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Virginia Tech overpowered by North Carolina in 78-68 loss

Roger Gonzalez

virginia tech logoThe Virginia Tech men’s basketball team fell to 10-9 on the season and 2-6 in the ACC on Monday night after suffering a 78-68 loss at North Carolina. The Hokies were down just 37-33 at halftime, but they could not crawl their way back in the second half as the Tar Heels powered through to move to 13-6 overall and 5-3 in conference.

Five players scored in double figures for UNC, with Caleb Love scoring 22 points, going 9-for-11 from the line. RJ Davis had 15 points, Brady Manek also had 15, and Virginia native Armando Bacot had 14.

“This is hard. Hard for my team,” Tech coach Mike Young said. “We’re going to come through this thing, and when we do, it’s going to be beautiful. I thought we played well enough in a number of spots to win … [We] just didn’t handle the things down the stretch that we need to handle.”

UNC shot just 36.5 percent on the day but hit 10-of-25 from deep, while also converting 84.6 percent of its free throws. Tech shot 45.16 percent but still lost, failing to get to the line much at all while getting rebounded 43-32.

Keve Aluma (19 points) and Justyn Mutts (18 points) pulled their weight, as did Hunter Cattoor (13 points) and Nahiem Alleyne (10 points), but point guard Storm Murphy once again failed to provide consistent offense, finishing with just two points. The bench delivered just six points in another forgetful night for Young’s inconsistent squad.

Roger Gonzalez

Roger Gonzalez

Roger Gonzalez is freelancer for Augusta Free Press. A native of Connecticut that grew up in Charlottesville, he is a graduate of Virginia Tech. He currently is a sportswriter with CBS Sports and has written for The Daily Progress, The Roanoke Times and other newspapers before getting into the digital sports journalism world.