The good news for Virginia Tech men’s basketball is that it continues to fight hard and compete. The bad news is the Hokies continue to lose, dropping their seventh straight game on Saturday night at No. 19 Clemson, 51-50.
A massive opportunity to get their season back on track was wasted as Hunter Cattoor missed a game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds as a late Tigers’ rally gave the ACC leaders another key victory in their pursuit of the ACC regular season crown.
While there are still slim chances of making the NCAA Tournament, this is a team that just hasn’t had the fortune of staying healthy, but they have managed to compete. Now having gone over a month without a win, they’ve lost by figures of five, two, three, four and one aside from the 10-point losses to both Syracuse and Virginia.
Against Clemson,it was a defensive battle where Tech played its best defense in weeks, but a five-point lead at the half evaporated after the Hokies scored just 19 points in the entire second half.
“Everybody’s down because we’re on a losing streak,” guard MJ Collins said. “We’re just going to keep fighting.
“It’s a long season. We can turn this thing around, which I believe we’re going to do.”
Tech shot 34.6 percent from the field but just 27.3 percent from range, though the latter was superior to the 16.7 percent Clemson hit from deep. The hosts hit the one that mattered most though as Hunter Tyson hit the game-winner with about 15 seconds to go. He and PJ Hall (20 points) combined for 32 of Clemson’s 51 points on the night.
“We’ve got five or six possessions a game that we talk about the easy play … the nickel-and-dime play, the ball reversal, where we’re trying to square peg-round hole it. We don’t have that kind of margin for error right now,” Tech coach Mike Young said.
“We’re not going to be perfect. But those five possessions, we’ve got to have better activity. We’ve got to have better screening. We’ve got to have better ball reversal.
“You turn the page. You move on. This is … the hand we’ve been dealt. We’ve got a really good Duke team coming in on Monday. Be nice to get home after three straight on the road.”
Tech’s losing streak is the longest since 2015 under Buzz Williams, and the 1-7 league record is the worst since Williams’ first season in Blacksburg. Despite hitting rock bottom in terms of results, Young remains optimistic.
“We’ve got 12 more. Pretty good time to win a few in a row,” he said.
But for the players, this is loss that has stung the most.
“This one hurts, but we’ve really just got to move on,” said Tech center Lynn Kidd. “We’ve got a quick turnaround.
“We can’t get discouraged … We’ve gone toe-to-toe with a lot of good teams.”
Grant Basile was the only Tech starer to score in double figures with 13. Justyn Mutts had eight points, five rebounds and seven assists, while Kidd had 10 points off the bench.
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