Another Virginia Tech basketball game, another last-second thriller.
California’s Justin Pippen rimmed out a triple at the buzzer and Virginia Tech clinched a 78-75 win in Cassell Coliseum, behind a balanced scoring effort in which six Hokies reached double figures.
Four of Virginia Tech’s (13-4, 2-2) last five games have finished within one-possession. The only game that wasn’t technically a one-possession game was its triple overtime win over Virginia.
“Night in, night out. That’s just how it’s going to be,” Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young said about the run of tightly-contested games in ACC play.
“It’s such a balanced league and it's such a good league again, there’s a lot of opportunities to compile good wins. You need to take care of home. You’ve got to go on the road and find ways to win.”
After squandering a late 13-point lead against Stanford on Wednesday, Tech (10-1 at home) protected its home court as it had for much of the season.
California (13-4, 1-3) led for over 24 minutes, more than doubling the span in which the Hokies led.
With 6:31 remaining, Milos Ilic made his second consecutive layup to give Cal a 64-58 lead. Over roughly the following two minutes, Tech went on an 8-0 run, capped off by a spinning righty layup from Neoklis Avdalas (11 points, six assists) to put the Hokies up 66-64.
Tech held steady with a slight slight lead for the following few minutes and led 72-71 with 1:37 left after a perfect trip to the free throw line from Ilic.
Frequently the Hokies second half star, Ben Hammond used an Amani Hansberry (15 points, nine rebounds) screen to split the defense and find Tobi Lawal for a slam.
Ilic, just a 43% free throw shooter prior to the game, knocked down another pair of free throws to close the gap back to one point with 1:06 to go.
Looking to take it to the rack again, Hammond lost his dribble and turned it over, giving the Bears a chance to take the lead. Both Dai Dai Ames (21 points) and Chris Bell (12 points) got decent looks in the mid range, but came up empty and Hansberry went to the stripe, where he knocked down a pair.
Former Hokie John Camden made two free throws of his own to cut the Hokies lead to 76-75 with eight seconds left, putting Jaden Schutt in a pressure-filled situation at the line.
Schutt went 1-for-2, giving Cal an opportunity to win the game - a nightmare for Virginia Tech, which had lost two consecutive games to last-second three pointers.
California coach Mark Madsen called timeout to draw up a play, but Camden and Ames weren’t on the same page, immediately throwing the ball away beneath the Hokies basket.
Still, the game was not over. Jailen Bedford went to the stripe and also went 1-for-2, giving Tech a three-point lead with three seconds left.
Camden fired it up the floor all the way to the opposite free throw line to an airborne Ilic, who swung it out to the left wing to Pippen (11 points, 4-for-18 shooting), who got a clean look from deep.
Pippen couldn’t connect on the triple, and the Hokies survived for a much-needed win on their home floor.
“(We) Caught a break,” Young said on Pippen’s miss at the buzzer. With the way the following two games ended, Young and his Hokies were past due for a bit of late-game luck.
Tech got out to a sluggish start, particularly on the defensive end. At one point in the early going, Cal was 9-for-13 from the field. It took the Golden Bears less than 13 minutes for them to surpass its three-point total from Wednesday’s loss at Virginia (3-for-19).
With 6:37 left in the first half, the Golden Bears led 29-18. That’s when the Hokies turned it up defensively.
Hammond jumped a passing lane and went coast to coast for an and-one layup. The following play, Avdalas picked off Bell’s entry pass and took it all the way for the deuce. Tech rode its new-found defensive intensity into the half, tied at 37 thanks in large part to an 11-0 run that initially tied the game at 29.
Lawal, who finished with 10 points and seven rebounds, was a part of that run to end the first half. In both his 18 minutes against Stanford and his first stint on the court today, Lawal didn’t elevate the team the way he had early in the season. It was very encouraging to see him find his footing and play a big part in the Hokies win.
Since Lawal’s inclusion into the lineup, Young has tightened up his rotation significantly. Only seven Hokies saw the floor tonight. The only rotation player that failed to reach double figures was Hammond, who went 2-for-7 from the floor, but found other ways to impact the game. This was the first time Hammond scored less than 10 points since the Nov. 28 loss to VCU.
With only Hammond and Lawal coming off the bench, Young has to be anticipating Tyler Johnson and Antonio Dorn’s returns in the not too distant future.
Cal and Virginia Tech entered as two of the best teams in the country at taking care of the ball. The Hokies won the turnover battle 13-10, and most importantly scored 23 points off of turnovers to just 10 for the Golden Bears.
10 turnovers is even more impressive considering the fact that Lawal coughed it up four times - an area he is likely to clean up as he returns to full strength.
Just as impressive was the Hokies free-throw shooting. While Schutt and Bedford each missed one in the clutch to keep Cal alive, Tech shot 27-for-31 overall - over 14 percentage points higher than its season average.
To Young’s surprise, rebounding actually kept Cal in the game.
Despite big men Lee Dort and Montas Kocanas fouling out, the Golden Bears won the rebounding battle 31-28. The differential was far worse in the first half with the Golden Bears having nine first half offensive rebounds compared to only three for VT.
“They handed it to us on the glass and that’s hard to stomach,” Young said. “They don’t have a very big front line other than Dort and we thought that was a real advantage for our team.”
Entering the game, Cal ranked dead-last in the ACC in rebounding differential at worse than -16. Rebounding was apparently quite the emphasis over the last couple days after an abysmal showing against UVA. Still, that doesn’t justify Tech’s performance today.
After suffering through a winless week in the Commonwealth, California returns to its home floor for a brutal two-game home stand against No. 6 Duke and No. 17 North Carolina.
Virginia Tech took care of its must-win game today, and now has a massive opportunity to steal a Quad 1 win as it travels to Dallas to face No. 24 SMU at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 14 on ESPNU.
