The Hokies lost by the narrow(est) margin on Tuesday, falling to Georgia 66-67. That makes the team 5-4 and Seth Greenberg so angry that his non-existent hair follicles produce boiling water. And there is reason for steam: in the four losses this season the Hokies have lost by a combined total of 8 points. The only silver lining is that the team is playing hard throughout each game and will learn that everyday is a new game and a new chance to lose by one or two points.

Hopefully this gets out of their system when it comes time for conference play. The Hokies will need a solid finish in the ACC standings and should seek out some feather-in-the-cap wins against top ranked UNC or Duke if they want a shot at the tournament. I have faith the team will find a way to clean things up - after all they are only 3 possessions worth of points away from a perfect 9-0 record.

The Hokies pulled off a great end to their regular season on Saturday by beating BC for a second straight ACC Championship title. Collectively the offense, defense, and special teams played their most balanced game I have seen this season. The game wasn’t without the usual frustrations and questionable play calling as well as head-shaking realizations that our offense is a joke to be considered a BCS conference champion but there was plenty to be happy about with the defense, Tyrod Taylors endzone reaching footwork, and even our kicking game looked good. It was supposed to be a defensive battle between the two teams and Virginia Tech won the turnover tally by grabbing two INT and a couple fumble recoveries but they also narrowly missed having a couple more INT and BC lucked out on a questionable Darren Evans fumble call and review.

The game itself was one of the most entertaining off-field performances also. Throughout the broadcast the announcers alluded to how wasted the crew and staff had gotten that weekend. At one point they identified a shark as taking the likeness of Paul Maguire, the sideline announcer, and showed embarrassing footage of the camera crew from a hotel karaoke bar. And then… yep… Cory Holt punched Frank Beamer in the face after our 50-yard field goal passed through the uprights. The footage will make Hokie football lore forever but I have to hand it to ESPN for putting together a third quarter montage recap which included the cold clock by Holt and “Paul the Shark’s” parrot throwing tirades aboard his pirate ship.

Raymond James stadium looked desolate on television, as the camera cut to pedophiles in the upper corners of empty sections around the stadium. Astonishingly the venue recorded 53,927 guest tickets being torn that day but we all know that’s bullshit since they claimed 52,000 came out to Jacksonville last year. If you thought that the football game was empty, you should have seen the turnout at the Verizon Center for the Navy/Virginia Tech Basketball game, the first of two games in the BB&T Classic.

Though the Hokies won, they didn’t really make it look very pretty- at least in the first half. They shot poorly as a team early on and missed easy rebound opportunities but were much more cohesive in the second half and Malcolm Delaney led the Hokies with 21 points (including going a perfect 11-of-11 from the line) to beat Navy 79-70. BB&T has really let their tournament go to shit -its not even a tournament anymore- but it was good to be able to watch the team and players like Allen and Vassallo live for a change and also witness Seth Greenberg’s emotions devolve from “well-mannered” to “maniac” over the course of the game. The few Hokie fans that came out were a good support and even got Verizon center echoing “Let’s Go… Hokies” chants to take on the loud brass of the Midshipmen band and the cheering Navy students who were not lucky enough (or without rank) to make it to the Army/Navy game at Lincoln Financial in Philly.

Now the question is how to get down to Miami without spending Verizon center suite prices ($70 bucks for a sink of ice and Bud Selects).

After a long weekend and plenty of Hokie-related news let’s check and see what’s under the foil…

MAIN COURSE: COASTAL CHAMPS
Obviously the big news is that the Hokies beat UVA and earned a spot in the ACC Championship as the Coastal Division Champs. We retain both the Commonwealth Cup and Coastal Trophy and get to play this Saturday against Boston College.

BC, if you recall, beat the Hokies earlier this year thanks in part to Eagles return man Rich Gunnell’s 65-yard punt return TD, which allowed BC to squeak a win with a 4-point margin. BC gave up five turnovers and didn’t score once in the second half but Virginia Tech failed to capitalize on the mistakes (well somewhat - there were two INT for TD and a blocked field goal, so I guess in reality it was the offense who failed to pour on more points). Hopefully getting out of Chestnut Hill and down to Tampa will help heat up the Hokies on both sides of the ball and give us a repeat of last year’s ACC Championship when VT won the second match-up against Boston College after losing a national-title-trip-ending-heart-breaker in Blacksburg halfway through the season. I also shotgunned 9 beers in my living room, alone, in that redemption win. Bottom line: Even though the Hokies took one of the most unlikely of paths to this year’s championship all is forgotten… the beer pong redemption cups have been made… and I just hope we take a deep breath and sink every shot we take be it on offense or defense.

