Vermont got off to a nightmare start and never recovered, getting steamrolled by Virginia Tech on the road. Nothing was falling for Cats and everything was falling to the Hokies in the first half as Vermont got down 28-4 to start the game. The nightmare was worsened by the fact the Shamir Bogues re-aggravated his foot injury, tried to play through it, and then sat for the rest of the game. The Cats have looked sluggish in back to back games and are missing that toughness and spark they were playing with during the first month off the season. This game was going to be a tall task no matter what, but became a near impossible one with such a disastrous opening 10 minutes. The coaching staff did a nice job using the rest of the game as an opportunity to both get some messages across to the regulars and give some playign time to the bench. It was a good opportunity to let the young guys play through mistakes in a highly competitive but low stakes situation.
Nick Fiorillo led the Cats with 13 points and continues to provide a nice spark off the bench for the Cats. TJ Hurley had some nice buckets in the second half and finished with 9 points. Seth Joba finally got a perimeter shot to fall and Jackson Skipper got his first shot at extended minutes in a Catamount uniform. Matt Veretto looks like a completely different player following his eye injury and it is certainly a concern for the Cats. Bogues was hobbled in the first half and does not have the same burst as he is very obviously not at 100%.
Not the best way to start the road trip and there is no time to wallow as they face a very tough Toledo squad on Wednesday. The Rockets are a high flying, high scoring team that likes to get up and down so it will be a very different type of game than the one they played in this evening. Every non-conference slate there is a game where you learn a lot about a teams mentality and I think this next game at Toledo is the one on this year's schedule. The Cats have to regroup and recapture that spark.
