Hokies Avenge Tuesday's Loss; Destroy Wake Forest, 84-46

Chris Hirons

February 28, 2021

BLACKSBURG, Va. — As soon as the referee handed to Ian Dubose at the free throw line, the Wake Forest guard didn’t waste any time. He immediately squatted and went up for the free throw.

The ball smacked the back iron and was quickly corralled by Justyn Mutts, who threw the ball from the baseline to his teammate, Joe Bamisile, who turned on the jets and hit him in stride around half court.

At any other point in the period and with the defender closely trailing him, Bamisile likely would have stopped and allowed the offense to set itself up to run a play. But with a mere two seconds left in the first half, the Hokies’ guard leapt towards the basket with the ball in his right hand, and dunked the ball with just over a second left in the half.

The slam ended the first half with a bang for No. 16 Virginia Tech. The game was already out hand for Wake Forest, who had trailed 49-22 heading into halftime.

Even if it was against an ice cold Wake Forest squad, Virginia Tech needed a tune up game. The Hokies were coming off a deflating loss to Georgia Tech after taking a 17-day pause for a positive covid test. A team that had been so careful quarantining its team all season, Virginia Tech picked up a positive test as soon as the ACC Tournament was on the horizon.

“I can’t say that in my private moments on the way home [on Tuesday] I thought that I could completely follow through on it,” Hokies head coach Mike Young said after Saturday’s win.

The tune up game, though, turned into a 84-46 rout of the Demon Deacons. Virginia Tech (15-5, 9-4 ACC) entered as the 10.5-point favorite over Wake Forest (6-13, 3-13 ACC), which wasn’t much of a surprise since WF had dropped four straight games and had only scored 39 points in a loss to Clemson earlier in the week.

Wake Forest got off to a rocky start early on, shooting only 32% in the first half and fell into a 19-6 hole early on when Virginia Tech forward Keve Aluma torched the Deacons for 10 points in the first eight minutes of the first half.

Tech, meanwhile, couldn’t miss the basket. In the first half, VT shot an astonishing 67.9% and 54.5% from beyond the arc. The Hokies relied on Aluma, who had 14 in the first half, and Tyrece Radford’s ability to penetrate into the paint. Radford added 12 points on four-for-six shooting in the first half.

“I think across the board, we had really good ball movement, player movement,” Young said. “Of course [Keve] Aluma making five threes opens up a number of things.”

Virginia Tech missed Radford’s ability to slash during his four-game absence and were forced to take more threes with its guards. The Hokies tried to use Nahiem Alleyne, who finished with 13 points on Saturday, to replace Radford’s production in the lineup.

“[Radford] practiced eight-or-nine times during his suspension,” Young said. “He worked out in the weight room with our weight specialist. He was typical Tyrece throughout the whole process.”

Neither he nor fellow guard Hunter Cattoor could get the job done in Radford’s place, which forced Virginia Tech to use the trey more than it should have. And against Pitt, a game that resulted in an 83-72 loss, Radford’s absence became the team’s achilles heel.

As Tech got out to its early start, Wake Forest didn’t make any adjustments to limit the offense, which allowed the Hokies to pull away by 20, 30 and eventually 40 points by the end of the evening. The Hokies played more in the paint in the first half, scoring 63.3% of their points in the paint. While in the second half, VT used the already sizable margin to work on its deep ball, accounting for seven of its 12 made baskets.

The Deacons didn’t have an answer for Aluma (23 points on nine-of-11 shooting), Radford (15 points) or Alleyne, who made three of his six three pointers. Wake Forest tried doubling Aluma in the post, but it only allowed for space along the three-point line to open up.

The Hokies’ defense, though, stifled the Wake Forest offense. While it only allowed 22 points and forced the offense into 11 turnovers in the first half, the Hokies held the Demon Deacons into two separate, five-minute scoreless runs in the next period and forced WF into shooting a lowly 23.3% in the same half.

“We really needed to have that game defensively where we were dynamic,” Young said. “Everything was contested, they felt our team and we talk about that a lot. They’ve got to feel us and Wake Forest certainly felt us today and I felt really good about it.”

Both Cordell Pemsl and John Ojiako saw significant minutes late in the contest for the first time all year. Young said that neither have had an issue with their respective injuries as of late, and he hopes that Jalen Cone’s lower leg issue will heal by the time the ACC Tournament rolls around.

After only scoring 59 points in the loss to Georgia Tech, Wake Forest certainly felt the Hokies’ wrath on Saturday evening. And while the ship was starting to sink on Virginia Tech’s hopes to an ACC title on Tuesday, it was slightly righted with the win Saturday.