Tech Sports Blog

A few minutes after the buzzer sounded at the end of last night’s loss to North Carolina State, Kevin and I were walking down the steps on the east side of Cassell. Kevin remarked, “I’m not pissed that we lost. I’m pissed at our fans.” I had a very similar feeling after that game. The team did not play good basketball, and they got completely outplayed by N.C. State. These things happen in the ACC. Yet our fans don’t seem to understand this. Here are the events that angered us:

• Someone behind us, with zero basketball knowledge, was making rediculous comments about the referees, the game, and the team. His best one was, “now we’ll probably lose the rest of our games.”
• The constant boos and catcalls the crowd directed to the refs.
• During a timeout with 1:07 left to play and the Hokies down by 7, hordes of people got up from their seats to leave the game.
• Inside the final minute, some jackass about 15 rows behind the Tech bench threw his Coke at the refs. Instead of hitting the referees, he sprayed cola on the fans in front of him, as well as players and coaches.
• During our walk out of the coliseum, we overheard a number of people complaining about the referees.

Personally, I thought the refs did a fairly good job calling the game. Yes, they missed a few calls, but it had absolutely zero impact on the game. In my opinion, all of the complaining about the referees from our fans sounded like sour grapes. It sounded like an excuse. We didn’t lose that game because of the refs. We lost because we were out-rebounded 42-29, we shot 35% from the floor, and our defense could not stop Ben McCauley. We were extremely lucky to be only down by 2 at the half and have the game within reach towards the end. But give the Wolfpack credit. They did what they needed to win the game, and we deserved to the lose. To quote Seth Greenberg from the AP recap on ESPN.com:

“We were out-coached, we were out-played, we were out-competed, we were out-focused, we were out-toughed,” Hokies coach Seth Greenberg said. “I can’t really say one thing that I thought we did a good job with. … I’m really embarrassed by the manner in which we played and the manner in which we conducted our business.”

But to listen to the fans on the way out, it sounded like we had one stolen away. It sounded like our season was going to take a dive. It became very clear to me last night that we just don’t have knowledgeable basketball fans. We have great football fans who bring those football expectations to the basketball games. One or two losses in football take you out of the national title hunt. Losses in basketball are a fact of life.

It’s better to lose now than late in the regular season or early in the ACC tournament. This loss might be good for the team. They were making an incredible run, and last night’s game brought them back down to earth. I still believe this team will do special things in the postseason. They can play with anyone in the country, and with a nice showing the ACC tourney, a good seeding in the NCAA tournament is very possible. We still have the ability to finish 22-8, 12-4 in the ACC. To update my predictions from my last post, here’s how they look:

It’s probably more likely that we split with Boston College and end up 5-3 instead of 6-2. Either way, it will be a solid finish to our season, and we will be well positioned for the post season.

Categories: VT Basketball
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