Tuesday night's loss to Clemson was a vivid and clear example of how tricky and fragile this team is with its personnel. Seth Greenberg is using smoke and mirrors to cover up the deficiencies on his team, and in doing so is only amplifying how direly in need of frontcourt firepower this program is. That factor was by far the overriding one in the Clemson loss.

"The theory of strategy scarcely goes beyond the first principles of common sense."

That quote was attributed to Helmuth Graf Von Moltke and perfectly exemplifies the problems and hurdles that this team faces in ACC play. A team that was so good at turning their opponents over earlier in the season lost the turnover battle yet again last night. The Hokies had 14 turnovers to the 13 posted by Clemson. This marked the fifth time in the last six games that the Hokies have been on the wrong side of the turnover battle.

Virginia Tech started out conference play by winning the turnover margin in their first six conference games, yet have seen that advantage dissipate almost entirely over the second half of conference play. For the season, in conference games, the Hokies have 217 turnovers now and have forced their opponents into 237, which averages out to a +1.34 difference, hardly as good as where this team stood earlier, when the turnover margin was almost a full 9 turnovers per game in favor of the Hokies.

As we repeat ad nauseam, the Hokies have to force turnovers to balance the weak rebounding of the team. The rebounding problems continue, as witnessed by Clemson winning that battle on the boards by nine Tuesday night.

If the Hokies are forced to garner the majority of their points in the half court setting, then most would agree that isn’t this team’s strong suit. The team has to get out and get some easy baskets in transition, something we saw in abundance earlier in the season. The team used its defensive quickness and athleticism, along with a healthy dose of their half court trap, to force mistakes and get some open court looks. That half court trapping pressure, along with the team using its quickness and athleticism to harass ballhandlers and overplay passing lanes, has been largely missing recently.

Why is that? And most importantly, what can be done to reverse this second half trend and get this team some easy opportunities and take their opponents out of what they want to do more often?

That answer isn’t an easy one, and the Clemson game showed just how fragile a lineup composition Greenberg has, and how easily the tempo of the game is far too dependant on his starting five logging big minutes.

Greenberg cannot afford for his sole, reliable big man to sit on the bench next to him for 12 minutes of the first half with foul trouble, as was the case with sophomore Coleman Collins. Greenberg cannot afford for one of his few playmakers, and arguably his best defensive player, to also sit out the last 7 minutes of the first half with the same foul trouble, as was the case with sophomore guard Jamon Gordon.

The delicate balance of the Hokies is constructed with the idea of having the starting five play the large majority of minutes. The game with Clemson was going reasonably well until Collins, and then subsequently Gordon, went to the bench. The Hokies scored just nine points during a thirteen minute, seven-second stretch that went through the conclusion of the first half and into the first three minutes of the second half. Coincidentally, Collins was on the bench for almost this entire time and Gordon for a healthy portion of it.

With Collins on the bench, Tech has no suitable replacement that can keep opposing defenses honest. Instead, we see teams jumping off the high screen to double Zabian Dowdell and Carlos Dixon when they curl for shot opportunities. These defenses would rather leave the screener completely unattended, rather than allow Dowdell or Dixon to have the ball in their hands. There is no low-post scoring option, so opponents defend the perimeter and completely eschew dropping down to help in the post.

Defensively though, this is where Greenberg and this team face the biggest challenge. It is on defense where we see possibly an even greater need for more big bodies that can defend post players and power forwards. Whether it is Sean May, Shelden Williams, Eric Williams, or in this case Sharrod Ford, the lack of legitimate, available large bodies inside to defend is greatly handicapping this team right now. We see James Mays of Clemson, who comes off the bench, back down Deron Washington with two dribbles to shoot a point-blank jump hook over him, helped by the fact that he is two inches taller and 40 pounds heavier.

Jeff King is a battler and hustler and brings the requisite strength to the table needed. He has given the team some good minutes inside and has been helpful. But King is only 6-5 and is forced to guard opponents who usually play the center position, easily giving up 4-5 inches. Greenberg can rarely even afford the luxury of playing King at the forward position and is instead forced to watch him try and defend the center position at 6-5.

Tuesday night, after the first half foul trouble, we saw a lineup for Tech that featured the 6-5 King at center, while wing player Carlos Dixon manned the power forward position. That is far from the ideal lineup that you want to be playing with in such a crucial game, but that’s the hand this team has to play with.

Because of this lack of size inside, Greenberg has to make accommodations that affect the rate at which the team forces turnovers. With a team that isn’t capable of defending opposing players in the post one-on-one, Tech is forced to double-team down in the post. This strategy is designed to both help keep your one legitimate post player out of foul trouble, and keep opposing post players from dominating the game. In doubling down with their guards, the Hokies aren't extending their defense as far, nor applying as much ball pressure as we saw earlier in the season. Thus we see a game like last night in which Clemson gets scores of open looks from behind the arc, not because Tech wasn’t defending the three, but rather because they left someone open every time while sending a defensive player down to double Sharrod Ford when he received the ball.

This sends the team into a reaction mode on almost every possession and Greenberg just doesn’t have enough weapons quite yet to be able to aggressively defend opponents or try and dictate the game defensively.

Because of that, a team that so badly needs to get out in transition and get some easy scoring opportunities is instead forced to back off the reins so that players are in a position to quickly get down into the post to help defensively.

This team’s bread-and-butter from earlier in the season, when we witnessed the Hokies constantly harassing teams into turnovers while igniting the running game, has been muffled almost to a whimper recently. Greenberg essentially has to pick his poison defensively, and his hands are tied and his options greatly limited while he grapples to find a scenario for defensive success that can still be the ingredient that propels this team into postseason play.

The Hokies have now fallen into a three-way tie for fifth place in the conference with Maryland and Miami. Tech holds a tiebreaker advantage over the Hurricanes, and the Terrapins visit Blacksburg on Saturday in both teams’ final conference game. North Carolina State is also a factor as well, with the Wolfpack only a half-game behind the trio.

In fact, we could see a four-way tie for fourth place in the conference, which would send the conference deep into its tiebreaker format to sort through the mess in time for the conference tournament. The first five finishers in regular-season conference play get first round byes in the newly formatted conference tournament, which opens play on Thursday, March 10.

While the Terrapins and Hokies will break their own personal tie in the standings this Saturday, the other teams will have their own opportunity to garner one of the five first-round byes. Georgia Tech has the temporary advantage over the others in that they are the only remaining team outside of the Big Three of Duke, Wake and Carolina that has fewer than eight losses. The others have at least eight. Georgia Tech has remaining games with Wake on the road and Clemson at home. Miami finishes Thursday night on the road against Duke, while the Wolfpack will need to sweep their final two games to get to 8-8 in the conference. The ‘Pack is in Charlottesville on Wednesday night, before finishing at home Saturday with Wake Forest.