Virginia Tech Can't Keep Up with UNC in ACC Quarterfinal

Chris Hirons

March 12, 2021

GREENSBORO, N.C. — No. 22 Virginia Tech couldn’t breathe as it came out of the halftime break against North Carolina. Though Tech led by three points and the energy remained high with Hokie faithful in attendance, Mike Young’s squad was playing its first game since Feb. 27.

While the Tar Heels missed shots of their own, not many of the loose balls fell into the hands of the Hokies, even as they gasped and pleaded for a rebound to fall their way.

When Tech needed a board the most, it never came. With six minutes left in the game and as VT trailed by five, RJ Davis missed a three-pointer off the left rim. No Hokie, though, was down low to grab the rebound and Day’Ron Sharpe grabbed the ball and put it through the hoop.

On the ensuing possession, after Wabissa Bede missed a three-pointer, Davis attempted to put the Hokies to bed with a dagger three. He missed again, and it should have given Tech another chance to get back in the game.

Except it didn’t. Keve Aluma was boxed out by Armando Bacot, who went up and scored his seventh point of the night and extended UNC’s lead to nine.

It knocked the wind out of the Hokies and they couldn’t recover. They were out of gas. It was Tech’s third game in 33 days and as hot as the team started offensively, the team faltered down the stretch, allowing UNC to grab 11 offensive rebounds in the second half and turn it into 17 second-chance points in the 81-73 loss Thursday night.

“My guys did everything they could,” Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young said. “We just didn't have quite enough to win it.”

As soon as the final buzzer sounded around 10:30 p.m., Keve Aluma (nine points, 4-13 FG) led his team towards the locker room and a different game began: the waiting game.

As a virtual lock for the NCAA Tournament, Virginia Tech (15-6, 9-5 ACC) will wait to see where it’ll be seeded in the bracket on Sunday. The upset loss on Thursday could knock the Hokies down a seed or two.

Young wasn’t thinking about Selection Sunday, even as Virginia Tech sits as high as a six-seed and as low as a nine-seed in most projected brackets. Instead, he was thinking about how his team could get better, no matter where it ends up in the bracket.

“I looked at this game as kind of our restart and an opportunity to sharpen our teeth,” Young said. “I think we can use this experience and carry it into the NCAA Tournament, and we'll be just fine.”

Two separate two-plus week layoffs halted Tech’s momentum heading into the conference tournament. First, contact tracing in Florida State’s program after the Hokies’ win 80-76 over Miami on Feb. 6 canceled Tech’s first game against the Seminoles and then a positive test in the VT program canceled two more games — one against Florida State, the other against UNC and postponed a game against Louisville.

And as Louisville arrived in Blacksburg for a makeup of the postponed game on March 3, the plug was pulled on the game just a mere two days before tip-off. Contact tracing protocols forced Tech to cancel its final remaining game against NC State on March 6.

“It's so hard to replicate playing a game in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament against the North Carolina Tar Heels,” Young said. “It's difficult and I did spend an inordinate amount of time with our staff, and what more could we do. But we're way into this thing, and I'm not one to pound on them ever for three hours a day and run them and conditioning.”

Against Williams’ squad, though, Virginia Tech (15-6, 9-4 ACC) jumped out to an early 11-3 lead as North Carolina (19-9, 10-6 ACC) started out flat. The Tar Heels were going to be a tough team to out-rebound — they grabbed 23 more boards than Notre Dame did the night before — and Young and his team knew it.

Tech attacked the paint early, crashed the glass and picked up only one fewer rebound than UNC did in the first half. But the production fell off in the second half when Carolina grabbed 10 more boards than Virginia Tech did.

On the defensive end, the Hokies forced Carolina into eight turnovers in the first 20 minutes of play. And right out of the gate, Justyn Mutts picked off a Tar Heel pass in the paint on their first offensive possession of the night.

Tech came out humming too, sharing the ball as well as ever, using screens, and shoved the ball down low and into the paint, picking up 11 assists.

It was the Tyrece Radford (20 points) and Justyn Mutts (career-high 24 points) show in the first half as the two combined for 27 of Tech’s first 35 points. Meanwhile, Keve Aluma, Tech’s go-to man in tight spots all season, started off cold, only making one shot in his first eight attempts in the first half.

Virginia Tech came out of the halftime break stagnant, the offense missed seven of its first 11 shots, finding itself in a 49-47 hole with just under 12 minutes left in the half.

And as North Carolina started knocking down shots, extending the lead to four points, to six, then to nine, the Hokies faltered and ran out of gas. On back-to-back possessions, Tech wasn’t able to run a backdoor cut, which forced Wabissa Bede to take matters into his own hands.

After he was unable to find an open man down low, he took the ball to the paint himself and botched a layup.

On the ensuing possession, Bede took a three with no one around him. He missed and with Tech’s inability to rebound on the offensive glass, North Carolina turned it into two more points on the other end, extending its lead 60-51.

And when the Hokies needed a play the most, trailing by six points, they couldn't get one. With three minutes left in the game, Bede looked for a path to the hoop. With UNC locking the paint down, he forced the ball to Radford, who then passed it onto Aluma.

With the shot clock winding down, Aluma couldn’t find an open man, so as the clock struck one, he chucked it up towards the basket and clanked it off the side of the rim.

“I'm all over the place,” Young said. “We didn't play bad tonight, now. We did not play a poor basketball game. Just not quite good enough against a North Carolina team that's playing well.”

When Tech canned its last two regular season games against Louisville and NC State, some fans threw their hands up and were ready to call it a season for the Hokies. But to VT’s credit, it gave a scorching hot UNC team a tough test for nearly three quarters of the night. The Hokies have played worse, but they’ve also played better.

Who knows which Hokie team will show up for the NCAA Tournament in the coming weeks.

But, for now, Virginia Tech waits.