Hokie Basketball Gets Miserly For The Holidays

by Brian Bartley

December 24, 2009

Every team faces times throughout the season where the opponents get tougher, the games get closer, and the every day turns into a grind.

Last week was NOT that time for Virginia Tech men's basketball team.

The Hokies, previously coming off some tough road wins against Iowa and Penn State, returned home for a pair of Christmas break games with Charleston Southern on Dec. 19th and University of Maryland, Baltimore County [UMBC] this past Tuesday night. 

In those games, the Hokies outscored the Bucs and Retrievers by a combined 144-84.

Charleston Southern, the second Big South conference member the Hokies have downed this season (VMI-Dec 9), was clearly the better of Tech's two opponents, yet could still only manage to get within 23 points, losing 73-50.

Against UMBC, the Hokies jumped out to a 25-point halftime lead and used their entire bench en route to an easy 71-34 victory.

Though scoring 70+ points in both games is an encouraging sign for a Hokie team that struggled on offense earlier in the season, even more impressive has been their defense. 

In both games, Tech held each opponent below 34 percent shooting, and held UMBC to an all-time Cassell Coliseum low of 34 points for an entire game.

"The've [UMBC] scored points on other people," Tech head coach Seth Greenberg said.  "But they're not Duke.  They're not North Carolina, or N.C. State or Wake.  But to give up 34 points, that's good."

Malcolm Delaney, who leads both the Hokies and the ACC in scoring at 22 ppg, scored 22 and 17 points respectively.  Delaney has also seemed to lock in from behind the 3-point arc, knocking down 10 of 16 attempts in the two games.

"I've been feeling better with my shot lately," Delaney said.  "It's just paying off, how hard I work on my game."

Dorenzo Hudson came on strong at the end of last season, but got off to somewhat of a slow start to begin this season.  That has quickly changed, as Hudson has asserted himself as the clear number two behind Delaney.

Hudson scored 14 points against the Bucs and topped that with 16 against the Retrievers on Tuesday.

Freshmen Ben Boggs, Erick Green, and Manny Atkins played in both games and have all scored points.  Green has improved every game at the point guard position and played 20 minutes against the Retrievers. 

Green's increased minutes at the point guard spot could be a big reason for Delaney's recent shooting success.  If Green can continue to play effectively and distribute the ball, it could be a sign of good things to come for the Hokies on offense.

With the previous two wins, the Hokies now roll into the holliday season with momentum and a sharp 10-1 record.  The only blemish came against a top-25 Temple team that knocked off Villanova over a week ago.

In retrospect, losing to Temple was far from a bad loss for the Hokies, but that doesn't mean they don't have regrets.

"If we played Temple today, we'd beat them," Hudson said after the game. 

Had the Hokies knocked off Temple, not only would they have a flawless record, but it's also probable that such a quality win could have vaulted them into top-25.  In each of the last two weeks, Tech has received votes in both the coaches and AP poll, but have not been able to break into rankings.

Instead, pollsters seem to be punishing the Hokies for missing that key opportunity against one of the only quality teams on their blatantly weak out-of-conference schedule.

"People don't say anything when the good teams play schedules like this," Delaney said.  "Well last year we wouldn't have won all these games.  Just winning these games is a good sign."

Delaney is absolutely right in his perspective on the Hokies, or at least the observation that the Hokies wouldn't have won these games a year ago.

Instead, the Hokies had to use strong conference play to fuel their way to a near tournament birth. 

Greenberg's squad is hoping this years improved play in the early season will give them a little more leeway when the grind of conference play finally rolls around.

The Hokies will get nearly a week off before their next game at home against Longwood on December 30.  They will then head south to Cancun for a game against Seton Hall on January 2^nd.

A season ago, the Hokies fell to Seton Hall in Puerto Rico just a day after losing on an overtime halfcourt heave to Xavier.