Hokies Hoops, Vol. 2 (Mangling Miami edition) ...

Dearest readers, this will be my final bloggage for a few weeks. Two weeks, at least. Hopefully not longer. I’ll be going under the knife on Friday – luckily for me, that knife will be held by Tech’s team surgeon, Dr. Lebolt – and my right, writing hand will be out of commission for a while.

My final (hopefully not FINAL) act, however, is to bring you a little quick reaction to the Hokies’ win over No. 23 Miami tonight in men’s basketball. Who knows if the Hurricanes (15-2) are a legit ranked team (probably not), but Tech (13-2) was thoroughly impressive in dismantling them.

The final score, 81-66, does nothing to tell the tale. The Hokies led by as many as 35 points in the FIRST HALF. It was Tech’s largest lead ever in 90 ACC games (counting the tournament). The 50-23 halftime margin was also the program’s best since joining the league.

The Hokies hopped on Miami QUICK. They hit 5 of 6 shots, three of them 3-pointers, to open the game. They forced eight turnovers in the first 14 minutes. They out-rebounded the Canes 23-13 in the first half. Five different players scored the first five buckets.

Dorenzo Hudson had seven points in the first seven minutes – staking Tech to a 20-5 lead – including a 3-pointer and a nasty dunk all over Miami’s Adrian Thomas.

The lead was 30 points with four minutes left in the half thanks to the Canes’ 3 of 19 shooting at that point and a stretch of nearly nine minutes without a field goal. Miami, the ACC’s best 3-point team, was 2 of 10 from deep at halftime.

The Hurricanes had won seven in a row, by an average of 19.7 points, but became just the third ranked team to lose to the Hokies in the last 17 tries for Tech (dating to the start of 2007-08).

Oh, and how about Mr. Terrell Bell? He of the 2.7 points per game career average and 20 percent career 3-point accuracy? The junior hit all three of his 3-pointers and scored 13 points in the first half against Miami. Whoa.

P.S. Welcome back Jeff Allen. The invisible man in the second half against UNC recorded his fifth double-double of the season tonight. Allen had 14 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two blocks.

P.S.S. Allen can thank PG Malcolm Delaney for that. Many of Delaney’s nine assists (to go with 28 points) were feeds to Allen in the post. Delaney also had four rebounds and only one turnover.

This was a nice win for the Hokies. They’ll have a chance for another one at Florida State – where Tech has struggled – on Saturday. That’ll be quite enough from me. For tonight and for a while. I’ll turn it over to the talkative Tech hoop heads ...

COACH SETH GREENBERG

OPENING REMARKS: “It’s really simple: When we defend, we’re pretty good. There were 15-18 minutes where we were as good as we’ve been defensively. We were active. We defended the post. We were containing the basketball. We did a good job in defensive transition. And it doesn’t hurt that you make seven of your first nine 3s. We thought they’d open up in zone (defense) and they did. Our guys did a good job getting balls to the middle of the zone and getting back out to the opposite side. We made some shots. You’re a whole lot smarter (as a coach) when you (players) make some shots.”

ON BEATING A TOP-25 FOE: “It’s a good win. I thought the first half against Carolina, we were very good. The first half today, we were very good. Then we got in a little bit of a funk. They’re a really good basketball team – physical, tough and really well-coached. Mature basketball team.”

ON KEEPING JEFF ALLEN DIALED IN ALL GAME: “Malcolm (Delaney) did a great job of getting him the ball. In the second half, he got it in there three straight possessions. It’s good to see Jeff finish with a double-double. We’ve got to keep Jeff engaged; There’s no doubt about that.”

ON NOT BLOWING A LEAD THAT WAS AS BIG AS 35: “I didn’t want to be the Chicago Bulls (who blew a similar lead this week).”

ON TERRELL BELL GETTING 13 POINTS, HITTING 3 OF 3 FROM DEEP, IN THE FIRST HALF: “The more people that contribute, the better we are. Victor (Davila) was aggressive getting to the glass; Terrell making shots; Dorenzo contributed a lot in the first half.”

ON SHUTTING DOWN THE ACC’S BEST 3-POINT TEAM: “We were really stepping up on the ball screens. ... We were really alert defensively in the first half.”

ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS WIN: “It was so important to win this game because you have to win your home games in this league. It was so important to win this game so we had no self-doubt. We are a good team.”

PG MALCOLM DELANEY

ON WANTING TO BOUNCE BACK FROM THE UNC LOSS: “We had to. We know the ACC is a tough league. We can’t get caught in the last game, whether we win or whether we lose. We’ve still got to come out the next game and know that’s a different entity. I think we did a good job of that today.”

