The No. 5 ranked Duke Blue Devils were tripped up in their ACC opener against the Hokies.
Virginia Tech and Duke were tied for a non-impressive minute to start the game. Neither team could find the bottom of the basket early on but a Chris Clarke made free throw put the Hokies up 1-0 and they didn’t look back from that point on.
Coming into this game the Hokies were 11-1 looking to upset a very talented Duke squad who didn’t have junior guard Grayson Allen due to him serving a suspension, he did however make the trip to Blacksburg with his team.
Justin Bibbs broke out of a season-long slump, hitting 6 of 9 from the field, including a season-high four three-pointers for the Hokies and the team went eight of 13 from three-point range.
“I feel like we can play against anybody, with anybody,” Bibbs said after the game. Virginia Tech has now won eight in a row, their last loss came against Texas A&M back on November 25, when the Hokies gave up a 17-point lead to lose by three.
“These kids, they didn’t give up. They worked hard. They deserve the credit,” head coach Buzz Williams said after the game.
Duke was the much bigger team but when you see that the Hokies equaled Duke’s 44 points in the paint and had more second chance points than Duke, it would be hard to believe that. Duke did however manage to grab more boards than the Hokies with a collective 41 holding Tech to just 33 rebounds.
“They are a big team,” Zach LeDay said. “Our fans though came out today and got behind us. We weren’t going to let anyone stop us from getting the win. We wanted to win. We needed this win.”
The way the Hokies started this game compared to most didn’t seem phase Williams, but he also noted his team isn’t where he wants them to be.
“I think that we started better today that we had in the previous two games, not only offensively, but I thought that we started better as far as our mentality and defensively,” Tech coach Buzz Williams said. “I thought there were gaps where the sustainability was better. I don’t think we’re to the point that we played 40 minutes, but I don’t know that any coach would say in game 13 that, ‘Yeah, that’s perfect.’ I think that we have a long way to go and the weight of this game is the same as the weight of our next game.”
Ahmed Hill had 17 points for the Hokies which shot 55.2 percent (32 of 58). Seth Allen and Justin Robinson both finished with 12 points each.
“Hill will go down as one of my favorite human beings of all time,” Williams said. “He may be the toughest human being that I have ever known. Is he a good player, maybe. The accountability and the unspoken leadership that he brings to our team is the best I have seen in my 23 years as a coach.”
While not giving all the credit to the Hokies, Duke’s head coach Mike Krzyzewski did say that Tech played as well as they have for the majority of the season.
‘Virginia Tech has been playing really good basketball — continuity, good eight-man rotation, feed off of one another,” Krzyzewski said. “We played like we’ve been playing — without continuity. We haven’t played well since before exams, and that continued.”
The frustration was there for Krzyzewski — it was his teams only second loss of the season, but it wasn’t the way he or his staff wanted to open conference play.
As for Allen, Krzyzewski had nothing to say.
“Right now, I don’t want to talk about Grayson,” Krzyzewski said. “He was part of the loss today by not being there. Instead of tri-captains, we’ve eliminated him from being a captain of the team.”
The Hokies haven’t been ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 since November 2010 but they have received votes in every poll this season, but have not cracked the Top 25. To say the least, they should be there when it released on Monday.
Virginia Tech travels to Raleigh, North Carolina for just its second true road game of the season when it takes on North Carolina State on Wednesday. The Hokies haven’t won in Raleigh since 2011.
Meanwhile the Blue Devils will look to rebound when it returns home to face Georgia Tech on Wednesday. The Yellow Jackets earned their first win in the ACC with a 75-63 win over No. 9 North Carolina.
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