More from Hokies on loss to BC
Erick Green on the team’s turnovers: “Just not careful with the ball, not taking pride with .. handling the ball. We gave up so many turnovers. They scored 30 points off of our turnovers (actually 29 points off turnovers). You can’t win a game with that happening.”
Green on the VT defense: “If you don’t stay in front, they get by you, they dish off like they did, kick out for 3s, and they beat us. And we knew they were a good 3-point-shooting team. …. We’re going to fix it. As a leader I’ve got to figure out something. We’ve got to get these guys going. We’ve got to win a game …. to get our confidence back.”
Barksdale on returning to action after being benched vs. Maryland: “It felt good to be out there. I’ve been working my butt off, trying to get back out there and help the team. So it felt good.”
Barksdale on whether he still sees a long-term future for himself at VT: “Yes I .”
Eddie on being down to 6 scholarship players: “We definitely could’ve used Rob tonight. … We needed other guys to step up. ,,, n’t want to make excuses. … No matter if we have 6 guys or all the guys, we’ve got to come out and play.”
Eddie on the turnovers: “It’s just not being smart with the ball, just not seeing the rotations. They were shooting gaps and we wasn’t seeing it. We’ve got to take care of the ball better.”
Eddie on the VT defense: “We’re working hard in practice on our defense. …. Teams are playing well against us, they’re executing their game plan and we’re not able to stop them.”
Johnson: “They got to the free throw line, they attacked us. … We didn’t take care of the basketball. …. That’s something we haven’t been doing, is turning the basketball over. I don’t know what it was tonight. … I don’t know where that came from.”
Johnson on the BC offense: “They were attacking us on the drive. They did a good job attacking Johnston off the dribble, attacking Beyer off the dribble a couple times, all our guys. They did a good job trying to get us in rotation situations. Part of the defense was trying to .. take away their 3s. … They wanted us to help so they could kick and play the drive and kick game and then they got to the basket and they attacked and got to the free throw line when they didn’t make a layup.”
Johnson on having only 6 scholarship players tonite: “I’ve got some guys fighting — scholarship, nonscholarship, I’ve got a few guys fighting. I do have a few guys fighting. … The nonscholarship guys, they’re fighting their tails off and they’re doing all they can do to help this team try to win a game. We’ve got a short bench. We’re going to have a short bench. It is what it is. We’ve just got to play better.”
Johnson on Barskdale “He had 3 really good days of practice. His effort was a little better tonight. … He learned. He’s just got to be consistent. … Him playing a little bit more aggressive carries over to the fouls but I’m fine with that. I want him to continue to be aggressive. He has to learn to be aggressive and be smart.”
Johnson on hoping Brown can play Saturday: “Hopefully he can travel with us and we’re not passing that around to other guys.”
Johnson on Raines and the other frontcourt guys: “Cadarian, … he and Joey van Zegeren are going to split time when we play teams like this where we can’t play both of them together. Cadarian’s got to be more consistent. The effort at Maryland was a little better than tonight (as far as Raines). Joey did a good job. He’s going to be up and down….. CJ, I liked his effort. Beyer, I liked his effort. … Cadarian, he’ll do it and then he’ll come back and he’ll be missing in action for a few minutes and you’re like, Where is he on the floor? Different ways they guard him kind of affect him. Tonight it was the scrape down, they scrape down on the post and he was rushing to try to get the ball out of his hands when he just needed to be a little bit more patient and feel his man and get to the basket.”
Johnson on not having Brown: “We talked about being a man down and other guys needed to step their game up and help the team out. We’re going into the game with the intent to play as hard as we can, play as well as we can and try to win the game regardless of who’s out there on the floor. Not having Robert of course it hurts us in certain areas. He’s a scorer for us. He has not been shooting the ball well but we were hoping that tonight would be a night he could maybe come out of that. He gives us another guy that can handle the ball and get to the basket and attack the basket. It gives another long atheltic body on defense.”
BC coach Steve Donahue: “After about the first 10 minutes it seemed like we were running in mud but after that I thought we got our legs and the kids really guarded for long stretches. They’re such a good, explosive offensive team at times. … Green, … he played great tonight in terms of not just getting his shot but finding teammates. He had 9 assists, holy cow. He’s a handful. I thought we played him as well as we can at times.”
Donahue on “We’re not necessarily a team that forces turnovers but we’re getting better at that. And when we go small I think we’re much more active in that sense. … Just really active in the halfcourt.
Donahue on his offense driving for so many layups: “That surprises people still with our freshman guards. I think that’s the biggest difference in our team over last year. Teams look at our offense and say Oh, they share it, they pass it, they shoot the 3. But the reality of it is I think we drive it as good as anybody. Hanlan and Rahon are very difficult to keep in front.”
January 10, 2013 - 2:02 AM
Mark Berman,
I know that generally reporters are not responsible for their story headlines.
The headline / subheadline for today’s story provides an interesting contrast.
“With thin ranks Hokies fall again – Two missing key players help Boston College to a win, and to a lead that was unbroken for the entire second half.”
Interesting point #1: You wrote over 600 words explaining how the Hokies lost with only about 50 of those words dealing with the Hokies roster number limitations yet the headline writer chose to focus on that.
Interesting point #2: Back in December before the Hokies beat then-ranked #15 Oklahoma State you wrote “The Cowboys have just a seven-man rotation because of injuries. Returning starter Brian Williams suffered a season-ending wrist injury in October, while starter Jean-Paul Olukemi suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second game. Returning starter Michael Cobbins has yet to play this season because of a toe injury and is doubtful for today. Backup Marek Soucek is expected to miss his fourth straight game with a knee injury.”
Interestingly, and in contrast, the Roanoke Times headline of the Hokies victory did NOT read “With thin ranks Oklahoma State falls – missing two key starters and using only eight players Cowboys outscored in second half.”
Correct, I do not write the headlines and sub-headlines (or photo captions) to my stories. Perhaps the headline writer felt the Robert Brown absence was something new and different, unlike the Hokies’ subpar play on defense!
Okay, so crossing berman off the so-called ‘apologist’ list…
Just too funny to not be true…
Good job on the coverage Mark. One thing about being down so many players that people miss the point. Least affected is the rotation in games. The biggest problem is in practice. How hard can you push the main players? Affects the most when you do not have a full second 5 @ every position to simulate what will be seen in game. First of year they where ahead of everybody because the main players getting most of the floor time. Tbis time of year is all about pieces falling into place. JJ has no more pieces to throw out there. Translated we shot everything we had in the first 10 games. Still if they can get a win soon and get some confidence back can become competitive again. Probably went too long between home games too.
I know what JJ wants to do and I applaud him but there comes a time when you say I tried and change philosophy. You have to play defense and force turnovers to run, they don’t. Go to a zone trap or straight up zone to help and provide some rest. They are not the best defensive players in the first place and to run a pressing man to man is not smart. They had about 30 turnovers and we had zero. Boehiem (?) doesn’t have any problem using a zone on a regular basis. You could also include poor shot selection, poor communication and no help on defense.