64 - 63 Virginia Tech's season got off to a rough start as they lost to USC Upstate 64-63 on Saturday. Virginia Tech did have a couple players missing as neither CJ Barksdale nor Marquis Rankin were in uniform. It's easy to see there is a country mile between the top of the ACC and the bottom of the ACC.
In the Coaches vs Cancer “these games don’t really matter because VT is advancing to the semis anyway” Classic, the Hokies lost to usc-upstate by a 64-63 score at the Cassell. It is going to be a loooooooooong season, Hokie fans.
The announcer said it best, “These are two evenly matched teams.” And they were. usc-upstate was above VT in the KenPom rankings (#130 vs #155). Tech, picked to finish dead last out of 15 teams in the ACC, and usc-upstate, picked to finish 3rd in the Atlantic Sun, were similarly talented teams. That in itself tells you all you need to know about the Hokies. There were 6 ties and 14 lead changes. VT and usc-u shot 39% and 37.5% from the field respectively, had 12 and 14 offensive rebounds each, and had 10 and 9 turnovers. Like I said, even steven. Tech was a little better from 3-point range (8/22 36% vs 5/16 31%) while VT was just 9/18 from the foul line (usc-u was 11/16).
