Heartbreak

What looked to a dagger of a shot to Virginia Tech turned out instead to be a dagger to Florida State. Derwin Kitchen’s jumper from inside the arc along the right baseline was a millisecond too late leaving his finger tips. Instead of a game winning shot that saw the FSU bench rush to Kitchen to celebrate, the referees determined after several minutes via replay that the clock had gone off before the shot. Gene Deckerhoff described the heartbreaking loss this way. “The shot is no good. Virginia Tech wins 52-51. How did they do it? Count up the turnovers and that will tell you the story.” Deckerhoff was of course referring to the 20 turnovers by the Seminoles that led to 19 points for VT. But it was the one that occurred with just 25 seconds left in the game that proved to be the most crucial one of them all. After FSU called a timeout with 15 seconds left on the shot clock, Devidas Dulkys inbounded the ball to Michael Snaer. Tech promptly trapped Snaer and Jeff Allen ripped th...