Tough night last night, but probably even tougher watching some of the ledge-jumping going on from the fan base in the middle of November.

There were a few issues coming into the season that weren't really a secret. But the first two games masked those deficiencies due to the caliber of the opponent. None of the issues have anything to do with free throw shooting...

1) A very average team in terms of half court offense

Buzz doesn't have a specific offensive system designed to generate easy buckets. That's not who he is, and that's not the identity of his teams. He is a lot stronger in other areas, however. If you don't have a scheme or a gimmick to generate points, then you have to have guys in the half court who are just better than the guy in front of them and have a mindset of getting a bucket when needed. VT also doesn't have enough of those type of guys, and the one they do have is young and hasn't found out (yet) how he can generate offense within the framework of what the Hokies are doing offensively.

NAW definitely has the potential to be one of those guys. Kerry Blackshear and Justin Robinson have both shown flashes of being that guy, but are probably fringe at best at this point.

So where does VT generate points? In transition and off of quick ball movement.

VT is an elite team in transition, pushing the ball ahead with the pass and putting pressure on the defense immediately after turnovers and long misses. They have a plethora of players who can get out and run (and finish) in transition. Chris Clarke, Ahmed Hill, Justin Robinson, and NAW are all elite in transition and a headache for opposing head coaches.

VT did not get out in transition last night, due to a couple things:

A) VT forced 8 live-ball turnovers last night, and turned them into 14 points. That's 1.75 points per possession (Davidson leads the nation in half court scoring at 1.48 ppp)

The Hokies had 55 possessions last night that weren't the result of a live ball turnover, and they scored 57 points on those possessions (1.03 points per possession). That kind of efficiency would place them 120th in the nation.

B) Justin Robinson early foul trouble. J-Rob had to sit for big chunks of minutes early on with foul trouble, and then again after he got injured on a layup. This led to Devin Wilson sliding over at PG. Devin is a very good passer, but isn't very aggressive in his thinking once the ball changes possession. This led to less opportunities to push even after made buckets. Which, in turn, leads to more possessions against a set defense (and St Louis is pretty good on their own defensively).

2) The second, and arguably the biggest issue, last night was no ball movement. VT typically does a good job moving the ball and making the defense work from one side of the floor to the other. They did not do so last night. Some of you may remember in the articles I wrote last year that the "magic number" for taking the pulse of the offense was 13 assists. When you get 13+ assists, the numbers definitely show that you're significantly more likely to win.

Last season:

When VT got 13+ assists, their W-L record was 18-6

When VT didn't get 13+ assists, they were 4-5

Last night they got less than 13. That doesn't mean the extra assist magically makes you a winner, just a means to taking the temperature for what plagued the offense, and if it's less than 13, you didn't move the ball well enough (regardless of the number of missed shots).

Lastly, for all the FT worry-warts out there...VT is currently 56th in the nation in FTs made per 100 possessions, certainly not sky-is-falling numbers. FTs are all about chance, you can either shoot them or you can't. Spend too much time worrying about free throws and you'll miss the bigger issues of what is plaguing your team. FTs are about 14th on the list of things VT needs to fix as the season moves along