After back-to-back ACC victories in the past week at home (and who among you thought you would really be saying that in mid-January?), Virginia Tech fans can be excused if they find themselves in that mode where realism and hope play a tantalizing game of tug-of-war.

On the one hand, there is the excitement of seeing the Cassell come alive, at least partially, while seeing a Virginia Tech basketball team residing at .500 for the season in conference play. It’s watching a team start to play with more and more confidence in their first year in a conference that most desperately wanted to be in for quite some time.

On the other hand, it was Clemson and North Carolina State that were the victims, both games being won by the Hokies in the final 10 seconds, while withstanding a last shot attempt by both visitors. The Tigers are a notoriously poor road team in the conference, and the Wolfpack have performed below expectations this season, having now lost 5 of their past 6 games. The Hokies caught them at a most opportune time.

The Hokies won the State game with a huge late game boost from sophomore Coleman Collins, who scored the winning basket with 12.9 seconds and had 10 of the last 12 points scored for Tech, and by getting a huge defensive play on the last possession of the game by Jamon Gordon, the ACC’s leader in steals. Gordon blocked a runner in the paint by last year’s ACC Player-of-the-Year, Julius Hodge, which secured the victory for Tech.

In this particular game, as was the case in the Clemson victory last Saturday, many factors were involved in the Hokies prevailing but it says here that one of the most important was this: The Tech backcourt was simply better in both games than their Wolfpack and Tiger counterparts. Aside from Gordon’s late game defensive heroics, fellow sophomore Zabian Dowdell matched Collins’ game high of 20 points, doing so by nailing four threes and racking up 4 assists in the process. Starting guards Cameron Bennerman and Engin Atsur had 4 and 6 points, respectively for the ‘Pack, and Bennerman had 4 turnovers in the process.

However, it only took four games into Tech’s inaugural season of ACC play for one very important distinction to be drawn that separates this conference from the Hokies’ previous conference, the Big East. The ACC teams are all about winning, and they treat each conference game as a war, doing everything they can to win games. Conference tussles are what has shaped the conference’s personality. After four years in the Big East conference, where Virginia Tech was always treated as an afterthought by both the conference office and their conference opponents, we witnessed something in game four of this very early ACC life that was almost entirely missing from the entire duration of Big East ball: an opponent that pays you respect on the court, as North Carolina State demonstrated in the second half of the game when they went to a junk defense to stop the Hokies’ hot hand at the time, Zabian Dowdell.

That was surely something we didn’t see in our previous home where our previous conference brethren seemed to think it was beneath them to ever really prepare for Virginia Tech. Their collective approach to a game with Virginia Tech seemed to be ‘so what, no big deal.’ You never got the feeling that they ever really game-planned for Tech, or used any strategy that would help dictate the flow or tenor of the game. It was almost as if doing so was an admission of defeat. It might be construed as a sign of weakness. No, we don’t need to press, use any junk defenses to slow down a particular player or even really study very much on the tendencies of Virginia Tech. Let’s just keep it on the down low. Just find us a departure time from the airport and somehow get us to that god forsaken end-of-the-world place, i.e.-Blacksburg, so we can get this little problem out of the way, and then we can concentrate on UConn or Syracuse. Now we can study film of Seton Hall, Villanova, Pittsburgh and Providence and do what we can to prepare for those games.

But in this North Carolina State game, we didn’t at all see that arrogance that the Big East conference seemed to always display toward Virginia Tech. The Hokies had won but a single conference game in the ACC, and here we have NC State head coach Herb Sendek deciding to go to a diamond-and-one defense to slow down Dowdell. And furthermore, it was a very sound and savvy decision to do so. Sendek was using every strategy at his disposal to win a conference game. In fact, at the time Sendek decided to go junk, the game was tied at 56 with about 10 minutes to play. The ‘Pack promptly scored the next 11 points of the game to go up 67-56, with the Hokies scrambling to find a way to attack a defense that surely they haven’t seen much of, nor probably prepared for often.