DESSERT: BUD FOSTER’S PIE
Bud Foster is safe. For now. Clemson has promoted interim coach Dabo Swinney to the head coach position, leaving Bud Foster with Virginia Tech for the time being. About a year ago, Foster’s agent claimed that his client was expected to be in a head coaching position “within the next two years. This year or next year.” So, who may be next to try for Bud? A lot of schools probably . But which of those schools can make him as excited as he was when he ran down the sideline pumping his fist at the end of the VT/UVA game? None of ‘em.

SIDE: ACC/BIG TEN BASKETBALL
The theme of Monday’s VT/Wisconsin game was “3-point madness”. The teams were a combined 23-32 from behind the 3-point line sending me in to a see-saw of emotion as each team exchanged long balls. The Hokie Basketball curse that has become Seth Greenberg’s “nightmare” found its way in to Cassell once again as Wisconsin sank a game winner in the last second of the game. The Hokies looked impressive and physical throughout the game and really shouldn’t feel bad about such an exciting lead off to the ACC/BIG 10 Challenge. I had some problems with bad foul calls away from the ball on Allen- but in the end it was not fouls that decided the game but simply great shooting by both teams. I was pleased with what I saw and I am looking forward to my first game this season down at Tech. The commentators did offer one consolation prize toward the end of the game which I think bears repeating: “This has become one of the greatest atmospheres to experience a college basketball game in the country.” Keep it up fans, eventually the clock will do its job and learn how to expire just a few tenths of second sooner.

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• Virginia Tech Men’s Basketball will be flying back from Puerto Rico with their first two games in the loss column thanks in part to a miracle half court shot that crushed the Hokies in a semi-final game against Xavier. Xavier is a decent team with similar expectations this season as the Hokies. The two teams played tough throughout the entire regulation and held close in the first overtime when Jeff Allen gave the Hokies a 2 point lead with 1.9 seconds to go. In what has become a seasonal tradition for the Hokies, the win was ripped from their hands in a last milisecond desperation half court shot by Xavier’s Dante Jackson which banked in for the unlikely win, allowing Xavier to go on and beat Memphis in the finals. I suppose the only silver lining to this heartbreak is that happened early on in the season as opposed to in the thick of the ACC schedule against … oh say #1 ranked Duke.

   

• On Sunday the ACC finally released kickoff times for the final games of the season. The Hokies were given the old and faithful noon kickoff slot, again hampering fans from consuming too much alcohol and helping stimulate hospitality services in Blacksburg and Christiansburg by tying us up in staying two nights to enjoy the game. I understand they wanted to have the two decisive ACC games at different time slots but noon? At least give us the 3:30 kickoff and give Boston College/Maryland the 7 o’clock start time. Sadly, I think the weak draw ACC had to bend to the Vanderbilt at Wake Forest game on ESPNU which is the only ACC game set for an SEC-friendly 7pm.

   

• My high school Football team has gone flawless in the Northern Region of Virginia to win its third Regional title since 2002. The Oakton Cougars (13-0) executed to perfection on Saturday afternoon, scoring on every possession of the opening half and limiting our arch rivals Chantilly Chargers to only two scores in a 52-14 win. Oakton will play Newport News Boys Penitentiary For The Mentally Insane in the state championship on Christmas Day. I mention this accomplishment only because I wonder if Oakton’s offensive coordinator could have come up with a way to score more than ONE single time against Duke on Saturday. I say give the guy a chance, he was also my Physics AP teacher.

Well at least UVA lost that other tournament - yeah there is one worse than the NIT.

Okay, we all know what happened… there was a close loss against Clemson to close out the season (oh boo hoo), dismantling of Miami in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament (yippee… I feel hope!), then UNC’s robotic white boy hits a winning bucket with .8 seconds to go and does the bushwacker down the court in celebration (at this point I am kind of sick of this tug-of-war over the last at-large spots and frankly, I don’t care… if you don’t want us in the tournament after that, fine, fuck you. That’s basically Coach Greenberg’s stance.)

