Don’t mess with Seth

Story by Chris Graham
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Don’t try to ask Seth Greenberg about the two-game suspension of freshman power forward Jeff Allen. Because he will get upset – and let you know it.

Greenberg and Mark Berman of The Roanoke Times had a minor tete-a-tete over the Allen suspension on the coach’s weekly teleconference earlier today.

The teleconference began with a disclaimer by an official from the ACC that Virginia Tech had released statements from Greenberg and Allen on the suspension and that Greenberg would not be speaking about the suspension during the Q and A or in the future.

So naturally the first question had to do with what Greenberg was going to do to his starting lineup for the Hokies’ upcoming games against Duke and Boston College – and then Berman jumped in to ask something more specific about the incident that led to the suspension.

“You had said after the game on Saturday that Jeff had told you that he was unsure – that he didn’t see the guy right away. So, um, did he later say …” Berman began his question.

“Do you want to talk about Duke? Is this question about Duke?” Greenberg interjected.
“… Deliberate?” Berman tried to continue.
“Is it about Boston College?” Greenberg asked Berman.
“Did he say something later to you that he …” Berman went on.
“Next question,” Greenberg said, and Berman’s line sounded like it went dead.

As to that other question, regarding who will replace Allen, who is averaging 12.8 points per game and 8.1 rebounds per game for the Hokies, Greenberg was equally noncommital.

“We’re evaluating that. What we’ve done all season long is we’ve basically looked at matchups and then decided what we were going to do with our starting lineup – and it’ll be no different for Thursday night or Saturday afternoon in that turnaround game. We’ll look and see at what gives us our best chance to be successful – defending Duke, handling the ball against their pressure, taking care of the basketball, and obviously we’ll make those decisions as this week goes along,” Greenberg said.

Chris Graham is the executive editor of The SportsDominion.