The Hokies announced their basketball schedule today. If you like neutral-site games, this is the season for you! The Hokies will participate in the Puerto Rico Tip-off in (you guessed it) San Juan, PR, the BB&T Classic in Washington, DC (vs. Navy), and the Hokies will defend their title at the Aeropostale Holiday Festival at the Most Famous Arena in the World (don’t worry, the announcers will remind you of this 36 times during the game if you forget) at Madison Square Garden in NY, NY. Tech will play columbia and then the winner of st. john’s/marist in New York.

Virginia Tech also hosts wisconsin as part of the big 11/ACC Challenge, and the Hokies travel to georgia to face the bulldogs. georgia is the reigning SEC champs, surviving tornadoes, arena changes, and empty stands. But that was a shocker, considering they finished dead last in their division in the regular season. In other words, VT can handle them (the ACC is to basketball what the SEC is to football).

For the complete schedule: Click Here

Home Games: gardner-webb, mount st. mary’s, elon, wisconsin, longwood, uva, richmond, bc, clemson, nc state, ga tech, fsu, duke, and unc

Away Games: georgia, charleston southern (huh?), duke, wake, miami, bc, maryland, uva, clemson, fsu

Neutral Games: (3 games at Puerto Rico including fairfield), Navy at Washington, DC, (2 games in New York including columbia)

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Random Thought

I’ll say it right now: This year’s men’s basketball team is better than the football team. At VT. I’m serious. That said, it doesn’t mean the Hokies will have a better ACC record. You have to remember that the ACC may be the worst BCS conference in football. And if they aren’t dead last, they are second to last ahead of the Big East.

So I’m predicting the football and basketball teams will have similar winning percentages this year. But I stick by my comment that the hoops team is better this year. Especially with Tyrod redshirting.

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The Weekend Warrior will be hitting the road this weekend for the ricky stokes Bowl!!! Look for a column next week. The trip will also include a stop at the Shenandoah County Fair. Hilarity is sure to ensue.

The Virginia Tech Hokies open the Puerto Rico Tip-Off on Thursday, November 20th against fairfield (MAAC) on ESPNU, the channel U never watch and no one gets.  This should’be an easy win for the Hokies and take them to a semi-final match-up against the winner of xavier vs. missouri on Friday. The championship game is on Sunday (Saturday is an off-day so you can enjoy VT smash duke in football).

The other side of the bracket includes ut-chattanooga, NCAA Tourney runner-up memphis, seton hall, and usc (the trojan-usc, not the cock-usc).

Here is the full bracket.

According to the NV Daily, 2009 VT Verbal Erick Green is transferring to Paul VI High School in Fairfax, VA for his senior season.  PVI is a private Catholic school.  Erick won the Virginia AA State Championship with Millbrook this past season.

Greener Pastures

The article has some nice insights into why Erick is transferring and what he has been up to this summer.

Erick Green (2009 verbal) recently played in the Reebok Summer Championships in Las Vegas. The tournament featured John Wall, #1 in the Class of 2009. In the quarterfinals, Erick helped lead Triple Threat to a victory with 18 points. This should silence some of his critics that say he faces only AA competition in the regular season.

In case you missed it, ESPN as part of their “Candyland” lifestyle developed Prestige Rankings for 300 Division I basketball programs over the last 24 seasons (since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams… later 65*).  It didn’t turn out well for Virginia Tech.  The O&M finished tied for #210.  Kick to the groin ouch!

The study used a points system based on things like NCAA Tournament appearances and wins, regular season and post-season conference titles, 20 or 30 win seasons, All-Americans, NIT appearances and titles, and NBA Draft picks (high picks).   You lose points for losing seasons or NCAA bans. 

The Hokies finished with negative points.  Here’s my best guess at their point total (ESPN didn’t share the actual number):

• NCAA Tournament Appearances: 4 (’85, ‘86, ‘96, ‘07) - 4 points
• NCAA Tourney Wins: 2 (’96, ‘07) - 6 points
• NIT Appearances: 3 (’95, ‘05, ‘08) - 3 points
• NIT Title: ‘95 - 2 points
• 20-29 win seasons: 6 (’85, ‘86, ‘95, ‘96, ‘07, ‘08) - 6 points
• AP 2nd-team All-American: Curry - 2 points
• Losing seasons: 13 (Moir - 1, Allen - 3, Foster - 3, Hussey - 2, stokes - 3, Greenberg -1) - (-39 points)
• I can’t remember if Tech got a NCAA Tournament ban in the late ’80s for Coach Allen’s efforts, but I believe they did, including a Metro Tournament ban in ‘89.  So I won’t count this but that would be an additional -3.

Adds up to at least -16.  That’s, uh, not good.  That stinks.  I can’t blame stokes for all of it, but he sure didn’t help it.  Unfortunately, they don’t give points for “almosts” or “one-aways”, like almost made the Sweet 16 or one win from the ACC regular season title, etc.

Now that VT finally has a conference home (we hope), stability should help things. If you think about it, the Hokies have been in four conferences during this study: Metro (start of study to ‘95), A-10 (’95-’00), Big East (’00-’04), and then the ACC. That certainly didn’t help things (nor did ricky stokes).

Only seven “BCS” schools are lower and VT is dead last in the ACC, 65 points behind miami. northwestern is the worst of the BCS schools. south florida is also in there, a former stopping point of Seth.

Since Seth arrived, the Hokies are +5 in his five seasons and +7 in the last two years!  So things are looking up (finally) and maybe VT can get in the black soon.

*Niemo’s Random Rant: Can someone explain why they went to 65?  Makes no sense.  68?  Maybe… then there’s a feeder for each #1 seed.  Or 72.  But 65???  I think the same guy (or girl) that decided on this is the same person that invented “half the distance to the goal line” in football.  Seriously, I’m going to commit a penalty, but the refs are only going to enforce half of it since the other team is close to scoring on us… so it is OK to cheat when you are up against the wall.  Can you imagine if the judicial system was this way?  Well, he should get 10 years for murder, but he’s only going to live another 10 so we’ll just have him serve 5.  Sweet.