A Look Ahead

(This article appeared on www.hokiehaven.com.)

Despite dropping their fourth straight contest in Tallahassee Wednesday, Seth Greenberg's Virginia Tech Hokies bounced back Sunday night with a 67-64 win over Maryland, achieving a victory that could be even more valuable to the team's success than earlier defeats of Duke and North Carolina.

This week, a Hokie team that remains unbeaten at Cassell Coliseum takes their #23 ranking on the road for contests at Miami (Tuesday, 9 p.m.) and at Georgia Tech (Sunday, 3:30 p.m.). How will the Hokies fare, and what will they be up against? Let's find out.

Miami (9-11, 2-4 ACC)
Good wins: Georgia Tech (90-82), at Maryland (63-58)
Bad losses: at Buffalo, at Cleveland State, Binghamton, at Northwestern

You're not going to find many major college teams that have beaten two ACC teams the caliber of Georgia Tech and Maryland but also dropped contests to the above lineup of poor squads. The Hurricane attack features only 2 seniors getting more than 16 minutes per game and the inexperience has shown with erratic performances against poor competition.

Miami sophomore guard Jack McClinton leads the team in scoring (16.0 points per game), but senior Anthony Harris is the key to shutting down the 'Canes and getting the road victory. Harris only averages 9.7 points per game, but look at Miami's three biggest wins of the year, and you see a pattern; the 6-foot-2, 187-pound guard dropped in 21 against Georgia Tech, 15 at Maryland and 33 at Massachusetts, and his assist/turnover ratio in those games was a sparkling 3.25/1 compared to 1.26/1 on the entire season. The points are his three highest scoring performances of the year, and the rest of his team seems to thrive on his leadership when he gets going. Obviously, the plan for Greenberg's Gang isn't quite this simple, but the fact remains: when Anthony Harris scores 15 or more points this year, Miami is 3-0, when he doesn't, they're 6-11.

The item of biggest concern for Virginia Tech here is probably fatigue. Just 48 hours after winning an intense overtime battle that saw Collins, Dowdell and Gordon each log over 37 minutes, the Hokies take their longest ACC road trip of the year against a team with extra rest and no travel. Luckily, Cheick Diakite and A.D. Vassallo were each good for a bunch of minutes against the Terps, and the Hokie stars should have some gas in the tank. The key here is building a comfortable lead early by taking Harris out of the game. If Miami's best big game player underperforms, the rest of his teammates will follow suit.

Georgia Tech (13-5, 2-3 ACC)
Good Wins: at Memphis (92-85), Duke (74-63)
Bad Losses: at Miami (90-82)

There's a youth movement going on at Georgia Tech, with only one senior against six fresh and sophomores logging ten or more minutes a game. The Jackets are led by Memphis product Thaddeus Young, a versatile 6-foot-8 forward who has scored in double figures 15 times this year. Young is a threat from all over the court, boasting great shooting percentages in all fields, especially for a man of his size (51% FG, 72% FT, 41% 3P). Young will get his points, but he has shown a propensity for turnovers with the start of ACC play. Hassling him into giving the ball away a fair amount will be a key mission on defense.

Ra'Sean Dickey is the Yellow Jacket big body in the middle, weighing in at 6-foot-9, 255-pounds, he can be tough to move around, but the Tech junior hasn't topped seven rebounds in a game in his last six tries, and he too is careless with the ball, committing 2.7 turnovers per game against just 1.2 assists. Ball control, or lack thereof, seems to be a theme with this Georgia Tech squad; even its key distributor, Javaris Crittenton (5.7 assists per game), couples some nice passes with a lot of mistakes (3.8 turnovers per game). Occasionally, they have managed to overcome the sloppiness to get good results, beating Duke despite giving the ball away a whopping 28 times.

Virginia Tech is a more gathered, disciplined team than some of the teams Georgia Tech has beaten. Young, Dickey and the rest of Paul Hewitt's squad are very athletic, but if Virginia Tech can win the turnover battle handily, the extra eight to ten possessions gained by ball security should be enough to bring the Hokies home at 6-1 in the ACC.