When looking at the overall prospects for the Virginia Tech 2005-06 basketball season, as I complete our look ahead by scrutinizing the returnees in the backcourt for next season, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one fact that looms large over the program. It is a fact that many people are aware of, but nevertheless it still causes concern, even coming off the fine season that the program was able to generate in year one of the ACC.

Virginia Tech’s starting lineup consisted of only one player that weighed as much as 225 pounds. Coleman Collins held that distinction. Alongside him in the front court was a 190-pound freshman forward (Deron Washington) and a 205-pound fifth-year senior (Carlos Dixon) who logged more time in the backcourt during his career than he did in the front court. In fact, Virginia Tech really started three guards, a power forward and a rail-thin, catalytically charged athletic superball whose best position is still unknown.

Virginia Tech was undoubtedly the least physically imposing team in the ACC last season, and it will remain a significant area of concern in the near future. Seth Greenberg will have to have his mojo working to maneuver around that size and strength disadvantage, and it will continue to limit his options on the style of play he would ideally like to implement.

Work will be done in the weight room. Players will come back bigger, stronger, and with increased confidence due to size and body changes. However, so will the rest of the returning ACC players, who we know will be diligently working during the offseason as well. While it will be difficult to significantly narrow that size and strength gap, the first real achievable goal might instead be to become stronger and bigger so that the incoming ACC players do not hold an advantage over the Tech returning players.

Sophomores Jamon Gordon and Zabian Dowdell return next season, and the expectations for both will be increased. But the Hokies clearly need another player to step forward and help replace some of the traits that depart with the graduation of Carlos Dixon.

Having 6-5 sophomore Markus Sailes return from a medical redshirt season to repeat his junior season should be a boost to the overall team defense and ball handling. Sailes was missed this year on the court, where his underrated ability to guard players at various sizes and positions gave Greenberg a versatile defensive team in 2003-04. Sailes has not been a big scorer in the past and probably never will be. He struggles with his shooting stroke. But he can play and defend three positions, and his steady ball handling, decision-making, unselfishness and grasp of the offense are tangibles that the coaching staff loves.

Those intangibles and ability to play multiple roles and positions will take on a greater significance now that freshman point guard Marquie Cooke has departed the program. Head coach Seth Greenberg released a statement this past week that acknowledged Cooke is no longer a member of the team, bringing to a close a chapter that had such promise, but instead yielded very little of substance. Cooke never seemed comfortable at all in his tenure here, and his play on the court was less than expected. He shot 31% from the floor, only 19% from behind the arc, and seemed to be in a constant struggle to accept his role, once he saw that it would be difficult to beat out Jamon Gordon and Zabian Dowdell. Cooke's moodiness was there for most to see and his off court issues affected his only season in the maroon and orange. Cooke’s career in a Hokie uniform ends abruptly after just one season, leaving the Hokies without the services of one of their most acclaimed recruits since Dell Curry.

Shawn Harris will return for his final season in a Hokie uniform and will probably fulfill the same role he has through his first three seasons. Harris can provide an offensive lift for the team off the bench, making him one of the few, and reliable, off-the-bench offensive weapons that Greenberg has had the past two seasons. He has one of the better deep shots on the team and Harris works hard defensively, although his lack of quickness and foot speed will occasionally give him matchup problems. Harris always provides the team with a high-energy effort on the floor and appears to have grasped his role as a player out of the spotlight, but nevertheless who is dependable.

The wild card for next year in the backcourt and along the wing is current freshman Wynton Witherspoon, who entered Tech with some national notoriety, just like Cooke, and who also had some fine moments during his initial season, while also struggling at times to find his niche within the program.

Witherspoon did show that he might be someone that can assist offensively next year, especially with increased strength. He has a court savvy that suggests he is a player that understands the game better than most, but he looked like a player that was unwilling to put the ball on the floor much this past season, perhaps acknowledging a lack of strength with the ball. His perimeter stroke is far from fluid or mechanically strong, but he showed flashes of being a streaky shooter who can get on a roll during the course of a game and greatly benefit his team, as we saw in the NIT victory over Temple late in the year. With his 6-6 size, Witherspoon seems the most likely to replace the assets that Dixon possessed, but he will need to get stronger and pay more attention at the defensive end, where his concentration lagged on more than one occasion. Witherspoon has an opportunity in front of him to earn time next year, even more so with Cooke leaving, since some of Cooke’s expected time next year would have come at the expense of the small forward position, where Witherspoon just happens to play some minutes.

