And he's a genius because he can get these guys to execute a game plan. So, on the road vs ranked team without your senior PG and minimal depth, what do you do? You hold the ball. Easily said, but hard to do with a team used to running a smooth flowing offense looking to take the first good shot. And a couple of freshmen in Wilkins and Kabongo forced into playing more in an ACC match than they bargained for.

I went through the play by play on ESPN and noted our time of possession every time we gained the ball and separated them into two primary categories that really stood out to me:

1) Normal - This means VT gains possession and I basically just counted the time until VT made a shot or gave up a rebound. I did not include turnovers here because I only wanted to include possessions where we executed our plan.

2) Steals - these are usually quick change of possessions where VT likes to push the pace.

1) Normal Possessions
There were 48 normal possessions. Of these, only 10 possessions lasted less than 20 seconds and only 2 of those lasted less than 10 seconds. So VT held the ball to single digits on the shot clock on 38 of 48 normal possessions and took a shot within 10 seconds about 5% of the time. NO TEMPO

In the first half, VT had 23 normal possessions, which averaged 23 seconds per possession. In the second half, VT averaged an astounding 25.6 seconds per possession. So if you thought the offense looked sluggish, you are right, but it had to be by design.

2) Steals

VT had 8 steals. And when VT steals, VT runs, right? Not today. Only one single steal resulted in a shot within 10 seconds and it was a made 3 pointer. The other 7 steals all resulted in an average possession of 19.8 seconds. That's running the shot clock down close to 10 seconds on 87.5% of our steals. Wowcomposure

My final takeaway came on VTs efficiency on its shorter possessions vs its longer possessions.

So between steals and normal possessions, VT had 15 total possessions that lasted less than 20 seconds and resulted in a FG attempt. Shooting with more than 10 seconds on the clock has to be good, right? Yep, VT shot 8 for 15 on these possessions. Which of course means that VT shot 8 for 34 on possessions lasting longer than 20 seconds.

However, VT played Med, NAW and Bede for 40 minutes, so Buzz had to limit possessions as much as possible by using the shot clock when he had the ball. Mission accomplished. NC State made it easy by having a terrible day but Buzz had a plan and it worked. I feel pretty strongly that had this game been close late, VT would have been much more aggressive in their possessions. But we didn't need to so we ran a ton of clock in the second half.

I don't know, maybe it doesn't mean much but I was interested in how we managed the clock today.


[Post edited by hokieZ71 at 02/02/2019 9:14PM]