Pathetic, simply pathetic. The Hokies came in to Clemson hoping to rebound after a loss to Louisville, but they did the complete opposite. They shot poorly, defended horribly, and got into foul trouble (the three things we said would be key in the preview of this game). Let’s see what all went wrong and how to improve...

Shooting:

Tech shot 28% from the floor. The Hokies back-court (Hill, Bede and Alexander-Walker) went a combined 6-32 from the floor and totaled 8 turnovers compared to 4 assists. The Hokies took a lot of bad shots and as expected; they missed them. Poor ball movement and rotation led to bad shots and many turnovers. Even when the Hokies would drive to the whole they were setting up Elijah Thomas for block after block. Today, without Robinson, this team fell apart. If the offense is going to look like this when he’s out, he has to get back soon.

Defense:

The main issue today on defense today was rotation. Clemson drove to the basket almost every possession and every possession they kicked it out for an open three. The Hokies collapsed on the ball each and every time they drove and gave the shooters for Clemson wide open looks. While the Tigers aren’t a very good shooting team, if you give up that many open threes they’ll begin to make them.

Also on the defensive side of things was foul trouble. Alexander-Walker and Blackshear both picked up early fouls which made things difficult of the bat for the Hokies. Clemson took advantage of it by driving it more and more and putting the Hokies in tough situations.

The Bright-spot:

Blackshear was the sole bright-spot I saw today for the Hokies. He shot 5-8 from the floor, 6-6 from the foul line and grabbed 7 rebounds. He was efficient on offense and made big shots in crunch time, but he fouled out. While it wasn’t a great performance top to bottom from it, if he can post numbers like that every game it could be huge coming forward.

In conclusion, Tech played poorly all game and it caught up to them. They shot poorly, passed poorly, and defended poorly. If they can’t get in shape moving forward, it’ll make getting a good tournament seed very difficult. This team desperately needs Robinson back as soon as possible with big games coming up. Hopefully they play better and hopefully Robinson is back. But today, it was a sloppy game that led to a bad loss for our resume.

Tech’s next game for Tech is against Georgia Tech Wednesday night at home at 8:00 p.m.

GO HOKIES!!!!!