Collegiate Times

Terrell Bell drives to the basket against the Spartans Tuesday night. Bell scored six points.

Beginning with a powerful dunk by junior forward Jeff Allen with 10:33 remaining, the Hokies jumped all over the Spartans with an 11-0 run that lasted nearly six minutes to put the game away.

“We just kept playing,” Allen said. “We knew what we could do.”

In the first half, the Hokies struggled to defend Spartans senior guard Mikko Koivisto, who scored 10 points in the first half and converted on four of six shots from the field.

In the second half, the Hokies’ junior guard Dorenzo Hudson put a stop to Koivisto’s reign.

“First half was slow,” junior forward Terrell Bell said. “Came out second half and pulled it out — that was the most important thing.

“Nothing changed over halftime. Basically, No. 4 (Koivisto) was knocking down threes. ... (Dorenzo) did a great job of guarding him in the second half and that helped a lot and we just stayed with everybody else and pulled it out.”

Thanks to Hudson’s defense, Koivisto didn’t score again after his impressive first half performance. In fact, after Koivisto scored his 10th point with 8:10 remaining in the first half, he didn’t even shoot again.

“I thought we defended really well,” Greenberg said. “After Koivisto got his 10th point, I thought we defended really well. Say what you want — I mean, we defended well. They didn’t get very many open looks.”

While Tech was outshot 40.7 percent to 32.4 percent in the first half, Tech outshot the Spartans in the second half 44.4 percent to 29.2 percent.

Even though the score remained close throughout much of the game, Greenberg said one shouldn’t take much from that.

“College basketball — this time of the year,” Greenberg said. “Teams are developing an identity ... to try to come to a conclusion on a team in November — you’re foolish.

Despite his injury and slow start, Delaney finished the game with 17 points, five assists and three rebounds.

Allen finished with his first double-double of the season, scoring 14 points and adding 10 rebounds.

With the win, the Hokies improved their overall record to 2-0 with the win.

Tech next plays on Monday at 7 p.m. when it hits the road to face the Campbell University Camels in Buies Creek, N.C.

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