From all acounts the Hokies season will not continue in any post season tournament. They are far from being eligible for the NCAA tourney and it looks like the NIT will also pass them by considering their losing record. The school stated that it would not accept an invitation to the CBI or the Collegeinsiders.com tournament. While that decision is a little confusing considering a team with four freshmen could use every bit of time on the court they can get, I can see why these guys might be ready to pack it in and look forward to next year.
As we all know this was a tough year for the Hokies and while being in almost every game proves to be the silver lining heading into next year, it makes the losses that much harder to swallow when you know they were close enough to win if they just had a little more help. They only lose a couple of players this year, although they are big contributors in terms of minutes points and rebounds. Dorenzo Hudson is really going to be missed, although his career never blew up into what we thought it would be following the '09-'10 he was still a leader and provided some late game heroics for this year's team. He is one of my favorite Hokies and hopefully he can find some work overseas and continue his career on the court. Victor Davila is the other big loss and although he was missing for the last couple of game s of the year due to a hamstring injury, he will also be missed. Victor showed how good Greenberg is at developing talent in my opinion. In his freshman year he was extremely raw, as most freshman are, but I don't think anyone expected the improvement in Davila offensively through out his career and especially in his senior year. I will personally miss seeing that hook shot next year. He should be able to find work overseas as well. The only other seniors were Joey Racer and r-senior J.T. Thompson who will eligible to play next year after spending two years off due to injuries to his knees. Racer was a walk-on who received a scholorship for the second half of the year after performing well in practice. He didn't receive hardly any playing time but I am sure the team will miss him.
Next year I look for some big things for this team and I expect the media to put some pressure on this group as well. More than likely Erick Green will be a pre-season all ACC pick and Dorian Finney-Smith might get mention for the second team. Also they add two freshmen forwards in Montrezl Harrell and Marshall Wood, both of whom are well respected and should push for playing time early. Also J.T. Thompson will be looking to prove he can still play and be a high energy player. I hope he is able to do that as most of us remember the kind of effect he could have on a game in his freshman and sophomore seasons. I am sure there will be a couple more walk-ons added and hopefully they can pick up some more depth at guard so Erick Green might be able to rest a bit and have more energy at the end of games. I am not sure that we will have the depth that all of us yearn for but the talent should be better and I think there will be more "starters" on the bench than in years past. Next year should be just as exciting and hopefully we end up on the right end more often than not. Go HOKIES!
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