BLACKSBURG—With 12:40 left in yesterday’s game against North Carolina State, A.D. Vassallo took a moment to catch his breath, then looked up at the scoreboard. His Virginia Tech team trailed by 18 points.

BLACKSBURG—Ever since he was young, Jeff Allen has played basketball games while showing the facial expression of a man mowing his lawn. Not a smile nor a scowl. Just an emotionless wall that prevents observers from determining whether he’s happy or frustrated, intense or lazy. Seth Greenberg, Allen’s coach at Virginia Tech, usually watches him during the first few possessions to decide whether he is engaged in the action. It quickly became apparent to Greenberg and everyone else at Cassell Coliseum yesterday that Allen was not only engaged in the game against Boston College, but was also as versatile and dominant as he’s been since he arrived at Tech last season.

BLACKSBURG—The ball had barely left Jeff Allen’s hand, as Allen slammed it through the hoop, when Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg began raving on the sideline. He bent his knees and stomped his right foot. He scrunched his face and waved his arms maniacally. “Let’s go!“ he screamed. Through a narrow view, it would be difficult to decipher whether Greenberg was furious or happy. This season already has given him plenty of reasons to vent his frustrations.

BLACKSBURG Adrian Autry’s duties as Virginia Tech’s director of basketball operations mainly involve thankless, behind-the-scenes tasks such as travel arrangements. He isn’t allowed to coach on the court during games or practices. But Tech coach Seth Greenberg has used Autry as a valuable resource this season for learning about zone defense, which is not Greenberg’s specialty.

As Virginia Tech has navigated its nonconference schedule in the past month and a half, often in unimpressive fashion, Hokies coach Seth Greenberg frequently faced the question of whether his team was ready for its ACC opener at Duke.

BLACKSBURG—Even after A.D. Vassallo hit the game-tying 3-pointer with 7 seconds left last night and the Cassell Coliseum crowd roared around him, he settled his nerves and told himself to hurry up, get back on defense. He remembered Virginia Tech’s Nov. 21 game against Xavier, during which the Hokies celebrated a put-back that gave them a two-point lead, then paid for it moments later when the Musketeers beat the buzzer with a game-winning half-court heave.

The locker room atmosphere felt somewhat subdued after Virginia Tech’s 62-57 win Monday night over Mount St. Mary’s—the Hokies’ second consecutive closer-than-expected victory.