1. Considering the level of competition, this is the team's best performance of the year. How they managed to do it is the column I'd have written if I were Reusse, but I'm not.
2. I apologize for everything I've said about Elliott. There's a player in there. His defense didn't surprise me, though. He's been solid and shown good footwork all year.
3. I'm coming around to the idea that one of the worst things you can do for a team is to play people out of position and against their strengths. It creates an unbalanced and mismatched lineup with holes in capability. That was true of Hoffarber last year, and it's been true of Williams this year. Tragic as it is, the loss of Mbakwe allows Rodney to start at a more natural position, and tonight he thrived. I'm really hopeful about the rest of his season at the 4.
4. I've been raving about Austin H's defense, but Andre H deserves some credit. Guarding Green was no easy assignment, and he lost his man a few times. But I noticed some detail things in the way he was playing him that tells me he knows how the defensive game is played. With some experience he could be really good.
5. Chip has an absolutely horrendous free throw motion. Something must be done about it.
6. You should have heard the griping in my section about the perimeter defense leaving shooters wide open and double teaming non-threats. I had to break it to them that the defense is designed that way and it can't change. As I've noted before, Austin Hollins is the only player out there who has the smarts, instincts and anticipation to play the ball-line the way it needs to be played. A box-and-one would have looked pretty good tonight.
7. Beating the Hokies is all fine and good, but we're going to be in a world of hurt in the Big Ten if we don't start making free throws and perimeter shots better than this.
