Queen City Hosts Hall of Fame Shootout as Non-Conference Resumes Reach Crossroads

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 31^st-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.