Duke Blue Devils-Virginia Tech Hokies Game Recap:Why Seth Greenberg Needed a "T"

During the halftime interview with the sideline reporter, Virgina Tech head coach, Seth Greenberg, took this subtle dig at the officiating:

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“Well, we need to do a better job avoiding fouls. Malcolm Delaney seemed like he picked up two fouls in warm-ups”.

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Ha. Ha. Watching the game it was tough to argue that the Devils didn’t get a little bit of home-cooking. When you come into Cameron Indoor you know it’s going to be an uphill battle, because you aren’t going to get very many whistles. It’s one of the unwritten rules of college basketball.

That’s part of the game and because of it, I’m a big believer in the art of drawing a strategic technical foul as a coach when the whistles aren’t going your way in a hostile environment. It doesn’t get any more hostile than Cameron Indoor. Get T’d up and get everyone’s attention. This is how I would have done it.

First, Greenberg should have probably eschewed the halftime interview and walked up the tunnel jawing with the officials about his super-star having been on the wrong end of three relatively weak fouls. Then when the first call that goes against you in the second half, draw the big T and get your money’s worth.

The results are that it’ll probably garner your club a few 50/50 calls they wouldn’t normally get. It will also rally your team together in an “us vs. them” type mentality for the rest of the contest. If it doesn’t work, you were probably going to get run out of the ballgame anyway.

Don Haskins was a master at picking up the strategic technical especially when his clubs were on the road in hostile WAC road environments like the Pit in Albuquerque, Provo and Salt Lake City, Utah. The University of New Mexico, BYU and Utah always seem to get the benefit of the whistles at home and “the Bear”, as the late UTEP coach was known, always had something for the home team and their officials.

As for tonight’s game, I don’t think the officiating really cost the Hokies against Duke. Tech just didn’t do a good enough job ringing the bell and a lot of that had to do with the near perfect execution of Coach K’s defensive scouting report. The Devils paid most of their attention on Delaney and helped to him from a variety of different spots on the floor, keeping the ACC superstar wing uncomfortable and guessing where the help was coming from.

When Delaney went to the hole, the Devils either were in a position to take a charge or they hammered him to dissuade further jaunts to the rack. The macro gameplan was to make someone other than Delaney carry the water, and no one else stepped up.

The result? Delaney finished with a putrid 5-19 from the field, 3 assists, and 4 turnovers.

As for the Devils offense, Coach K might want to keep an eye on the minutes his backcourt has been logging, because they’ve struggled with dead legs in the last two games it seems. Scheyer is now 7-34 in his last two games and he’s averaging nearly 36 minutes a contest. In the same time frame, Nolan Smith is 12-31 with 6 turnovers and he’s playing almost as many minutes as Scheyer.

Duke really needs Andre Dawkins to give them ten productive guard minutes per ballgame or the starting backcourt is going fatigue their way to an unexpected loss, perhaps costing the Blue Devils a shot at a one seed.

With four games remaining, the only thing standing in the way of Duke running the regular season table is a roadie at Maryland. You can be sure that Gary Williams will be channeling his inner Don Haskins for that one.

This article was written by Kevin Berger of March To March

Follow Kevin on Twitter: @MarchToMarch