The Virginia Tech men’s basketball team, under head coach Seth Greenberg, rang in the New Year with some changes that were readily noticeable to followers of the program. Some were overt changes, like the addition of Jeff King, while others were more subtle. In any event, one important and historical question has given birth to an answer for a future trivia question.

Following in the footsteps of Bryan Randall from last season, junior tight end Jeff King joined the Virginia Tech basketball team on Monday, making his collegiate basketball debut and going scoreless in Wednesday evening’s 69-58 victory over Bethune-Cookman. At 6-5 and 250+ pounds, King instantly becomes the largest player on the Hokie team, and his addition will hopefully add depth to a team that has been challenged all season by its collective lack of size and brawn.

King also becomes the first All-ACC selection that the Tech basketball team has had in its very brief history in the conference. It is but a minor detail that King achieved his second team status for his exploits on the football field, rather than the basketball court. He still becomes the answer to the trivia question: What Virginia Tech basketball player was the first All-ACC selection?

The addition of King is but one of the changes that greeted fans of the program after the return of the Hokies from their two game swing through New Orleans and Tallahassee, where they suffered late game losses to Florida State and Mississippi State. Just as Seth Greenberg had promised after December 27th's win over Morgan State, the team’s style and playing rotation was streamlined, and by most accounts, there was tangible improvement in the two losses with the new style. There was a definite Jekyll-Hyde feel to the Bethune-Cookman game Wednesday, when the Hokies shot 31% from the floor in the first half, trailing by as many as 10 points before going into halftime down 5. Furthermore, the Hokies seemed lethargic, were slow on their defensive rotations inside and on perimeter shooters, and were out-rebounded by 7 in the first half. They allowed their opponents to shoot 48% from the floor and 50% from behind the arc.

The second half was much kinder to the Hokies, who ran their offense with more patience and precision, shooting 68% in the process. They also did a noticeably better job defensively on Bethune-Cookman, holding them to a second half shooting percentage of 35%, only 22% from behind the arc.

The biggest on-court style change that Greenberg implemented was a twofold one. He has subtly moved Jamon Gordan over to the point guard position, essentially switching positions with sophomore Zabian Dowdell. The other part of that change is that Greenberg has mostly abandoned his previous two-guard front, in lieu of more of a one-guard front look. There was evidence Wednesday that Greenberg now wants to use a 1-4 look on offense, or some double post sets to initiate his offense. Those are the changes that might be less noticeable to the casual observer, but important changes nonetheless.

King has the size to help the team down the stretch as he acclimates himself to ACC basketball and gets into the type of conditioning that will be necessary. He is in excellent shape from a football season that just concluded, but basketball and football require different types of conditioning. He certainly seemed to be sucking air after about three minutes during his first appearance on the court, a fact that should change fairly quickly as he adjusts to his return to the basketball court. King has not played in approximately three years, but averaged 25 points and 14 rebounds as a senior at Pulaski County High School in Dublin, VA. King also registered over 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds during his high school career, so he comes with some pedigree.

What Greenberg wants foremost out of King is someone who can help defend the stronger post players that Tech will see down the stretch in ACC play, while giving five additional fouls inside. Greenberg also is counting on King to help the Hokies on the boards and bring some toughness to the team with his physical demeanor. King showed that banging inside is not something that he is reticent about, and he showed that he is not bashful about putting shots up either. It didn’t take him long to put up his first trey attempt, and he was able to get off 3 shot attempts in his 5 minutes of action against Bethune-Cookman. Compare that to the zero shot attempts in 7 first half minutes by junior Allen Calloway, and the 2 shot attempts of Chris Tucker, taken in 14 minutes of play.

At this point, King doesn’t know the offense well, a fact that was illuminated by the constant motioning of other Tech players to get him to the proper position on the floor during his time on the court. The timing of the offense-and the cuts and spacing that are integral-was affected while King was on the court. More importantly, while King battled physically inside defensively, his overall team defense understanding isn’t where it will need to be against better opponents, a fact that was apparent when contrasted to walk-on Chris Tucker’s fine job defensively. King simply hasn’t had the time to learn the nuances of team defense yet, something that will be a very important future component of his minutes on the court. As it now stands, Tucker appears to be a better option inside from a team defensive standpoint than King, but with only two practices and one game under his belt, King's learning curve should be significantly higher over the next couple of weeks.

Aside from the addition of King and the added responsibilities entrusted to Gordon, the other change that was apparent Wednesday was the minutes of Allen Calloway and freshman Robert Krabbendam. Calloway played 7 rather undistinguishable minutes in the first half, then did not get off the bench at all in the second half, when Tucker garnered all 14 of his minutes. Tucker had only 46 minutes of playing time for the entire season in 6 appearances prior to the Bethune-Cookman game. King’s 5 minutes of play in his debut seemed to come at the expense of Krabbendam, who did not appear at all in the game, the first time he has not played in a game this season. Watching to see if Tucker uses his performance to catapult himself into the playing rotation, while monitoring the progress of King, should be interesting developments for the Hokies in the second half of the season, especially where Calloway and Krabbendam are concerned.