ACC Basketball: Virginia Tech’s weaknesses exposed against Florida State?
By Stuart Gill
Florida State remained undefeated in conference play after a statement win in the ACC basketball conference against the Virginia Tech Hokies.
Led by Terance Mann’s 22, the Florida State Seminoles earned a quality win against one of the ACC’s top defensive teams on Saturday. Dwayne Bacon and Jonathan Isaac chipped in 17 and 13 points respectively, and the FSU bench added 35 in the victory.
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For the Hokies, mistakes were not made on the offensive end. Chris Clarke scored 22 and grabbed eight rebounds, while Zach LeDay added 19 and Ahmed Hill scored 16. As a team, they turned the ball over 16 times, which isn’t pretty, but is also not an embarrassing total.
The Hokies defense however, which had allowed just 68 points per game before this week’s blowout losses to NC State and FSU, gave up 93 and failed to shut down roll players such as Jarquez Smith and PJ Savoy.
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At halftime, Florida State had a 48-37 lead. They would stay ahead by about 10 points until there was about 10 minutes left in the game. Florida State was all over the offensive glass in the second half, which allowed them to stretch their lead to 18 with just under seven minutes remaining.
The Hokies hung around, but FSU would outscore them 10-6 in the final minutes of the game to earn the 15-point win.
Virginia Tech, who began conference play with a huge win over the Duke Blue Devils, now find themselves 1-2 in the ACC. While it is still early, their inability to defend the stronger teams in the conference indicates that this team is not ready to make a deep run in either the ACC or NCAA Tournament in March. Keep in mind, their 14-point win over Duke came at home when the Blue Devils were playing their first (and only) game without Grayson Allen.
The Hokies are also playing without Kerry Blackshear Jr., the sophomore forward who became one of VT’s most important big men last season. Their lack of depth at the power forward and center positions has revealed itself with their inability to rebound and score consistently from the paint.
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Meanwhile, Florida State has taken the ACC by surprise by going 3-0 to start the year. With huge match-ups against Duke, UNC and Notre Dame coming up, they’ll certainly need to continue playing their best basketball in order to remain atop the conference.