Collegiate Times

The Virginia Tech men’s basketball team got a much-needed victory over Penn State Sunday by using just about every weapon available.

The 79-69 win ends a three-game skid and improves Tech’s record to 5-4.

Even though Tech started with even less depth than usual because of Dorenzo Hudson's leg injury, the Hokies' strength actually came from the number of players who contributed.

With Hudson out, Erick Green made the start and Tech didn’t end up missing Hudon’s production. Green put up a season-high 15 points in one of the best performances of his Tech career.

“That was probably his best game as a Hokie,” said Seth Greenberg, head coach. “He was more assertive, he made some shots and he shot with confidence.”

In addition to Green’s increased production, the move to start Green spread out the Hokies offense considerably.

By the end of the game, the Hokies had five players with at least nine points, and the ball rotation on offense was much more fluid throughout the entire game.

“That’s the type of team that we need. That’s how we should be prepared to play and we should be able to beat anyone when we play like that,” said Jeff Allen, Tech forward. “When you have the defense worrying about more than one player at a time, that’s pretty good.”

With good rotation and seemingly all of the team pitching in, the Hokies offense put up a season-best 44 points in the first half, and did it off a staggering 62 percent shooting from the field.

After the break, Penn State came out strong, and in the first 3:45, went on an 8-0 run to cut the lead to three.

However, Green continued his impressive day by hitting a thee-pointer to end the Hokies scoring drought.

At the 13-minute mark, Green was forced to leave the game after committing his fourth foul. However, another Hokie — this time it was freshman Tyrone Garland — stepped up to keep the Hokies rolling.

“I’ve played with Tyrone [Garland] for a while now and I know he can step up. He’s a great player,” Green said. “I know he’s always a scoring person, so he’s looking forward to scoring. It was nothing new.”

In the nine minutes Green was forced to sit out, the Hokies actually increased the lead from eight to 13 — mostly thanks to the production of Garland and Victor Davila.

Green did come back in with four minutes to play, and the Hokies coasted until the buzzer sounded.

One of the keys on defense was stopping Penn State guard Taylor Battle, who put up 32 points on the Hokies when these two teams faced each other last year.

This time around, Green and the rest of the defense did a much better job on Battle. Battle finished with 26 points, but nine of those came in the final five minutes, when the game was all but decided.

“I was just trying to contain him — I picked up a couple of silly fouls and all — but that was really my goal. I think I did a pretty good job of that in the first half,” Green said.

The game was the Hokies' last at home until they host USC-Upstate on Dec. 30. Next up for Tech will be Mississippi State in the Battle at Atlantis in the Bahamas on Dec. 18.

“None of us are happy with where we are at right now. We’re all just disappointed and that’s the reality. The reality is that there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve lost a couple of games that, quite honestly, we were in position to win,” Greenberg said. “I’m not sure how much better we got [since the last game], but we had more guys contributing today and they made shots.”