nine different players score tonight (25 points from the bench). Everyone got involved in the scoring. That’s significant. It was very much the difference in the game.
- An unexpected player, small forward PJ Horne, scored 18 points tonight. That is well above his average of about 8 points a game.
- The team’s star, Landers Nolley, wasn’t the Hokies’ leading scorer tonight (and he usually is). Nolley had 7 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 seals, and 1 block. While he was struggling with his shot, he got everyone else involved. That’s pretty important.
- Jalen Cone is a big time spark on the offensive side of the ball – and Virginia Tech really needed that tonight.
- Virginia Tech did not get burned on the boards tonight – Pitt only had to more total rebounds. That’s big for the Hokies who are a small team.
- The Hokies held Pittsburgh to 35% overall shooting from the floor – including 23.8% from three-point land. That’s a massive defensive effort from the Hokies.
Virginia Tech plays Miami next – and I believe they have a good chance to win at home. The Hokies just need win enough games to stay outside of that “first four day” of the ACC tournament. Easier said than done – but you never know what’s going to happen in the ACC, right?
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