Finally, that brings us to the two returning starters in the backcourt from the past two seasons, Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon, both of whom will need to continue to elevate their game in the off season for the program to move forward.

Dowdell is clearly the "money man" for this basketball team. He has played the point position mostly during his first two seasons, but he can easily play either backcourt position. He is a reliable ball handler, and his passing seemed to improve from his freshman season. His confidence and ability to make shots during the late stages of the game, or at very opportune moments, has been evident throughout his first two seasons. Despite a late season slide where his stroke betrayed him, Dowdell still had a very solid and consistent sophomore campaign. It was a season in which Dowdell had improved over his freshman season, and he can be expected to continue that development.

Dowdell is an ice-cold sniper during the latter stages of a hotly-contested game, and his supreme confidence in his ability to make difficult shots late in the game has been a valuable component in more than a few of the Hokies’ close victories. One area where Dowdell has improved is his on-the-ball defense. There are still times when he loses focus, but those occasions were less frequent than his initial season in Blacksburg. The return of Sailes might help replace the point guard minutes that Cooke was expected to see next year, leaving Dowdell to play more off the ball, which suits his growing stature and expanded responsibilities as a premier pointmaker from his backcourt position.

Gordon is the ying to Dowdell’s yang in the Hokie backcourt. They complement each other greatly on the floor. Both can swing between the point and two-guard positions. Both are similarly sized and can defend either guard position, depending how Greenberg wants to match up. Both are fine ball handlers who make sound decisions with the basketball. Gordon proved to be one of the elite defenders in the Atlantic Coast Conference, while also showing that he is one of the fine passers in the league as well. Gordon's assist/turnover ratio of 1.58 to 1 (120 assists, 76 TOs) was a team best, by far.

Gordon's challenge will be to improve an outside shot that comes and goes on him. Gordon is far from being a reliable, pure shooter and probably won’t get to the level of Dowdell. But hearty off-season work can shape him into an adequate shooter and more deadly offensive weapon, which will help a Hokie team that might be thirsty next year for scoring options. The rest of his game is already among the best backcourt games in the conference. Gordon is the unquestioned leader on this team and that leadership will be even more critical next season. He is arguably one of the better interior passers off penetration that has come through Blacksburg in quite some time, along with being a greatly unselfish player who makes those around him better, always the mark of a fine player.

In conclusion, Seth Greenberg will have another challenge ahead of him next season, one that might be a bit more difficult than an initial glance at a team returning four starters would suggest. Expect him to again have to carefully peruse his situation and team composition, and make subtle changes that many casual fans might not notice.

With the departure of Dixon we know that scoring will be in shorter supply. The departure of Cooke might have Greenberg taking a second look at playing three guards more than he did this season, with depth in the backcourt less than he was expecting. How Greenberg addresses those two issues will be one of the foremost priorities in the off season. Having additional size and depth inside will be a luxury he isn’t used to, even if that luxury is inexperienced and scoring-challenged. Perhaps we will see Greenberg adapt a style in which he makes up for the loss of scoring by using the new frontcourt talent to become a significantly better rebounding team, thus creating additional scoring opportunities. Perhaps he adapts a style of play that changes the nature of the game defensively with his added size, thus getting more transition scoring opportunities. Perhaps he uses the return of Sailes to utilize more full and half court traps to dictate the pace of the game and become an even sturdier defensive team. The unexpected loss of Cooke will also mean that Greenberg will have one less backcourt option, and it is likely that won’t be filled until the next recruiting class.

One thing we do know is that it won’t be as simple as just plugging someone into Dixon’s position and expecting that player to give you exactly what Dixon gave you every night. No, Greenberg is too smart and too cagey to fall for that trap. Instead, we might expect that he will carefully learn every nuance of his team, he will know every team weakness that his next edition has, then find a playing style, tempo and the personnel to best implement that style.