Tech Sports Blog

[The following post was also published at HokieHaven.com on March 20, 2007.]

Late Friday night I emailed my friend Kevin. Kevin went in with me on basketball season tickets, we went to nearly every home game. My email to Kevin read:

Crazy game … I still can’t believe we pulled it off. I’ve read that there are plenty of tickets to be had.

Want to get up at the butt-crack of dawn on Sunday and head up to Columbus?

I was half-joking, and I expected him to replay that he’d love to go but couldn’t make it. Instead, Kevin called and left me a voicemail saying, “How much are tickets, and how far is the drive?” I called him back, and we decided to make to the trip.

Saturday night I drove down to his house in Christiansburg. We got up well before dawn and left his house just after 6am Sunday morning.

We nearly got lost en route to Columbus. We took I-77 to US-33 and missed the on-ramp to stay on US-33 near Pomeroy because I was on the phone, and he was a slacking on his duties riding shotgun. We drove about 20 minutes on Ohio Route 7 along the Ohio River until we realized our mistake.

We arrived in Columbus at about 11:45am, immediately parked, and bought 2 tickets in the nosebleeds in section 205 at $50 per. If we waited 20 minutes, we would have been able to buy tickets for much less. It would have been nice to save a few more bucks, but I really can’t complain. It was essentially $25 per game.

The place was crawling with Ohio State fans, which didn’t bother me at all. Being born in Cleveland, I consider Ohio State my second team. It was nice to talk about the Buckeyes, as well as the Cleveland Browns, with some Ohio natives. There was a Wahoo fan with his 2 little boys behind me. He was pretty cool, although I did get sick of him participating during the UVA chants. (I can’t say too much, as I was yelling & screaming during our game.) He left after the Virginia game was over.

At halftime of our game, we moved down to the lower level and sat with the group of Hokies that were directly across from the Tech bench. It was great being so much closer to the action. Kevin and I were screaming our heads off, and we really got into the game down there.

After the game, we waited around with the family & friends of a few players and saw the team board the bus. We felt out of place, but it was interesting to people watch. It seemed like the younger players looked more heartbroken than the upperclassmen.

We chatted a little bit with Deron Washington’s mother. She is down to earth and pretty funny. She called the season “exhausting”, and I could sense a little bit of relief that it was over although she was still disappointed in the result. She is definitely the “team mom”. Nearly every player went over and gave her a hug. There was a bittersweet moment when Chris Tucker came out and met his parents.

We congratulated a few of them on a great season and finally left the arena around 6:30pm.

Even though the game was disappointing, I am glad that I made the trip. Nationwide Arena was a great venue. It was a very different experience than any of the regular season games. Most of the crowd was there just to watch basketball, and really didn’t favor one team or the other. Even though there wasn’t much energy from the crowd, you could still sense the tension from teams. For one team in each game, the season was going to end.

I do wish more Hokies had made the trip. It felt like we had maybe a couple of hundred. If I had to guess, I would say we had 300 fans there. I think this team deserved more support.

I don’t want to end on a negative note, so I’ll quote the end of my last blog post:

The achievements of this team – particularly the seniors – should not be lost in March Madness. From the final year in the Big East to a surprising 8-8 conference record in their first year in the ACC, and from the year of heartbreaks and heartache to this year’s 5-seed in the NCAA Tournament, those seniors have helped Seth Greenberg elevate the basketball program from the basement to top third of the premiere conference of Division 1 basketball.

Regardless of what this weekend brings, this is the best season of basketball I have witnessed since I’ve been Hokie.

The roller coaster has come to stop, and this season of Hokie basketball is in the books. I still think it was one hell of a ride.

Jamon Gordon, Zabian Dowdell, Coleman Collins, Chris Tucker, and Markus Sailes – Thank you for the last four years and best of luck.

[The following post was originally published at HokieHaven.com on March 12, 2007.]

