CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Tuesday night’s 95-89 overtime loss to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC Tournament sealed Virginia Tech men’s basketball’s postseason fate. For the fourth straight year, it will miss the NCAA Tournament.
“That’s a tremendous loss, needless to say,” Tech head coach Mike Young said. “Not the story of the game. The story of the game is Wake Forest played a little bit better than we did. Disappointing, but I thought they did some good things. A little bit better than the Hokies, unfortunately.”
Ben Hammond’s floater and Jailen Bedford’s very Ahmed Hill-like tip-in attempt missed the mark at the end of regulation for the Hokies (19-13), and the Demon Deacons (17-15) shut the door for good in overtime.
The possession: pic.twitter.com/D7tfq643ac
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Myles Colvin scored the first five points of the extra period with a jumper and a 3-pointer, immediately putting Tech on its heels, and it could not recover. Though it had seven different possessions when it was within a score, it couldn’t get over the hump as Wake pulled away, scoring the game’s final four points.
It was an all too familiar feeling for the Hokies, who suffered close loss after close loss all season. Tuesday’s nightcap in the Spectrum Center summed up a frustrating and disappointing year, particularly given the internal expectations set by Young.
In the preseason, he opined that he had an NCAA Tournament team on his hands — no matter the league’s media picking his team 12th, exactly where it finished.
That showed up in spurts, including the triple-overtime victory vs. Virginia on New Year’s Eve and the 10-point road win at Clemson. Far too often, though, Tech failed to finish games. Wake Forest was just another data point in a sea of them.
“There was a lot of mixing and matching throughout the year,” Young said. “It wasn’t a shoo-in, this team. They all matter. We did a lot of things right. 11-2 coming out of non-conference, we didn’t have a blemish. We still don’t have a blemish. We had great opportunities. We had unbelievable opportunities.
“Now, a lot of those opportunities were on the road. North Carolina, Louisville. We won at Clemson, won at Syracuse, on and on. Had Duke at home, and they were playing really, really good basketball. We had our opportunities, and we came up just short. That’s disappointing, infuriating, and I take a lot of responsibility there.”
To the Hokies’ credit on Tuesday, they fought back to take the lead at the first media timeout of the second half after the Demon Deacons led for the entire first half.
It was neck-and-neck from there, and it seemed like things started to turn Tech’s way when it climbed out of a seven-point hole with a 9-0 run to take a 73-71 lead with 2:12 remaining in regulation. Jaden Schutt knocked down two free throws, Hammond converted a jumper, Bedford knotted things at 71 with a 3-pointer and then tacked on two free throws to swing the pendulum.
Wake routinely came up with an answer, though. In that particular instance, it was Colvin. He got a bucket and then drained two free throws. He paced the team with 18 points, nine of which came over three minutes at the end of regulation and the beginning of overtime.
Colvin’s two foul shots capped off a strange sequence. A dunk attempt by the Hokies’ Christian Gurdak was blocked by the Deacs’ Tre’Von Spillers with 1:20 left. It was initially ruled Wake ball, but Tech challenged the call and was successful.
However, it had to use another timeout when Hammond couldn’t inbound the ball in time under the basket. And out of that stoppage, Tobi Lawal was whistled for a foul on Colvin, which the officials upgraded to a flagrant 1. Lawal was cutting to the rim when he raised his arms, and his elbow made contact with Colvin’s face.
It was a long break from the action and, in a tie game, turned what could’ve been points for Virginia Tech into two points for Wake Forest.
Hammond still tied the game for the Hokies with two foul shots, and they had a chance to win it after Demon Deacons guard Mekhi Mason airballed a triple, but neither Hammond’s shot out of Young’s timeout nor Bedford’s tip-in fell, sending the game to overtime.
“We want the last shot,” Young said, “and they had stoned a couple of things that we typically go to there with how they were maneuvering or how they were guarding us. We thought we could get post players, [Tre’Von] Spillers or [Omaha] Biliew, onto Ben. We had had a lot of success getting him off that. Jailen makes a heck of a play at it and just doesn’t get it down. You get two shots on the rim in that situation, sign me up.”
In some aspects, Tech played well. Without Amani Hansberry, who was sidelined with a leg injury, it limited Wake’s Juke Harris to 10 points on 3-for-18 shooting. It also held Nate Calmese, the point guard who posted 25 in the January meeting, to 10 points.
Yet, the rest of the Demon Deacons stepped up. They had seven double-figure scorers, just the second time in ACC Tournament history that’s happened (Wake Forest 2007), with Sebastian Akins adding 14 points, Mason and Spillers chipping in 13 and Cooper Schwieger contributing 10.
They shot 50.8 percent (30-for-59) from the floor as well and were 8-for-22 (36.4%) from long range while making 27 of their 30 (90%) foul shots.
“They were really physical coming off screens and handoffs,” Gurdak said. “They cut really aggressively. They’re a good team, they’re well-coached, so that kind of led to them getting downhill. Me and the bigs, we’ve got to do a better job of coming over and helping the guards.”
On the other side, the Hokies outrebounded Wake by 17, 45-28, but still lost. It’s the first time that’s happened to the program since Dec. 16, 2007, when it was plus-20 on the glass at Old Dominion but lost 72-69. The third-to-last occurrence was also interesting: Dec. 2, 2002, when it was plus-23 but lost 79-77 to a Young-coached Wofford team.
Tech cleaned up the boards, with Lawal grabbing nine, Bedford and Gurdak hauling in eight and Antonio Dorn chipping in seven. It committed 13 turnovers, though, 10 of which came in the first half. It only had five in the win over the Deacs just over two weeks ago.
The Hokies shot 41.4 percent (29-for-70), too, but were slightly worse from three (8-for-24, 33.3%) and from the stripe (23-for-27, 85.2%). They weren’t good enough in a number of areas.
“It closely resembled what we saw in Winston-Salem,” Young said of Wake’s defense. “Very aggressive off our ball screen, ball handling, and we had some terrible, terrible turnovers, 10 in the first half, as you mentioned; only three in the second half. But you outrebound somebody 45 to [28], supposed to win that game. Unfortunately, we did not.”
Hammond led the way with a game-high 23 points on 7-for-17 shooting, including a 3-for-4 mark from deep and a 6-for-7 clip from the line. Bedford posted 17 points while Schutt snapped his cold spell with 15. Lawal finished with 12 points.
It was one of the better games of the year for Dorn, who scored eight points, dished out three assists and also swatted two shots.
“I thought Toni played a great ballgame,” Young said. “He had a great look about him, great energy, competed his tail off. Had a bad block, but I don’t fault him there. You know that he’s going to put his body on people, and that is essential. … That kid fought. He is about the right stuff, and I’m proud of him. We needed him for obvious reasons with Amani down.”
On the other hand, Tech guard Neoklis Avdalas did not play for the final 7:37 of regulation and stayed on the bench in overtime. He was just 2-for-8 with five points and three turnovers. It was also the first time this season he did not record an assist. Was it something physical that kept him sidelined?
“Nope,” Young said. “… I just thought those kids were playing better than Neo, and that’s how I went.”
Should they accept a bid, the NIT is likely up next for the Hokies for the third time in the last four years. They’ll learn more about their fate this weekend, but their season won’t end in the NCAA Tournament, which was their ultimate goal.
“I think we’ll be ready to come out and play if it’s that,” Gurdak said of the NIT. “None of us want to stop playing, so I think we’re going to want to come out and really fight for that, prove to ourselves that even though we didn’t make March, unfortunately, just prove to ourselves that we can reach our full potential and be the team we know we can be.”
Box Score: Wake Forest 95, Virginia Tech 89 (OT)