Sendek was able to reverse the flow and momentum of the game by using a strategy that none of the Big East teams would ever be caught doing, and that is using a junk defense to slow down a Virginia Tech player. It didn’t happen in Tech’s swan song in the conference last year when the conference’s leading scorer, Bryant Matthews, just happened to wear the orange and maroon of the Hokies. No, that would have been admitting that perhaps Virginia Tech was worthy enough to demand your attention and preparation in a contest.

In game four of our brief existence in a new conference we witnessed a head coach of a conference team use his very best strategy to try and help his team win a basketball game. Actually, we witnessed two head coaches doing everything that they could to give their team the assist and boost that was needed in that particular game to prevail. It didn’t work out for North Carolina State. But, in showing Virginia Tech that respect, and that things are a whole lot different in this conference, we can feel partially embraced by the conference, something that just never seemed to transpire in the Big East.

Thank you, Herb Sendek, and don’t you just love ACC Basketball? It’s like, yea baby!.......

Recruiting Notes

With one available scholarship at his disposal, head coach Seth Greenberg and staff are combing the country looking for players to add to fall signees Hyman Taylor and Terrance Vinson. Taylor is a 6-9 post player out of Fort Lauderdale Fl., while Vinson is a 6-8 forward from Valdosta Ga. The foremost name among Tech targets continues to be 6-7 forward Uche Echefu, who plays on a strong Montrose Christian team in Maryland. Echefu has narrowed his list of schools to five, and the Hokies remain part of that final list, along with Kentucky, Duke, Michigan and Florida State. At this time, it would appear that the Hokies path to securing Echefu is stiff with resistance, but pulling this one off would be quite a coup for Greenberg and be an outstanding finish to the recruiting season.

The Hokies are also thought to be involved with other post player/front court prospects, such as 6-7 power forward Colin McIntosh from Northfield MA, who includes the Hokies on his list along with West Virginia, Providence and Rhode Island. Carlos Monroe, a 6-7 forward who originally hails from Philadelphia, but who now resides in Cape Coral FL, is another frontcourt prospect being eyed by the Hokies. Monroe must work on his academics and is looking at East Carolina, in addition to Tech. Expect his list of suitors to significantly increase should he get his academics in order.

The Hokies continue to be involved with 6-8 forward Eric Whitehurst of Virginia, who is also considering St Bonaventure, VCU and Old Dominion. Kent Tribbett, a 6-8 post player from Chester PA, has been a name that the Hokies have been following since last spring and they continue to be in the hunt, along with Villanova, Rutgers, Penn State and Navy.

The frontcourt is not the sole area that the Hokies are pursuing, as some wing and guard names are thought to getting some attention as well. Jesse Sapp, a 6-3 guard from National Christian Academy in Maryland (Deron Washington’s former school) is considering the Hokies, along with St. John’s and Georgetown. The Hokies are also looking at 6-2 shooter Billy Humphrey, who includes Clemson, UNC-Charlotte, College of Charleston, UAB and Arkansas on his list.

Other backcourt and wing names getting some attention from the Tech coaches include Bilal Benn, a 6-5 wing from Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia. Benn likes Penn State, Siena, LaSalle, Villanova and Rhode Island as well. Recent names that are thought to be potential targets of the Hokies are 6-3 wing guard Cord Robbins from Leeds AL, and 6-0 point guard Chris Lowe of Mt. Vernon NY.

Finally, the Hokies remain involved with a selected small group of junior college prospects and given the reported nature of most recruiting analysts that both Vinson and Taylor will be long range inside solutions, finding a junior college post player might give you more bang for your buck. The possibility seems to exist in the junior college ranks to find a player more capable of stepping in and adding immediate help along the front court, as opposed to the slim pickings that appear to be left in the high school ranks. That might be the direction that Greenberg will look to the hardest, even with the field of candidates narrowed there as well, due to academic issues.