The 5 guys (3 injured, 1 sick, 1 MIA) absent from last night’s game v VT accounted for 50% of the team’s minutes & 59% of the team’s scoring. That’s 99.2 minutes out of 200 & 44.1 points out of 74, gone before tipoff. Beating any conference foe, even at home, with a team that depleted of contributing scholarship players is pretty remarkable. To make this win even more astounding to me is seeing 5 GT guys on the NCAA injury list but 0 VT guys, who played at full strength 10 men against our 7. And 2 of those 7 only accounted for 14 minutes, mostly to spell Souare, who still played 32 minutes. The other 4 starters played 37, 38, 39 & 40 minutes.
In press conferences CDS been saying he will not use injuries as an excuse and his badly shorthanded team is still talented & skilled enough to win, complimenting his players on hard play & defense. Honestly, I didn’t buy that, but understood he had to take that position to keep his team from just giving up altogether on the season. Well, the team bought it and that’s what counts. Don’t know whether this team will ever be fully healthy this season or how many more wins they can pull off so undermanned, but last night was a big WOW for me. Big time props to these young men and much maligned coaching staff. I don’t see many, if any, Division 1 teams that can compete or even make the effort to compete missing so many big contributors to minutes & scoring.
