Hokies Can't Hang with Syracuse on the Road

Chris Hirons

January 24, 2021

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Once Quincy Guerrier faked to drive to the hoop and elected to pass to a wide open Alan Griffin at the top of the key, who nailed a long three pointer to extend Syracuse’s lead to seven with 17 minutes left, the game felt all but over.

Instead of embracing the uphill challenge the Orange presented, No. 16 Virginia Tech, for seemingly the first time all year, was unable to overcome the obstacles of a season-worst shooting performance. Griffin’s trey struck Syracuse with momentum as the Orange embarked on a 35-17 run to close out Saturday afternoon’s game.

Poor shooting, bad passes and a subpar attack of SU’s 2-3 zone gave fans remsicse to Virginia Tech’s narrow win over a substantially less talented VMI squad. Tech has survived most of its poor shooting efforts this season with strong play in transition and on the defensive side of the floor. It was only a matter of time until VT waved the white flag and surrendered breakdowns on defense and on the boards.

And that time came in the fanless Dome where Syracuse (9-4, 3-3 ACC) dominated Virginia Tech (11-3, 5-2 ACC) in nearly every category on the statsheet in a 78-60 blowout.

“You have to put the [ball] in the basket, there's no great secrets,” Tech head coach Mike Young said. “I don't care what kind of defense you're playing against. We didn't do enough of that today, nor did we guard at the level that we’re accustomed to guarding at.”

Close games against far inferior teams have plagued the Hokies from taking that next step forward as a tier one team in the ACC. They narrowly pulled out a four-point win against Wake Forest a week ago — a theme much too common for the Hokies this season.

On Saturday, Virginia Tech jumped out to a quick lead, only to watch it slip away, and eventually fall too far out of Tech’s grasp to recover. After opening up the game with a six-point lead minutes into the game, and then a five-point lead later in the first half, the Hokies allowed both of their slim leads to disappear within minutes thanks to seperate 11-0 and 15-5 runs.

Poor shooting from VT’s best players nagged Mike Young’s squad all afternoon. Jalen Cone, who has become the spark plug off the bench, scored just three points on eight shots from behind the arc. And against Wake Forest, Cone went scoreless after taking four shots.

“I mean, I wouldn’t call it a funk at all,” forward Justyn Mutts said of Cone’s recent struggles. “Throughout the whole game I was telling him to keep shooting. That’s his game. He can get hot. And when he does, it’s scary for whoever we’re playing against.”

The Hokies’ most consistent scorer, Keve Aluma, has just a combined seven points in Tech’s last two games. Against SU, Aluma lagged behind once again — only one of his 10 shots found the bottom of the net.

“We do need them to play well, you need for your better players to play well,” Young said after the loss. “Keve looks hesitant and Jalen had great shots and he didn't make them, but I would take the same shots from him on Wednesday [against Notre Dame] that I had tonight and would feel very, very good about that.”

Collectively, Virginia Tech shot 20-of-61, a season low 32.8%, and couldn’t find any answers to break Jim Boehiem’s 2-3 zone. The lone bright spot offensively, though, was Nahiem Allyene, whose 20 points on five-of-10 three pointers found the bottom of the net.

In terms of post play, it was about as one sided as it could get. Syracuse dominated Tech on both ends of the post, racking up eight blocks (the Hokies didn’t block any) and nearly doubled VT’s (24) scoring in the paint with 46 points.

Griffin became a one man wrecking ball. The Syracuse forward blocked seven shots and came down with 10 boards enroute to SU’s victory.

Boehiem’s gotten into it with Griffin for “a lack of effort” in a few games this season. The SU head coach was visibly frustrated with him after a zero point effort in a close loss to Northeastern back in early December. And, aside from a 28 point outburst against Pitt last week, Griffin hadn’t scored more than 20 points in five of his last six games.

Griffin still only scored 15 points for the Orange. (Guerrier’s 20 led the way for all SU scorers). Nonetheless, Griffin had a monumental effect on Saturday afternoon’s outcome in a variety of ways on both ends of the floor.

Pregame, a Virginia Tech assistant told his players that the Orange were “one of the worst defensive rebounding teams in the league”. Syracuse, to Virginia Tech’s surprise, held its own on the glass. The Orange grabbed 27 defensive rebounds, and led the rebounding totals by the time the final horn sounded, 37-35.

Joe Girard, Marek Dolezaj, Griffin and Guerrier all recorded five or more rebounds, while only Tyrece Radford and Mutts accomplished the same feat for the Hokies.

All season, Syracuse has watched itself squander leads late. Poor execution on both sides of the floor as time dwindles down has led to the Orange’s plummet to the bottom half of the ACC standings.

In the end, the Orange walked away ecstatic after its first ranked win of the season.

Virginia Tech, meanwhile, held out hope that Syracuse would find itself, once again, choking away another win. That hope never turned into reality and Hokies fans — the ones who were able to watch the game on TV or find an illegal stream — sat on the couch in disbelief and despair.