Virginia Tech and North Carolina sure can be happy that they’ll be meeting Monday night in Chapel Hill, N.C.
One of them should have a good result after a rough weekend.
The Hokies (10-8, 2-5 Atlantic Coast Conference) appeared on a roll with consecutive victories before stumbling Saturday at Boston College.
The Tar Heels (12-6, 4-3), in turn, were a victim twice last week of blowouts, falling at Miami and at Wake Forest.
North Carolina has lost back-to-back ACC games by 20-or-more points for the first time in 20 years.
“Get back to preparation, get back to practice,” first-year Tar Heels coach Hubert Davis said. “Get ready to play a quality opponent in Virginia Tech on Monday. There is no other option. This past week was not a good week for us.”
There wasn’t a positive response from the Tar Heels in the Wake Forest game, but there’s another chance for a better bounce-back performance.
“You can get back up and keep fighting — or start fighting,” Davis said. “Get ready for this upcoming week. That’s just automatic for me.”
Virginia Tech made only one of its last seven shots in the 68-63 loss at Boston College. But a bigger problem might have surfaced with the rebounding. Boston College outrebounded the Hokies 38-23.
So it was something else to add to coach Mike Young’s list of concerns.
“That hasn’t been something that I thought, ‘Man, we have to shore that up.'” Young said.
North Carolina’s problems defensively might be seeping into the offensive end. The Tar Heels have shot 40.3 percent from the field in the games that they’ve lost.
“We can shoot better than this,” Davis said. “During the last couple of games, teams have been more physical. From a defensive standpoint, they’ve been more physical and geared toward making it more difficult for Armando (Bacot) to dominate down low in the paint.”
Bacot is averaging 19.9 points and 14.1 rebounds in ACC games.
North Carolina is 9-0 in home games.
This is a make-up game from a postponed meeting Dec. 29 because of COVID-19 issues within the Virginia Tech program. With the reconfigured schedule, this will begin a stretch of three straight North Carolina home games in six days.
“We’ll take it one day and one game at a time,” Davis said.
–Field Level Media