Posted by BillFromTampa

Florida State hosts Virginia Tech Saturday night at 7:00 PM. After the Seminole’s disappointing loss at Clemson Wednesday night, this game takes on an added importance. Starting the ACC part of the schedule 0-2 with road games next week at Virginia and Boston College would zap a lot of the momentum FSU gained after the wins over Bowling Green and Nebraska.

In its first season as a member of the ACC the Hokies surprised many last season finishing the season 16-14, 8-8 with the highlight of the season knocking off the Duke Blue Devils. Certainly they have everyone’s attention this season. Even so VT, currently 10-4, has had some decent wins, close losses to quality teams, and a couple of disappointing losses.’,'Had it not been for a poor first half, VT might have knocked off undefeated Ohio State but instead lost 69-56. That preceded the one of the more exciting games of the season. A miracle 40 foot shot by Duke’s Sean Dockery at the buzzer robbed the Hokies of the upset losing 77-75.

Following that loss Virginia Tech proceeded to rattle off three straight wins that included St John’s at home and Stanford in La Vegas.

But then there was the loss to a pretty good Old Dominion team and in the second game of the season, AD Vassallo tipped in a missed shot into his own basket with three seconds left giving Bowling Green a 72-71 win in Blacksburg.

Despite losing leading scorer Carlos Dixon (graduation) and Marquie Cooke (dismissed) Tech returns a solid core of athletic and quick players who saw plenty of action last season.

Florida State will have to contend with rangy Zabian Dowdell, Jamon Gordon, and Markus Sailes.

Dowdell, a 6-3 200 lb junior, averages 14.7 ppg. He is the Hokies leading three point shooter with 30 and averages 39% from behind the arc, just slightly less than his 42% overall. Technically Dowdell is the point guard but splits much of that duty with Gordon.

Gordon is the better defender of the two even though Dowdell has the team leading 30 steals to Gordon’s 22. Also 6-3 and 200 lb, the junior is a bit of do everything type player. He is the leading playmaker with 73 assists and quite efficient when handling the ball committing just 28 turnovers. To go along with that, Gordon pulls down 5.5 rpg.

Sailes is a 6-5 210 lb junior who averages 5.4 ppg. He doesn’t shoot often but when he does he connects 50% of the time. Sailes also can cause problems when on defense as indicated by his 24 steals on the season so far.

Deron Washington and Coleman Collins man the post positions.

Washington (6-7, 195) averages 10.2 ppg and 5.3 rpg. The sophomore is an extremely athletic and active forward who has excellent leaping ability. He second to Collins in blocked shots with 17.

Junior forward Collins is the focus of the Hokies offense. At 6-9 235 lb, he averages 18.2 ppg and is coming off a career high 32 points against James Madison. In addition to being the leading shot blocker (19), he is the team’s leading rebounder pulling down 8.4 rpg.

Neither forward is any kind of threat from the deep perimeter.

Injuries to forward Wynton Witherspoon and seven footer Robert Krabbendam as well as the dismissal of freshman Hyman Taylor have left Virginia Tech’s bench short. Bench scoring is an issue.

Forwards AD Vassallo and Cheick Diakite, both freshmen, as well as junior Chris Tucker all see time on the floor combining for 8.9 ppg and 5.4 rpg. Shawn Harris, a senior guard, has also seen playing time with 2.0 ppg and .4 rpg.

As a team VT averages 70.7 ppg shooting 47% from the floor. Unlike Clemson, the Hokies do not launch a lot of three point shots. Tech averages 4.6 made three pointers per game on 195 shots (33%) from the arc. Also free throw shooting is not an especially strong point as reflected by 66% rate.

By contrast FSU is shooting 50% from the floor, 35.7% from the arc, and also is 66% from the line. Hopefully the game won’t come down to a free throw shooting contest. It could get ugly if it does.

Tech is good however at getting up and down the floor and uses pressure defense to create better than 16 turnovers per game. They are holding opponents to 39% shooting and even better from the bonus sphere at 30%.

Defensively Florida State is allowing 39% from the floor and 33% behind the arc but have allowed 7.5 three pointers per game by its opponents.

The shot clock should not be an issue in this game and it is very doubtful that Tech will employ a similar slowdown strategy similar to Clemson.

Last season FSU won the only meeting between the two teams by a score of 77-70 behind Von Wafer’s 21 points.

The game is to be shown on FSN.