ON WHETHER THE HOKIES MADE A CONCERTED EFFORT TO COME OUT GUNNING, AS TECH FIRED SEVERAL EARLY 3-POINTERS: “They left us open. They were in zone (defense) and kind of left some shooters open. We took what they gave us. It wasn’t like we just wanted to shoot 3s. We clearly are not a 3-point shooting team, but if people leave us open, we’re capable of making them. They just left us open on some shots and we got an open shots.”

ON EXPECTING THE ZONE LOOK: “Yeah, we knew they were going to play zone. They played a lot of zone this year. We expected it. We did a good job and we brought them out of their zone kind of early.”

ON LOSING SOME OF THE LEAD IN THE SECOND HALF AND WHETHER THERE WERE AN SIMILARITIES TO THE UNC SECOND HALF: “It was different. I think we kind of slowed down. Coach said he kind of made a mistake ... we just tried to run the clock out some. We just weren’t very aggressive on offense. We didn’t want to overdo it and try to do too much. We played it safe and got the win.”

ON NEEDING A QUALITY WIN AND WHAT THIS ONE MEANS: “It proves a point. It shows what type of team we have. Terrell (Bell) stepped up today. We’ve got different people that can step up different days. Today it was Terrell, and we got the ball to Victor (Davila) early. We’ve got a lot of weapons on our team and we don’t all have to do it in the same game. That’s what we base our team off of: hard work and different people making contributions.”

ON THE SATISFACTION OF THROTTLING A RANKED TEAM: “Definitely (satisfying) to get a top-25 win. That’s going to look good on our resume. Saturday (at FSU), we’ve got another chance to get one of those top-25 wins and prove that we can play with anybody in the country and beat any team in the country.”

ON HOW TO BEAT THE ZONE: “Being aggressive, running the court, playing hard. We’re a tough team. A lot of teams don’t like playing against tough teams like us. They started out zone and we attacked the zone, made them get out of that zone. I’m pretty sure they weren’t planning on getting out of that zone early. That kind of helped us out a little. We got them away from their game plan.”

ON WHETHER HE EVER CHALLENGES FORWARD JEFF ALLEN TO PLAY HARD ALL GAME LONG, NOT FADE LIKE HE DID IN THE SECOND HALF AGAINST UNC: “We kept him more involved in the game tonight. Sometimes it’s just like that when you’re not in the flow of the game that much; your head kind of wanders off. But we know Jeff is one of the best big men in the league and we’ve got to give him the ball more. Just like Victor. That’s why we kind of got the ball down low a lot, made them double, and that’s how we got some open shots.”

G/F TERRELL BELL

ON WHETHER TECH COULD PLAY ANY BETTER THAN IT DID IN THE FIRST HALF: “We can always play better. Defensively, in the second half, we let up. We can’t let up in the next game.”

ON WHETHER HE WAS SURPRISED HOW OPEN MIAMI LEFT THE HOKIES’ SHOOTERS OUTSIDE: “We worked on the zone every day in practice for at least an hour. We were ready for it. We had plays for it. And we came out on top.”

ON SCORING 13 POINTS IN THE FIRST HALF, HITTING THREE STRAIGHT 3-POINTERS, AND HOW BIG THE BASKET LOOKED AT THAT POINT: “It was huge. I can’t explain it. It felt really good, but I just want to stay focused and hit those shots in the next game.”

ON HOW THEY SHUT DOWN MIAMI’S 3-POINT SHOOTING, SINCE THE CANES WERE THE ACC’S TOP LONG-RANGE TEAM: “Defense is something we pride ourselves on. We knew we had to stay with them defensively and not let them get any easy shots at all.”

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS WIN: “It’s big. We’ve got momentum, and hopefully we can take it down to Florida State.”

F JEFF ALLEN

ON DISAPPEARING IN THE SECOND HALF AGAINST UNC AND WHETHER HE REALIZED TONIGHT NEEDED TO BE DIFFERENT: “Oh, yeah, definitely. I kind of dragged in the second half (against the Tar Heels), kind of lost my enthusiasm. But this game I just kept it the whole game through. Instead of just playing one half, I played two.”

ON DELANEY SAYING IT’S IMPORTANT TO KEEP ALLEN TOUCHING THE BALL TO KEEP HIM FOCUSED: “It worked pretty good. He got the ball inside to our bigs ... got their bigs in trouble and got shots for our guys. It was an all-around game.”

ON WHETHER HE NEEDS TO TOUCH THE BALL FREQUENTLY TO STAY ENGAGED: “Not really. It’s going to be games where I might not get touches. I’ve just got to keep my head in play.”

ON THAT UNC GAME: “Just lost focus. I definitely knew I wasn’t playing the way I played in the first half. I didn’t come out the same in the second half.”

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