Ten years ago I graduated from a small private high school that didn’t even have a football team. Basketball was the sport at my high school, and homecoming was always in January because of it. I went to nearly every home basketball game when I was in high school, and I considered myself to be primarily a basketball fan. Three months after graduation, I started my first semester at Virginia Tech as a freshman in the College of Engineering, and I quickly became a college football fan. During my years as a student, I saw the rise of Virginia Tech football, and, quite frankly, I did not see Virginia Tech basketball at all. Those years had something special at Lane with Hokie football, but mediocre (at best) basketball teams in Cassell. I, like virtually every Hokie, was a die-hard football fan who barely recognized that Tech had a basketball squad. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed watching basketball.

That changed for me in 2003. It was Seth Greenberg’s first year as head coach, and it was our final season in the Big East. Because of the buzz created about the move to the ACC, I became interested in our basketball program. I started going to games, and I saw a few decent wins, as well as some tough losses. It was an up and down season, and the Hokies finished at 15-14. Unsurprisingly, there was no postseason bid. However, after winning 6 of their last 9 regular season games, qualifying for the Big East tournament for the first time, and winning their 1^st round Big East tournament game against Rutgers, I had some hope for Virginia Tech basketball.

Fast forward to 2007, and I am amazed at what the basketball program has accomplished in just 3 years as a member of the ACC: 2 first round byes in the ACC Tournament (2005, 2007), a NIT berth (2005), and a NCAA berth (2007). Not to mention that this year featured some of the best regular season wins in Virginia Tech basketball history.

I know many fans are disappointed in how the regular season and ACC tournament ended. The loss to Clemson hurt prevented us from grabbing a share of the regular season title and the number 1 seed in the ACC tournament, and we all wanted revenge against N.C. State in the ACC semis. Yet we should not lose sight that Virginia Tech men’s basketball has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. I remember the 96-60 shellacking #6 Uconn gave us on January 28, 2004. Cassell was maybe 35% full, and the folks that were there were barely interested in the game. Contrast that to January 13, 2007 – the day the Hokies beat #1 North Carolina.

The achievements of this team – particularly the seniors – should not be lost in March Madness. From the final year in the Big East to a surprising 8-8 conference record in their first year in the ACC, and from the year of heartbreaks and heartache to this year’s 5-seed in the NCAA Tournament, those seniors have helped Seth Greenberg elevate the basketball program from the basement to top third of the premiere conference of Division 1 basketball.

Regardless of what this weekend brings, this is the best season of basketball I have witnessed since I’ve been Hokie.

Random Thoughts

• You know when Seth Greenberg does his I-can’t-bare-to-watch head-in-face thing? I found myself doing that exact same thing a few times during Saturday’s game. The first half looked like tape from N.C. State’s first win over the Hokies on January 31, and I was happy we were down by only 6 at the half.
• Give N.C. State credit. They nearly pulled off the most amazing 4-day run of any conference tournament. I couldn’t help but pull for them on Thursday. They didn’t quit after North Carolina took a double-digit lead in the second half, and they clawed their way back to make it a game.
• The Wolfpack will play their 5^th game in 6 days on Tuesday in the first round of the NIT. They play Drexel, a team who is probably angry they did not receive a NCAA Tournament invite.
• I’ve seen lots of Hokie fans compare Illinois to N.C. State. While I agree that Illinois runs a slower paced offense that relies heavily on their big men, I don’t necessarily means they are just as bad a match-up as State was. N.C. State is a great passing team who make their shots and their free throws. Illinois is averaging only 65 points a game, and they make only 63% of their free throws.
• Much has been made of the proverbial 12-seed-over-5-seed upset. Personally, I think Old Dominion and Arkansas both have better shots of upsetting Butler and USC, respectively, than does Illinois have a shot of upsetting us. That said, Friday’s game in Columbus will be tough.
• In my bracket, I have the Hokies sweeping the teams from Illinois on their way to the Sweet 16. Maybe that’s my orange and maroon glasses blurring my vision.