My last birthday, December 30th, 2015, was really depressing, and not because I turned 51.
I spent that afternoon sitting a couple rows behind the Virginia Tech bench, watching West Virginia hammer a listless Hokie squad 88-63. It was one of the worst basketball games I've ever seen, with a total of 60 fouls called (30 on each team) and 74 free throws attempted.
It took about two and a half hours to play that game, and for most of those 150 minutes, the Hokies were out of contention. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever slogged through as a Virginia Tech fan. Nice birthday present.
After that game, the Hokies were 8-5 and had lost their last two games (including a 79-62 beatdown by St. Joseph's) by a total of 42 points. At that point, Buzz had remade the roster, but another two-win ACC season or the likes was dead ahead. A fifth straight year of being an ACC laughingstock was coming over the horizon.
You know what happened next. Things turned on a dime after that. The Hokies beat NC State in overtime, then knocked off #4 Virginia on their way to a 4-1 ACC start. That was followed by a brutal 1-7 stretch that played out mostly on the road, but even then, the Hokies were competitive, falling at Notre Dame when Seth Allen's last-second shot rimmed out, and collapsing at Syracuse when they had the Orange dead to rights. That's how close Tech was to being 3-5 in one of the most difficult stretches of basketball ever faced by a Hokies team.
When that stretch ended, the Hokies were 13-13 (5-8 ACC), but they were trending downward. Just like December 30th, they were coming off two whippings, on the road at the hands of Virginia (67-49) and Miami (65-49). It looked like they were done.
But yours truly opined that coming back home to Cassell might be the elixir the Hokies needed.
Ahem. Just wanted to make sure you remembered that I said that.
All kidding aside, I would have given a 5-0 run to end the season about a 10% chance of happening, maybe less. Not only did the Hokies do it, but they did it in decisive fashion.
One of the more interesting a-ha moments of this run was when Gobbler-100 posted this on the basketball board after the 83-73 win over FSU that started this 5-0 run:
Yesterday was something of a landmark. First time in the Buzz Era that we have beaten an "equity" opponent (ACC or credible non-conf team) in a game that was not decided either on the final possession or in overtime.
Interesting. Then Virginia Tech did it again at Boston College (71-56) … again at Wake Forest (81-74) … again vs. Pittsburgh (65-61) … and again vs. #7 Miami (77-62). The only one of those games that was close was the Pittsburgh game, and VT led that one by 12 points with 3:45 left.
That's how hot this team is. They are the very definition of the word "peaking."
Buzz as a Candidate for Other Jobs
So, a few days ago, prior to the win over Miami, Sports Illustrated's Pete Thamel ran this article about the college coaching carousel. It's a comprehensive article, so I'll cut right to the part that's important to Hokie fans:
Oklahoma State: Remember all those rumors floating for years about the Cowboys backing up one of T. Boone Pickens' Brinks trucks for Bill Self? Well, those have shifted to Buzz Williams of Virginia Tech and Gregg Marshall of Wichita State. The Cowboys will owe Ford $7.2 million when they fire him, a tribute to the astonishingly short-sighted 10-year extension the school gave him in 2009. Were that many people lining up for Travis Ford? The Cowboys have struggled with injuries, but a 3-14 league record and oceans of empty seats at Gallagher-Iba Arena have essentially sealed Ford's fate. The Cowboys need to be careful—Ford has gone to the NCAAs five times in eight years— and there aren't a lot of hot coaches pining to coach in Stillwater.