Something important is lost in the race for the at-large tournament slot when schools I have never heard of or schools that have last second miracles scoop up a ton of automatic bids. I don’t like that I find myself cheering AGAINST Georgia’s big upset in the SEC. I love upsets, even though I couldn’t care less about University of Georgia outside of the strip club they have in downtown Athens, I am happy that there was a reward for a team that makes a big splash the last week of the regular season. But that prize is the conference trophy and the fucking net from the court that wasn’t hit by a tornado. Awarding the auto-bid basically is like saying to a Pro Football team that if they go 0-9 but somehow win in the last two weeks of the season and the best teams happen to lose (or perhaps play like shit because their eyes are on the post season) then lets give that shit team the benefit of the doubt and allow them in to the playoffs. Oh and let’s throw Niagara in there too. Niagara? These people http://www.purpleeagles.com/ ? What a shit show.

I really have let the whole “tournament thing” go. I mean just how deep did we expect to go in to the tournament? Isn’t squabbling over a 12th seed not much better than whining over the Outback bowl bid? Sure, we want to be there in the limelight and a trip to the NCAA tournament is vindication of a good season (a great season in comparison to our expectations), but we got a hell of a lot more press as a bubble team than we would have as an expected lock that drops to Vanderbilt in round one.

I’m proud that we put on a good show this season. We aren’t a basketball school… but were becoming a force in the hardest basketball conference in the nation. We were projected to be the 11^th worst team in the ACC… but we ended 4^th. Seth Greenberg is ACC coach of the year and Delaney/Allen look to be something special for years to come. In all, it was a great year for Virginia Tech Basketball.

By the way, take a look at the first round of the NCAA tournament. What an abortion. Sure there are a few great games in there (USC v Beasley State, Clemson v Villanova, GMU v Popular Belief) but after you look it over just head over and look at the NIT bracket. Funny, It looks a lot more exciting over there in the runner-up bracket. Maybe its because there are schools I have heard of or at least seen televised once in the past 3 years. Even Florida and Ohio State are hanging out with us, we can’t be that upset even though as a number one seed, that’s all our opponents can hope to achieve when playing us.

We all know Deron Washington and his great acting skills. He has been seen on more than a few thousand occasions flopping like a fish when touched by an opposing player after a whistle, and some of his rehearsed performances rise to what would get a red card in a European soccer match. Combine this with the fact that he has no problem sucker punching players and has even been seen sneaking in to huddled conversations of the opponent while on the court and you can see how he may be making a name for himself among coaches and refs. The rumor is he recently cut his hair because after the Duke game ACC officials told Coach Seth Greenburg that they “know his tricks” and aren’t falling for his “flailing arm tumbles” anymore. No joke. Coach Greenburg relayed the information to Deron who was working on his monologues and watching (WWF) film in the locker room.

Apparently rather than change his tactics or transfer to Juilliard, Deron decided to make himself less identifiable as the great method actor of the Hokies basketball team. Right then and there he shaved his once long and quite signature dreadlocks. He also thought about donning a bowler cap and wax lips but Vassallo backed him down with a “too much man, too much.”

Did it work? The Hokies were able to top UVA in overtime following Deron’s change of costume … but ACC officials have clearly caught on that this is just new-look Deron with the same old tricks as VT has slid down in the ACC by losing their last two games, one of which at home to Miami. Deron, who clearly has no problem with the words of his critics, is back polishing his art, flipping end over end when players tap him on the shoulder to let them know hes been substituted.

Although there may not be much in way of an acting career for the senior forward, I think that he is still one of the greatest players to watch in Cassell, or any arena for that matter. Granted, it is pretty absurd when he goes off on one of his thespian voyages to technical foul land, but he always finds a way to make up for it… like when he hurdles Greg Paulus twice in one game. I found this mixtape, which I think Deron made himself and will be sending out to studios at the end of this season.

Long hair or short hair I think hes the only way we will get to walk down the red carpet in March (and lose to Oral Roberts in the first round). Right now Virginia Tech is sitting on the bubble and needs to put together at least 3, possibly 4 wins, in the last 6 games of the season. If we can take care of business at home against Wake, BC, and Georgia Tech I think there will be enough of an argument to let us in come the tournament.

The envelope please…