Charlotte was the center of the college
basketball world on Friday night, hosting four of the 13 Division 1 games on
the night in the inaugural Basketball Hall of Fame Shootout. The marquee games
in the Queen City saw a pair of Atlantic 10 teams face a pair of ACC teams in
two games which certainly be critical to all four team’s resumes on Selection Sunday.
A matinee of East Carolina versus Liberty started the day and the nightcap between
saw the home-town team Charlotte play Wake Forest a few miles down the road
from Halton Arena (more on this one later in the week).
Virginia Tech entered their game with St.
Bonaventure as the team in need of resume wins. The Hokies held a 31st-place
ranking per KenPom.com prior to the tip-off but were on the outside looking in of
the NCAA Tournament per Joe Lunardi’s latest edition of Bracketology. Virginia
Tech struggled to close out games against Memphis and Xavier for A-Tier victories
as well as posting detrimental losses at home to Wake Forest and on the road at
Dayton. A road win at Maryland has already begun to sour as the Terrapins are
primed to slip further and further down the rankings following the abrupt
departure of Mark Turgeon at Head Coach. With just one of the other 14 ACC
teams in KenPom’s Top 25 building a resume out of scratch in conference play.
Virginia Tech easily took control of the
game they desperately needed to win, stretching out an early 13-0 lead. Hunter
Cattoor scored the game’s first six points with a pair of three-pointers in the
opening two and a half minutes of the game. The Bonnies task of breaking into
the scoring column was made only more difficult by the intense and smothering defense
played by Virginia Tech that forced a pair of turnovers in the opening possessions
and a slew of poor and contested shots in the ensuing possessions. The Hokies
limited the space in which their opponent had to operate with the ball, and the
Bonnies never found a way to create that space on their own.
Once the Bonnies were able to score their
first points of the game a Kyle Lofton 3-pointer cut the lead to 10 at 15-5
with 13:06 remaining in the first half, unfortunately for St. Bonaventure that
would be as close as the Bonnies would get to Virginia Tech the rest of the
way. Storm Murphy joined in on Cattoor's barrage of long-range shots which
kept St. Bonaventure from gaining any momentum as the most they could muster in
response were 2-point buckets.
The Hokies defense consistently forced the
Bonnies into attempting poor passes across the lane which repeatedly ended up
in the hands of Virginia Tech's players. St. Bonaventure put up a fight on the
defensive end, but Virginia Tech was in no hurry to settle for low-quality
shots and were often rewarded for their patience with clean looks at the
basket.
The harder the Bonnies kept pressing the
panic button, the worse things kept getting. St. Bonaventure ended the half
with four starters each having two fouls, three of which had committed three or
more turnovers each. The Bonnies would go into the break trailing Virginia Tech
42-20 after a Storm Murphy heave at the buzzer bounced off the rim which would
have given the Hokies a 25-point lead.
Once again, that's the closes the margin
would be again. A 9-2 run by the Hokies at the start of the second half put the
game on ice and ballooned their lead to 29. From this point on the less
said about this game the better as Virginia Tech would ultimately grow their
lead up to 43 points before pulling their key rotation players out of game for
the final three minutes. A Linton Brown 3-pointer at the end of the game would
bring the Bonnies final deficit down to 37, but it was only met by
sarcastic cheers from both fanbases as the game was put out of it’s misery.
Not just the win but the authority in
which it was earned certainly bolstered Virginia Tech’s resume as the season
transitions into full-time conference play. Combined with the weekend’s other
results the Hokies have emerged Duke’s stiffest competition for first place in
the ACC, and it would be hard to fathom a top-two team from this conference being
left out of any NCAA Tournament taking place in this universe.
