No. 11 Virginia Tech Hits a Dead End, Gets Routed by No. 14 Notre Dame 82-53
No. 11 Virginia Tech (24-7, 14-4 ACC) suffered a beatdown against Notre Dame (25-6, 13-5 ACC) Saturday afternoon inside Greensboro Coliseum by a final score of 82-53.
Kenny Brooks was “Obviously disappointed” and stated that it “was not our night. I don't think we played well, especially well enough to advance to the ACC championship game.”
The Hokies just didn’t have the juice they needed to continue their run in the ACC Tournament, and with the status of Elizabeth Kitley’s injury still hanging in the balance, they have a lot to process as the NCAA tournament looms.
“We'll get back at it," said Brooks. "We'll get back at it and we'll get back to what we do best and get ready for the NCAA Tournament.”
After the near 30-point loss for Kenny Brooks and his squad, the period of playing the same ACC teams week in and week out is over, which he says brings excitement back to the season and gives something new to look forward to.
“We'll regroup. I think this is a time of year -- I'm excited. It's like a new energy,” said Brooks. “I'm tired of playing against the same teams in the ACC. I'm tired of the same officials.
“I'm excited to see something new. I want to see some new officials. I want to see some new teams. I want to see some new everything.”
Something that wasn’t new in this game was the scoring prowess of Georgia Amoore, who once again led all scorers and dropped her second 20+ point performance in just as many games in the tourney.
Another constant to keep Hokie Nation upbeat was the play of Olivia Summiel. Dropping 10 points and grabbing 18 rebounds, she displayed her tenacity on the court all the way through the game, no matter what the score.
Now, with some of the positives, there sure were more negatives for the Hokies in this one. They shot an abysmal 21-of-70 (30.0%) from the field, including 8-of-28 (28.6%) from long range, and committed 14 turnovers.
It just shows how much the presence of Kitley means to this Tech squad, and that’s exactly why if she is not available for the NCAA tournament, the Hokies may not go as far as they previously thought.
Moving on from this game is paramount, and Amoore is a key contributor to this ideology.
“It's easy to get down and negative and think about all the bad things, but really we have to adapt a kick-us-forward mentality,” said Amoore. “Clearly we didn't play well, and it's going to be blatantly obvious on film.
“We did stupid stuff, and if we eliminated half of that, then it would have been a more interesting game. If we had made more shots, it would have been an interesting game.”
With the Hokies getting eliminated from the ACC tournament, a much larger and more challenging NCAA tournament approaches in just under 10 days. The break between games will be a first for Virginia Tech in quite a bit and should give them, especially Kitley, time to regroup and potentially have one more big run this season.
