Hokie Heartbreak: What went wrong? What's next?

For all my thoughts and random notes on the Hokies’ fall from grace – and from NCAA tournament lock to preparing for Quinnipiac in the NIT – see the previous post.

For all Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg’s thoughts on the subject, stay right here. He had plenty to say late Sunday night.

It was a somber scene inside the Hokies’ pristine new practice facility. Understandably so. There is some semi-interesting potential, however, in the NIT.

Assuming Tech doesn’t tank the season from here, and advances to the second round, it will likely host Connecticut in Round 2. That’s kind of cool, a throwback to the Big East days.

(By the way, there are two participants from last year’s Final Four, with defending national champ UNC being the other, in this year’s NIT. Talk about falling from grace.)

Beat the Huskies and a possible date with Wichita State could await in the quarterfinals. I would be kind of excited to see the Shockers. Another win it’s off to Madison Square Garden for the NIT Final Four.

It’s not what Tech hoped for, but it would still be kind of cool. And come with a banner for Cassell Coliseum. And a potential semifinal meeting with the Mississippi State team that had its heart broken by Kentucky in the SEC finals Sunday (and also during the regular season). Two jilted bubble teams trying to send a message.

Other semifinal possibilities: the Tar Heels (although I think they WILL tank it) or fellow Commonwealth kids from William and Mary. That would be a neat storyline.

And if the Hokies manage to put this bitter NCAA disappointment and run all the way to the NIT title game, the other side of the bracket includes quality foes such as Illinois, Cincinnati, Arizona State, Memphis and Ole Miss.

Look, there is absolutely no sugar-coating what happened this weekend. It was a disaster for the Hokies. BUT, if they beat, say, UCONN, Mississippi State and Illinois and won the NIT, finishing with a 27-8 record ... I say they could still call this a successful season.

Because keep in mind: Every major contributor on this team is back next year.

OK, enough from me. Here’s LOTS from The Bald Man ...

VIRGINIA TECH COACH SETH GREENBERG

ON WHETHER HE’S KICKING HIMSELF NOW FOR HIS WEAK NON-LEAGUE SCHEDULE, AFTER THE NCAA TOURNAMENT COMMITTEE CITED IT AS A MAJOR REASON THE HOKIES WERE LEFT OUT: “I’m not kicking myself at all. Our schedule is what our schedule is. We won 10 games in the ACC and came in third place and played four BCS teams non-conference, played in an exempt tournament against a team that I think got a no. 4 seed (Temple), played in a made-for-TV event against a Big East school. We can’t control the records that other teams have. We can only control the record that we have.”

ON WHETHER THE WEEKEND WAS STRESSFUL WITH ALL THE UPSETS: “It’s tough when there’s uncertainty. No one was in until they announced the field. And there are a lot of good teams in college basketball, as opposed to what Jay Bilas feels.”

ON SCOREBOARD WATCHING: “It’s nerve wracking for a lot of us. It’s the nature of the beast. There’s only a certain number of spots. And when spots start disappearing … I spent the day watching my daughter play volleyball. I’m not gong lie to you. It wasn’t easy. But that is the reality of the NCAA tournament.”

ON WHETHER THERE WAS ONE SCORE HE SAW THAT MADE HIM THINK, ‘UH-OH’: “Obviously, when you see teams that are not even mentioned in the field win tournaments, you’re going to say, ‘That’s going to put the committee in a position to have to make another decision.’ ”

ON HIS PLAYERS’ REACTION TO THE NEWS, WHICH THEY LEARNED AFTER EATING DINNER AT HIS HOUSE: “They’re disappointed. Why wouldn’t they be disappointed? But as I told them before they started practice (Sunday), whether we get admitted or we don’t get admitted, it shouldn’t’ take away from what we’ve accomplished this year. They should be really proud of what they accomplished and feel good about themselves. And I really believe that.”

ON HOW HARD IT WILL BE TO MOTIVATE HIS TEAM FOR QUINNIPIAC IN THE NIT: “That’s our job. We’re going to have a great practice tomorrow. I told them, I said, ‘It’s going to hurt today.’ There’s no doubt about that. (But) we have a chance to play. We have a chance to go to New York and cut down the nets. That’s going to be the vision we’re going to sell to our team.”

ON WHETHER ONE LOSS REALLY BUGS HIM: “I haven’t thought about that. Obviously, the last one. That’s probably the one that ... it’s the freshest in my mind. We just couldn’t make a shot. (Maryland) would have been a good win. But, again, we also had some unbelievable wins and some great finishes. You look at this team, this is a story of success. This is a team that not a lot was expected of and accomplished great things. For this team to get the bye in the ACC tournament, to be tied for third, how can that not be reason to celebrate?”

ON CLEMSON, GEORGIA TECH AND WAKE FOREST – TEAMS TECH BEAT IN THEIR LONE MEETING AND WHICH FINISHED BELOW THE HOKIES IN THE LEAGUE STANDINGS – GETTING IN EASILY: “I certainly wouldn’t want to compare ourselves against other teams in the league. You compare yourself against the field. But this is their moment. I’m not going to take away from someone else’s moment by basically berating their invitation to the tournament. It’s not the right thing to do. Are you disappointed? Yeah. But you know what? Sometimes you just have to do the right thing. You’ve got to be a stand-up guy and say ... ‘Those kids got selected. They need to enjoy this moment.’ And we’ve got to deal with it.”

