Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg wants his team to play faster and with more energy, particularly at the end of games.
That will be especially important tonight when the Hokies, who have lost three straight, host No. 8 North Carolina at Cassell Coliseum.
The Tar Heels (15-3, 2-1 ACC) play as fast as any team in the country, and they average a nation-leading 85.2 points per game.
"We're not playing fast enough," Greenberg said. "We've got to get out in transition. Our wing guys are not running hard enough. They're not running deep enough. They're not giving us enough space to attack."
Tech (11-6, 0-3 ACC), a young team with four freshmen among its regular rotation, still hasn't found a way to win close games. Four of the Hokies' six losses, including their last three, have been decided by four or fewer points.
Tech, which is 6-19 against top 10 teams during Greenberg's nine seasons as coach, is trying to avoid its first four-game losing streak since 2005-06, the last season it didn't make the postseason.
"It's not like we're way off," Greenberg said. "It's just there are some things that are missing that we need to tighten up in terms of finishing games."
The Hokies will be bolstered by the likely return of junior guard Erick Green. Green, the team leader in points, assists and steals, missed Saturday's loss at Boston College with a sprained left knee.
Greenberg said Monday on his weekly radio show that he expects Green to play.
As Florida State showed with its 90-57 win at home over UNC on Saturday, the Tar Heels, who were a heavy favorite to win the national championship in the preseason, are vulnerable in certain areas.
The Seminoles turned up the pressure and forced 22 turnovers. They attacked UNC's perimeter defense and made 12 of their 27 attempts from 3-point range.
FSU played with the speed and energy level Greenberg wants to see from his players.
"You've got to see the ball and get back in transition. You've got to find the post early. You need to know who you're playing, personnel," Greenberg said. "You need to cut people off the glass when the ball goes into the low post because they do such a good job of getting to the glass on the back side."
Greenberg said his players are still developing into their roles. The Hokies' freshmen still are figuring out what it takes to win in one of the toughest conferences, and he'd like to see one of the upperclassmen step up and be a catalyst at the end of games.
"We've always had these young teams and we've always had one really high-energy player, whether it was Deron Washington or Bryant Matthews or Carlos Dixon. We don't have that high-energy guy to set the tone right now," Greenberg said.
"I like our team, and we'll continue to work and continue to really kind of get our guys to better understand how we need to play to win."
North Carolina, which hasn't lost back-to-back ACC games since the 2009-10 season, is coming off its most lopsided loss of the Williams coaching era.
Williams and his players were hard at work this week trying to correct what went wrong.
"They beat us in every phase of the game," Williams said of FSU. "We're not excited about the way we played, but we better be excited about getting better."
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