Hokies Won't See Grayson Allen
When the Virginia Tech Hokies and Duke Blue Devils meet in a week the Hokies won’t be focused on Grayson Allen.
It was announced on social media that the Duke Blue Devils have suspended junior guard, Grayson Allen.
This isn’t Allen’s first tripping incident, matter of fact it his third and it cost his team a technical foul but not the game as Duke went on to defeat Elon, 72-61.
Duke’s head coach Mike Krzyzewski released this statement on Thursday:
“We have had the opportunity to thoroughly review the incident involving Grayson Allen from last night’s game against Elon,” coach Krzyzewski said. “As I stated last night, the incident was unacceptable and inexcusable. He took an important step last night by apologizing in person to Steven Santa Ana and Coach Matt Matheny.”
Give Allen credit there, he did take a nice step forward in apologizing but it makes it hard for anyone to back Allen when this isn’t the first time this has happened.
Krzyzewski went on to say, “As a program, we needed to take further steps regarding his [Allen] actions that do not meet the standards of Duke Basketball. To that end, we have determined that he will be suspended from competition for an indefinite amount of time.”
After the game, Allen was emotional with reporters, not trying to make eye contact.
“I made a really bad play. I’m sorry to him, Santa Ana,” Allen said after the game. “I’m sorry to the officials who had to call that. I’m sorry to my team. It was selfish and taking away from them. I’m not proud of that at all.”
Duke’s next game will open ACC play when they travel to Blacksburg, Virginia to face a very much improved Hokies basketball squad led by Zach LeDay.
In order for the Hokies to defeat a Allen-less Duke team, they will have to come out firing on all cylinders, something they haven’t done the last two games.
Even though the Hokies haven’t started hot in their last two games in the first half, they’ve managed to defeat their opponents in the second half with dominating play.
Hokies head coach Buzz Williams says that the team must quit playing themselves.
“The opponent is us,” Williams said after his team defeat Charleston Southern by 28 on December 20.
When the Hokies take the court at home on December 31, the opponent will be Duke — Virginia Tech must play Duke and not themselves.
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