St. Bonaventure had already collected a
handful of quality victories enroute to winning the Charleston Classic, but their
resume was blemished by 10-point loss at home to a Northern Iowa team which will
not be expected to compete for the MVC this season. The margin of this defeat
will loom heavily in the coming months, as St. Bonaventure drops back to the pack
of Atlantic 10 teams leaving that conference in wide-open battle between seven
teams all projected to finish 12-6 or 11-7 by KenPom.com, which also includes
the Richmond Spiders.
Those Richmond Spiders entered the game
having dropped nearly every game which would boost their resume, with their
best win being a road game against Wofford. Richmond had done a great job of avoiding
any bad losses and had managed to defeat the same Northern Iowa team which notched
a win against St. Bonaventure. The ship had sailed to build an at-large resume with
non-conference games but a loss to an NC State team which has NIT written all over
it would only give the Spiders a deeper hole to climb out of during conference
play.
From the tip-off it was clear that the
crowd at Spectrum Center was in for a competitive game between the Spiders
and Wolfpack. Both teams traded baskets in the opening moments, with 3-pointers
by Jericole Hellems and Cam Hayes the early difference in the game until a 5-0
run by Richmond edged them ahead 11-9. Grant Golden was the motor of the
Spider's offense in the early going, scoring three times off some well-honed
post moves (including an and-one) and dishing out the assist from the post to
Gilyard on the go-ahead bucket.
NC State would answer that surge from
Richmond with three more shots from long-range, building a 23-15 lead at the
13:07 mark. But Richmond would go on another run, this time 6-0, to cut
the lead down to 23-21 midway through the opening half. The Wolfpack had been a
perfect five of five from 3-point range to that stage, but only held a 2-point
lead. Richmond was in prime position to pounce whenever the Wolfpack's well
beyond the arc started running dry, and that's exactly what happened next. A
7-0 Richmond run late in the first half put the Spiders up 34-31, and an Isiah
Wilson three-pointer in the corner would grow their lead to four and send the
game to half-time with Richmond leading 39-25.
Wilson would also start the scoring in the
second half with another long-range shot, but the 2nd-half belonged to his team
mate Tyler Burton. A mid-range jumper from Burton and a 3-pointer were part of
an 8-0 from the Spiders that put the Wolfpack in a 10-point hole four minutes
into the second half.
Burton would continue to dazzle,
fearlessly driving into the lane either finishing at the rim or drawing
contact. Dereon Seabron was NC State's star of the second half, keeping the Wolfpack
within reach of Richmond nearly single-handedly. The guard's length and speed were
unmatched in transition as he had no trouble weaving through Richmond defenders
to finish at the rim. But for every great play finished by Seabron there were
the Spiders with an answer on the other end.
NC State had a definite advantage in
transition, as nearly every Richmond fast-break ended in frustration as NC State
was able to recover quickly and meet the ball at the rim. Through their own
fast-break efficiency and Terquavion Smith ending a 20+ minute drought from
long-range the Wolfpack were in position to tie the game at 63 when Seabron
stepped up to the free throw line for two shots with 8:30 left in regulation.
Seabron was able to split his attempts, but 1 point is as small as Richmond's
lead would be the rest of the night, as free throw shooting woes would doom NC
State's comeback efforts. Richmond’s defense was able to hold firm as NC State
extended the game while the Spiders took care of business at the free throw
line, stretching out the lead back to 9 and winning 83-74.
Richmond is in as good of a position as
any other Atlantic 10 contender entering conference play, but if those seven
teams (Dayton, Rhode Island, Richmond, Saint Louis, St. Bonaventure, VCU and
Davidson) cannibalize each other the Atlantic 10 is at risk of it’s first single-bid
season since 2005.
The hole NC State must dig out of after
this missed opportunity is even deeper. Like mentioned earlier, the quality of ACC
wins is just not what anyone is used to this season and the Wolfpack will need
to show substantial improvement to even finish .500 in conference play.
The intensity in the Hall of Fame Shootout
steadily crescendoed throughout the evening and the Nightcap will be discussed
through the Charlotte lens later in the week.
