10 Thoughts On Virginia Tech

1. Not a great two-game showing in NYC from the basketball team though there were signs of life today against Virginia Tech that this could be a tournament team. A long way to go though, not really what any of us wanted to hear either..

2. Markel Brown’s two stat lines in NYC: 19-11-2-2-1 and 11-6-2-3-2. You can say he’s not OSU’s best player and conceivably be correct, but you cannot say he’s not their best player right now and be anywhere close to right.

3. It’s not good when “have Keiton dribble around until he pulls one or finds somebody open” is one of your top three offensive sets.

4. I feel like we’re going to have to trade ten out-of-control Cezar plays for every one top ten highlight. Not sure that’s a trade I’m willing to make either. He and Nash should mix in a pick-and-roll every fifteenth possession or so, I think it would fit them nicely.

5. Reason I’m more excited about Marcus Smart than Le’Bryan Nash: Fran called him “maybe not the best player in the country, but the best winner.”

6. And speaking of Le’Bryan, he had three shots, three turnovers, and three fouls today. Not exactly what you want from your 5-star savior. I think this might actually be a good thing for a long run and I’ll try to write more about that next week. That’s called a tease for those of you unfamiliar wit the process. Not that anyone reading ten thoughts about a 3-2 basketball team that just got beat by a middling ACC basketball team on the day after Thanksgiving really needed a tease to read next week.

7. Speaking of Le’Bryan – I’m interested to see how he’s going to handle the forthcoming media onslaught about what’s wrong with him or why he isn’t playing well. Thankfully he has Bedlam and possibly a BCS bowl game to buffer some of it, but it’s definitely coming.

8. Not really going out on a limb here, but this team isn’t going to win a ton of games when it goes 3-18 from three point range.

9. Three people I really like after this week: Philip Jurick, Mike Cobbins, and Brian Williams. None will be stars, but all could be key cogs on this year’s team. My buddy Sheets texted me and said Williams reminds him of Glendon Alexander and I think that’s a pretty good comparison.

10. The energy in the second half was good, or at least better than in the first. Everybody started playing like, you know, they actually cared about being in New York and playing on national television. They get Virginia Tech again here in a few weeks, that game will be an intriguing barometer for how much this team is growing.

11. (Bonus) Mike Breen couldn’t figure out the Keiton Page/Ollie from Hoosiers correlation? Really? Was it that difficult?