The Virginia Tech men's basketball team is squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble. It could pop at any moment. That is what makes every game so big. This upcoming game on Saturday against Duke might be the biggest of them all to date in terms of building an NCAA Tournament résumé.
However, nobody is denying that Virginia Tech could be in a much better position for the 68-team field if it had taken care of business in close games earlier this month. Buzzer-beater losses to Wake Forest, Stanford, and SMU have the Hokies on the bubble. Reverse those results, and they're comfortably in the field.
In most of those losses, the Hokies held a lead that seemed good enough to win, only to blow it. They avoided a meltdown last week at Syracuse, thanks in part to the Orange running out of time. On Tuesday night at Cassell Coliseum, Virginia Tech led visiting Georgia Tech by 15 points with just over four minutes remaining when, well, it almost happened again.
Mike Young again has to address his teams inability to close out close games
In true Virginia Tech fashion this month, the Hokies nearly blew yet another big late-game lead. Georgia Tech went on an 11-0 run and eventually closed within two points in the final few seconds. Turnovers, missed free throws, and poor offensive possessions led to the Yellow Jackets coming back. In the end, Virginia Tech was able to close it out, but after the game, head coach Mike Young had to address the late-game troubles again.
"I got the most poised, smart basketball team that I've had in a long, long time. And we are anything but poised and smart down the stretch,'' said Young. "We'll get better."
Young is deflecting the attention away from the players, but truth be told, he's not inbounding the ball, missing free throws, or taking bad shots. It's almost like Virginia Tech wants to run 30 seconds off the clock before giving the ball over to their opponents. That's what it felt like against the Yellow Jackets.
Going forward, if this team doesn't clean up its end-of-game execution, then they'll be on the outside looking in for the NCAA Tournament, and they'll have no one to blame but themselves. They have a golden chance to pick up some Quad 1 wins in the next month, but closing out games if they have the opportunity is a must.