Collegiate Times

The Virginia Tech men’s basketball team earned its third straight victory and improved its overall record to 6-1 with a 74-62 victory over the Georgia Bulldogs Sunday afternoon.

“Better. We got better,” said head coach Seth Greenberg of the 74-62 win. “The things we wanted to try to accomplish in this game, I thought we were fairly efficient.

“We wanted to rebound the basketball,” he said. “I thought we were pretty consistent doing that. ... I thought we were pretty efficient offensively. ... So, I thought that there were a lot of good things that happened today in terms of our team.”

In their first home game since mid-November, it didn’t take too long for the Hokies to get comfortable in their home arena.

While Tech began the contest on a 9-4 run, Georgia kept pace early, pressuring the Hokies on the defensive end and fighting back, knotting the score multiple times during the beginning of the half.

Tech never gave Georgia the lead, though.

After the Bulldogs tied the game at 18 with 7:59 remaining in the first half, the Hokies locked in and pulled away.

Over the next four minutes, Tech followed with a 10-0 run, earning its first comfortable lead of the game.

When Georgia came back to within six points just before the end of the half, a buzzer beating three-pointer by Tech junior point guard Malcolm Delaney gave the Hokies a nine-point lead at halftime, 36-27.

“We had this one marked on our schedule,” Delaney said. “Everybody knew that. That left a salty taste in our mouths when we lost to them last year. We were kind of waiting for them.”

In the second half, Delaney and the Hokies proved to be too much for the Bulldogs.

After a 12-point first half for the Atlantic Coast Conference’s leading scorer, Delaney began the second half with the Hokies’ first seven points, helping Tech extend its lead to 15 points with 14:30 remaining.

After that, the pressure never really let up on the Bulldogs.

Whenever Georgia seemed to find a solution to the Hokies’ defensive pressure, Tech locked its opponent down again.

In fact, the closest the Bulldogs came to Tech after the Hokies went up 15 was when a free throw by Bulldogs’ forward Trey Thompkins cut the Hokies’ lead to six with 7:56 remaining.

Again, the Hokies found an answer, though.

With 3:56 remaining in the game, a layup by Tech guard Dorenzo Hudson put the Hokies up 15 again and all but wrapped up a win for the home team.

“That’s how we wanted to play,” Hudson said. “We just wanted to beat them up the court, we wanted to press a lot ... so absolutely, staying to the game plan.”

The Hokies shut down the Bulldogs’ leading scorer, Thompkins, all game. Thompkins finished the contest shooting 0 for 6 from the field and scoring just five points.

“We stopped their defense and their low-post,” Delaney said. “Thompkins was our main key. We made other people hit shots — they hit some shots — but that’s what we wanted to do so I think our game plan worked.”

Delaney finished the game with 31 points on 10 for 19 shooting, adding five assists and five rebounds for the Hokies.

After struggling to find his shot in Tech’s first six games, Delaney put in some extra work prior to the game to improve his balance while shooting.

“I was off balance,” he said. “I felt it.”

When he spent time with Greenberg and watched a video of every shot he had taken this season, Delaney saw it, too.

“Sometimes your body drifts,” Delaney said. “I wasn’t used to it.”

Sophomore forward Victor Davila also had one of his most impressive efforts of the season for the Hokies, scoring 11 points and hauling in nine rebounds.

---

Continue Reading: 1 | 2 | Next »

---