When Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Kerry Blackshear Jr. have lids on the buckets and Ahmed Hill keeps missing threes the Hokies have to rely on the inside game, freethrow shooting, and good defense.

The Wahoos have big men. They have outside shooters who are nearly automatic, and they also play stiff defense. What they didn’t have this evening was ball control... turning it over almost 10 times before the critical 2nd half stretch.

That didn’t help the Hokies much, though. No one could hit anything, even a barn door would have been difficult this evening. Nothing was falling for anyone, and a telling no-bucket run was low lighted by Blackshear’s miss of a 9/10 footer. It was just not a good night for anyone anywhere.

The Hokies did look like they had some hope, keeping the lead for a few minutes in the first half, and going into half time with a minor deficit... but the Hoos are perfect this season when they lead at the half, and the Hokies have a serious blank spot in their game quality in the “3rd quarter”.

That gave UVA just enough rope to string out along the court and trip up the exhausted Hokies. Rallies were snuffed. Free throws were missed, and even a furious rally in the closing minute failed... as the Hokies just flat ran out of time and aim.

No one really expected to win this one. We did have a chance to, however. If there is any consolation, the Hokies played UVA tight, and made them work for everything. The basic problem was that we just couldn’t score when we needed to, and that pretty much is the ball game.

We’ll look at it a bit deeper when we can shake off the disappointment.

GO HOKIES!!!