Hokies comment on defeat
Posted Nov29, 2007 at 12:24 AM
Mark Berman here from Penn State, where the Virginia Tech men's basketball team fell to Penn State 66-61 on Wednesday night in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge.
There will be a game story in Thursday's paper and a follow-up story with plenty of quotes in Friday's paper, but here are some comments by the Hokies to tide you over until then.
Geary Claxton, the eighth-leading scorer in Penn State history, got in foul trouble and had just eight points. He was averaging 22 points but was just 4-of-10 from the field. Jamelle Cornley was averaging 12 points but had just four points Wednesday.
"If somebody would've told me we would've held Claxton and Cornley to [12 points combined] ... I probably would've thought we would've won the game," Tech coach Seth Greenberg said.
"We've got to be a little more disciplined in terms of our defensive principles and we've got to be more consistent with our effort. We played hard, but I think the hardest thing to teach young players is understanding you've got to play every play."
Tech fell to 2-3. Penn State improved to 3-3.
The Hokies cut the lead to 48-47, 50-49, 54-51, 58-55, 60-59 and 64-61 but Penn State never lost the lead in the second half.
"They're young, like we are," Penn State coach Ed DeChellis said. "They had us sideways for a little bit and then we got straightened back out and our young kids made some big plays."
Greenberg again started two freshmen and played five freshmen. He played three freshmen down the stretch - Hank Thorns, Malcolm Delaney and Jeff Allen - along with Deron Washington and A.D. Vassallo.
Tech trailed 38-28 at halftime
"We lost it in the first half," Delaney said of the game.
"We've been having a lot of bad shot selection during this course of this little three-game losing streak we've been having, but hopefully we could work on that," Thorns said. "That's something that could be fixed."
Tech did play poorly in the first half, but Greenberg and the players did not blame their play on having had to fly from Anchorage to Salt Lake City to Atlanta to Roanoke on Sunday, when they returned from the Great Alaska Shootout.
"We need to come out and play harder in the first half," said Allen, who had 18 points and 14 rebounds.
Tech did play better in the second half. The Hokies shot 37.1 percent from the field in the first half but 52 percent in the second. PSU shot 53.3 percent in the first half and just 40 percent in the second. Six of the Nittany Lions' seven 3-pointers came in the first half.
"Defensively, we were a little bit more disciplined, a little tougher" in the second half, said Greenberg.
"We started playing much harder," Washington said. "That's something we've got to work on, to try to do it the whole game."
Nine of Tech's 15 turnovers came in the first half.
"We were lax with the ball," Washington said.
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