It took seventeen years, but the Virginia Tech men’s basketball team finally grabbed a win against a ranked non-conference opponent  at home today by beating the No. 15 Oklahoma State 81-71.

The Hokies (7-0) were able to hold on to a lead that they Cowboys (5-1) threatened to take late in the second half.

With the Hokies’ lead cut to just 1 point with 4:59 left in the game, the Hokies kept their opponents at arm’s length, never allowing their lead to shrink below 3 points.

In those last 4:59, the Hokies were able to put up 17 points, 8 of which came from Erick Green, who finished the game with a career-high 28 points to lead all scorers.

18 of Green’s 28 points came in the second half, including one of the two stretches in which he scored 10 straight points for the Hokies.

Green played just 26 minutes, but led his team to a victory against their toughest opponent this season.
“I had a challenge in front of me, and I wanted to show that I could play with the best and hopefully I showed people I could do that.” Green said. “I hope that we showed people that we can play with anybody, and that we’re a great team.”

It looked like, at least in the first half after Green recorded his second foul and was taken out of the game, the Hokies were going to have a steep up-hill battle against a top-25 team.
“That’s not a situation that this team has seen,” Head Coach James Johnson said. “We haven’t played with Erick Green, our leading scorer, sitting over there [on the bench] beside me. “

But the team responded, putting together their most impressive victory against a team that featured two of the country’s top NBA draft prospects.

Behind Robert Brown’s 18 points, the Hokies’ supporting cast kept the Cowboys from pulling away early with Green on the floor, never trailing by more than 8 points.

But the difference truly was Green, who shot 60.0% from the field (6-10), hit 3 of his 4 attempts from beyond the arc, and missed only 1 of his 13 free throws (92.3%), 8 of which came in the last 1:16 of the game.

Oklahoma State Head Coach Travis Ford talked about Green after the game.

“He’s one the best point guards in the country,” Ford said. “I think he’s one of the top five point guards in the country, from what I’ve seen. For what he does, for what he means to his team, you can go down the line. He’s a good ball player, really good.”

The Hokies will travel to Morgantown, West Virginia to take on West Virginia University on Saturday, December 8^th.

The Virginia Tech Hokies (6-0) defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes (5-2) 95-79, beating its first opponent from a major conference this season. The team continued its perfect start to the season against an Iowa squad that was expected to slow down and challenge a fast-paced Hokies’ offense.

Tonight’s game was the third time this season that the Hokies scored more than 90 points in spite of hitting only 26.7% of their three-point attempts (4-15). Their struggles from deep were made up for with their near perfect shooting from the free throw line, where the Hokies made 27 of their 30 shots (90.0%).

The Hokies were also able to outrebound the Hawkeyes, again showing improvement on the glass, despite appearing undersized.

“That’s something that we’ve emphasized, but we’ve been emphasizing that all season long,” Head Coach James Johnson said. “I’ve talked about how this team has done a great job of getting better everyday, and that’s something that they’ve gotten better at.”

Early in the first half, the Hawkeyes were presenting a number of issues for the Hokies. With Erick Green held scoreless in the first ten minutes and the Hokies only hitting 3 of their 8 shots from beyond the arc, the game was kept close and it seemed like the Hawkeyes were getting whatever shots they wanted on offense.

“They pushed the ball on us a little bit. That’s one thing that we want to do, but they pushed they ball on us and we weren’t back in position and they got some dunks,” Coach Johnson said.

The Hokies were able to swing the momentum strongly in their favor at the end of the first half, stringing together an 8-1 run behind 4 points from both Erick Green and Robert Brown.

Coming out of halftime with a 46-38 lead, Erick Green scored 9 unanswered points for the Hokies, to extend their run to 17-1. But the Hawkeyes were able to respond quickly by scoring 14 unanswered points, behind Roy Devyn Marble, who either scored or assisted on each of the Hawkeyes baskets during that period.

But the Hokies never let their lead slip away.

“Coach Johnson just told us to calm down,” said Robert Brown. “He told us at halftime that every team makes that run every team does. He told us during that timeout that they made their run, now it’s our time to make ours.”

Brown scored 10 of his 18 points in the second half, including one of only two shots made from behind the arc in the second half by either team.
The Hawkeyes simply weren’t able to slow down this Virginia Tech offense.

An offense that’s shooting woes from deep left a lot to the imagination.

“That’s scary to be honest,” Erick Green said. “Because that means that we can put up a lot more.”

After building a double digit lead in the first half, the Hokies coasted to a 95-80 win against VMI.

The Hokies trailed for the first four minutes game, but after tying the game at 12-12, they took the lead on a Marshall Wood three-pointer and led for the rest of the game.

That lead-changing three was the second of five shots from deep in the team’s 19-3 run that put them ahead 28-15 with 9:34 left in the first half.

The Hokies were able to establish their fast paced offense early, maybe more so than in their previous two games, but the concern remained on how their defense to one of the highest scoring offenses in college basketball.

Erick Green talked about the emphasis the team put on responding to, and slowing down the Keydets high-octane offense.

“We got them playing our pace, and we played just as fast. And we did a good job on defense,” Green said. “We took them out of transition. Usually I saw them in film pull up in transition and hit wide-open threes.”

The Keydets only made three shots from beyond the arc in the first half, and finished with only eight in the game on 8-37 shooting (21.6%). The Hokies were able to make eleven three pointers on 11-24 shooting (45.8%), including seven in the first sixteen minutes of the game.

Freshman forward Marshall Wood made his first three pointer of the season, something many expected to happen earlier than the third game.

Green talked about how the team approached Wood’s early season shooting woes.

“We tell him to keep shooting,” Green said. “You’ve just got to keep shooting, and one will fall.  And once you get your confidence, that’s all you need in this game.”

Green, who finished with a game-high 23 points on 9-13 shooting (69.2%), scored his 1,000^th point as a Hokie on a pull-up jumper from mid-range in the first minute of the second half.

The milestone might have gone unnoticed by Green, but the powers of social media decided otherwise.

“Twitter tells you everything” Green joked. “I try not to worry about that stuff. It’s a great accomplishment, I’m just glad we got the win.”

Green’s milestone 23 points were overshadowed, at least in this game, by the 72 points scored by his teammates, including 53 from the four other starters, all of whom scored more than 10 points.

Head Coach James Johnson talked about the importance of those contributions.

“I think those guys are capable. We don’t want to get into a situation where we lean on Erick Green,” Johnson said. “As we get into the season, teams are going to scout us more and try to take away Erick Green. So I was pleased the way the other guys stepped up.”

Perhaps the most important performance came from forward C.J. Barksdale, who scored a career-high 11 points and grabbed 6 rebounds in just 25 minutes. This came as somewhat of a revelation after Barksdale struggled in the first two games.

“He bounced back. I’ve been pretty tough on him and he responded.” Johnson said. “I knew at some point he would come around, he’s too good not to.”

Game Notes

The Hokies scored 49 points in the second half, the Keydets scored 50.

Cadarian Raines posted his second straight double-double, scoring 14 points and grabbing a team-high 10 rebounds (6 off., 4 def.).

The Hokies outrebounded the Keydets 44-33.

The Hokies went on a 33-9 run starting at 16:48 left in the first half and ending at 4:33 left in the first.

Erick Green on his role as a point guard in this offense: “I’m making a majority of the plays. Coach lets me have all the freedom and he trusts and believes in me. This year it’s a lot of free-space offense, and he’s really let me play my game. He’s just letting me do me, and I think it’s really paying off.”