NIT First Round Recap - Virginia Tech vs Quinnipiac

(1) Virginia Tech 81, (8) Quinnipiac 61

Teams that find themselves locked outside the NCAA Tournament candy store can either go home, or they can proceed to the corner deli. The food might not be as sweet, but it is nourishing.

To the credit of the Virginia Tech Hokies, they decided to take what they could instead of giving up early on their 2010 basketball season.

Yes, the above analogy might be too much like something Clark Kellogg is going to say when he sits alongside Jim Nantz over the next three weekends, but the point remains the same: Some NIT teams pout while others try to make the best of it. Based on this first-round game in Blacksburg, Va., it appears that coach Seth Greenberg - spurned by the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee on Sunday evening - has a team intent on getting to New York City for the NIT Final Four.

The Hokies - playing in front of a supportive but pained crowd at Cassell Coliseum - took care of business and acted like a No. 1 seed in an NIT subregional. The fourth-place team in the ACC - left out of the Big Dance despite 10 league wins - suffered because of its non-conference schedule. Virginia Tech evidently viewed this game against the regular-season champions of the Northeast Conference as a time to begin burnishing its credentials in intersectional encounters. The Hokies stormed to a 39-27 halftime lead and accumulated a 23-point bulge in the second half before coasting to the finish line.

The official stat line will show that Virginia Tech shot a reasonably good yet hardly spectacular 45 percent from the field, while the visiting Bobcats hit just 38 percent of their shots. Yet, those numbers are misleading in both sides of the equation. Virginia Tech's injured starter, Dorenzo Hudson, pushed through pain in his right foot and attempted 17 shots against Quinnipiac. Unfortunately, he made only five of those shots. Take away Hudson's 5-of-17 performance and Tech converted 24 of 47 field goals, just over 50 percent.

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As for Coach Tom Moore's Bobcats, the calculus cut in a different direction. Quinnipiac forward Justin Rutty excelled for the No. 8 seed in this section of the NIT draw. The junior from Newburgh, N.Y., hit 10 of 13 shots en route to 22 points. If you take away Rutty's stellar shooting, however, Quinnipiac hit just 14 of 50 shots, or 28 percent. Two individuals skewed the overall shooting statistics, and that tells you just how superior Virginia Tech proved to be.

WHAT'S NEXT

It has already been announced by those close to the Virginia Tech program that the Hokies' second-round NIT game against fourth-seeded Connecticut will take place on Monday, March 22, at 7 p.m. Eastern time. The game was, of course, slated for Cassell Coliseum because of Tech's higher seed, but the decision just came down that Monday night will be showtime in one of the NIT's best round-of-16 matchups. The battle of two supreme shotmakers, UConn guard Kemba Walker and Virginia Tech sharpshooter Malcolm Delaney, should be worth the price of admission alone.

By: Matt Zemek
ACC Fans Senior Staff Writer