www.roanoke.com

The matchups are out for the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and the Hokies will visit Iowa.

Iowa, one of the worst teams in the Big Ten last year. Iowa, for the second time in recent years.

Geez.

Iowa is probably the least appetizing foe you could get from the Big Ten. They did not make the NCAAs or NIT last year. Indiana didn't either, but at least you could get excited about visiting a program with the name of IU.

And this is not likely to help Tech's strength of schedule next season. If Seth Greenberg was counting on the Challenge to provide a quality foe, he could be out of luck. Maybe Iowa will be a whole lot better next season and become an NCAA tournament team that would look good on Tech's resume, but that is hardly a safe bet.

Plus Tech has to visit Iowa. We all know how that trip to Penn State turned out a few years ago.

2009 Big Ten/ACC Challenge schedule (times and networks are to be determined):

Monday, Nov. 30

            Penn State at Virginia

Tuesday, Dec. 1

            Maryland at Indiana

            Michigan State at North Carolina

            Northwestern at N.C. State

            Virginia Tech at Iowa

            Wake Forest at Purdue

Wednesday, Dec. 2

            Boston College at Michigan

            Duke at Wisconsin

            Florida State at Ohio State

            Illinois at Clemson

            Minnesota at Miami

One of Virginia Tech's fall signees was point guard Erick Green of Paul VI High School in Fairfax.

I recently talked with Green's coach at Paul VI, Glenn Farello, about what Tech fans can expect to see from him next season. The 6-3, 185-pound Green averaged 17 points, four rebounds, 2.5 steals and six assists this year. He shot 78 percent from the free-throw line, 51 percent from the field and 36 percent from 3-point range.

Green will play for the Capital All-Stars in the Capital Classic on Thursday at American U against a U.S. All-Star team featuring fellow Tech recruit Cadarian Raines (and former Tech recruit Mo Mo Jones). The game will air on tape at 4 p.m. Saturday on CSN.

Here is what Green's coach had to say.

Farello: "He's a pure point. I've had the pleasure of coaching over 40 Division I kids, and walking in as a point guard, especially into the ACC, is one of the toughest adjustments you could possibly have. He's a nice piece of the puzzle for what the backcourt is down there. I think he'll be able to contribute. One of the nicest stats I have on him is a 5-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He takes care of the basketball. He's a facilitator.

"He's much more of a distributor (than a scorer). There's scoring point guards and there's point guards who can score, and he's a point guard who can score. I had a player named Delonte West who now is a starting 2-guard for the Cavs -- played at St. Joes's -- and he had all types of skills. I think Erick reminds me a lot of Delonte with his skill set in that he kind of fits in to whatever the team needs him to do as a guard.

"He's a catch and shoot guy. He's got a college-ready mid-range game. A lot of kids either get all the way to the rack or they catch and shoot 3s. Erick has one of the best mid-range games I've ever coached."

Why did he change high schools?

"After winning a public school state championship at Millbrook, he wanted to come into our league, which is considered the best in the country, to challenge himself and get better prepared for the ACC. It was well worth it. He learned a lot. He's really come a long way. He didn't have to improve his academics; he was already a qualifier. It was more to get himself challenged academically but mainly athletically."

As I posted yesterday, Seth Greenberg texted me to say he has NOT talked to Arizona, and texted colleague Doug Doughty to say he will be at VT for a long time. And Jim Weaver told me that Arizona has not called for permission to talk to Seth.

Now let's turn our attention to The Final Four. To get some insight on the teams, I interviewed four coaches, each of whom coached against one of the Final Four squads this season. Here is what they had to say (a much shorter version will be in Sat. paper)

VILLANOVA

I talked to ex UVa coach Jeff Jones, who now coaches the American team that threw a big scare into Villanova before losing 80-67 in the first round of the NCAAs. Villanova will face UNC.

Jones says:

"They're just an excellent defensive team. From an offensive standpoint, they're a team of playmakers. They've got six or seven guys that can make plays offensively. What we didn't realize until taking a real close look at them is from a defensive standpoint just how good they were. Their guys - the bigs, the smalls and the in-betweens -- all do a great job of making plays defensively.

"They're not a big team (But) they're a very strong team. Their guards, Corey Fisher and Scottie Reynolds, are just really strong, stout guards. That enables them to do some things, switching, ball screens and being very aggressive. It's a different look. They really get after you and force you to make plays. Being able to meet their halfcourt pressure head on (is important). But what we were able to do well at times, certainly earlier in the game, was when they were making rotations to move the ball, change sides of the floor and catch them in their rotations. Read more »

Seth Greenberg texted me just now to say that he has not talked with Arizona. And he texted my colleague Doug Doughty to say that he plans to be at VT for a long time.

This comes on the heels of Jim Weaver telling me that Arizona has not called to seek permission to talk to Seth. So I think this safely puts to bed the rumor the Arizona Republic had been hearing.

The Arizona Republic is trying to track down rumors about who Arizona's next coach is going to be, and that newspaper says Seth Greenberg's name has hit the rumor mill today. So I called Jim Weaver, and he says Arizona's athletic director has NOT called him seeking permission to talk to Greenberg.