ON SAYING ALL SEASON HOW MUCH HE LIKES THIS TEAM AND WHETHER THAT MADE IT HARDER TO SEE THEM EXCLUDED: “I love these kids. They are a really great group. Again, there are no guarantees. It hurt me because I’ve seen where they were and what they’ve become. It’s exciting to me what they’ve become. But there are no guarantees. Like everyone says, ‘You guys are going to be really good next year.’ I talked to Eddie DeChellis (Penn State coach) tonight because I wanted get some feedback from him, because last year he was in a similar situation (team among the last out of the Big Dance, had to get up to play and eventually win the NIT). They had a special season last year (but) I don’t know how many games they won this year (11). There are no guarantees. Winning is hard and it’s really fragile. We’re going have a good team next year, but everyone else is getting better, too.”

MORE ON THE MAKE-UP OF THE HOKIES: “This team is a team I really like. They’re just a good group of people. We go on the road, we have fun. They work hard. Today, we practiced at 3 o’clock. The only negative is Ben Boggs got a severely sprained ankle, a Grade 2 sprain. They thought it was broken, but it’s not. Beside that, we went an hour and 10 minutes really hard. It just proves it’s hard to get into the tournament. I spoke to (former N.C. State and current Arizona State coach) Herb Sendek tonight. We’ve got to figure out: What’s the criteria? The criteria changes. Each selection committee has their own personality. That’s the thing that makes it the hardest. You just have no control over your opponents’ and your opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage.”

ON WHAT WAS DIFFERENT ABOUT THE CRITERIA THIS YEAR, IN HIS OPINION: “This committee rewarded people for playing a good schedule and even not winning. That was a unique criteria. But we’re going to sit down. We’re going to evaluate it. We already know we’re going to play a good team in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge next year. We’re going to Anaheim to play an event with, I think, six really good teams. We’ve got Penn State coming back here. We’re going to play in another made-for-TV event, at least one, maybe two. You’ve got also to have a balance in your schedule so that your team can grow and you can develop your young players. After the season, we’re going sit down, I’ll evaluate the program from A to Z. Where are we at as a program and what do we need to do to improve as a program? From scheduling to player development to recruiting.”

ON SELECTION COMMITTEE CHAIR DAN GUERRERO SAYING THE NON-LEAGUE HURT TECH: “Dan Guerrero’s not going to be the chair of the committee next year. So his priority ... the chair next year might have a different set of priorities. I can’t control when you play four BCS-conference teams and the Atlantic 10 champion ... again, I can’t control some of that stuff. We’re going to look at everything, and that’s one of the things that we’re going to look at as we try to improve.”

ON BEING FRIENDS WITH PSU COACH, ED DECHELLIS AND WHETHER HE MENTIONED HOW THE NITTANY LIONS TANKING HURT TECH: “He jokes with me. In fact, he said one of the funniest things. He and I are very good friends. During the middle of the season, when we were playing well, he sent me a text: I’m sorry we’re killing your RPI.”

ON SECOND-GUESSING: “Can you look back and second guess? Yeah, you can look back and second guess all the time. But you know what? We won games. We won a lot of games in this conference, a conference that had 10 teams in the top 100.”

ON PUTTING HEADS TOGETHER WITH SENDEK TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE COMMITTEE WANTS: “He said I’ve got to figure this out. And I basically said, ‘Herb, you were a 4.0 student at Carnegie Mellon. You need to study this and evaluate it and share it with me.”

ON WHAT HE WANTS FROM THE COMMITTEE: “I would like for them to just say: In this order, this is our criteria. A year ago it was how you finished in the last 10. This year, they said that wasn’t important, but the conference tournament was important. But some year it’s the non-conference schedule. But when you play in the ACC and you have the potential to play 14 or 15 (games against) top 100 teams in the league, then you schedule four more BCS conferences and then you go play Temple ... then you’re looking at 21 or 22 games against teams potentially in the top 100. I think that’s a pretty competitive schedule. You don’t expect certain teams to be ... did anyone expect a certain team to drop as far as they did? No.”

ON WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE PROBLEM: “I don’t know how you go about it. The first thing we want to do is we want to see which made-for-television events that we can get into. And we’re working on one home-and-home that’s really a big-time home-and-home. So we’re working on that. It’s hard to get people to come to Blacksburg and to play a home and home. I’d love to play Pitt. I’m not sure they’re going to play us home and home. A lot has been talked about West Virginia. They wanted us to play in D.C. and then we’d play in Charleston, West Virginia. Well, Charleston, West Virginia is a home game for West Virginia. Washington, D.C. is four hours away (for VT). It’s not a home game. I might play them in Richmond. But I’m not going to play them in Washington, D.C., four hours away. I mean, they’re as close to D.C. as we are, and we’re a lot farther from Charleston, West Virginia. We’re working with ESPN to create some games. I think we’re an attractive team next year, but you’ve also got to win those games.”

ON WHY NOT SCHEDULE A TEAM LIKE GONZAGA, AS WAKE DID: “We tried to get that game. We couldn’t get that game. They took Wake. We tried to get that game and we tried to get into the Jimmy V (Classic). Jimmy V took Pitt, I think.”

ON WHETHER HE COULD GIVE TECH FANS ANY GOOD NEWS, THAT HE WILL BE THE COACH OF THE HOKIES NEXT SEASON: “I’m the basketball coach at Virginia Tech. I don’t think that has changed (since rumors of him and the St. John’s job emerged late last week). I’m the basketball coach at Virginia Tech. I don’t know how much clearer I could put it.”

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