I know people will bitch about how these pros from Europe are now coming over to play college ball. Well, every so often we get a guy like this. A guy like Neoklis Avdalas, a 19-year old at Virginia Tech, who stole the damn weekend. Everywhere I looked on Saturday night and into Sunday was this guy. People comparing him to skinny Luka or dubbing him the Greek God of college hoops, which is just an awesome nickname. A little long, but it works.
I get the Luka comparisons. It’s the stop and go movement, the way he uses his step back, all that stuff for sure mirrors Luka. Now, is it outrageous to call him that after 2 games? Yes. But this is college sports. No fan of college sports is a rational person. We want to freak out. We want to go nuts and forget that he went 3-for-13 against Charleston Southern. None of that matters because of the Providence game.
This is one of the best parts of having real games this early in the season. I love getting marquee matchups (like Arizona/Florida on night 1) early on. I don’t want rivalry games this early, but give me these massive nonconference games, even if they don’t mean ‘much’ at the time. Not saying VT/Providence is a marquee game, but it had Fanta on the call and it’s two high major programs. I’ll count it, it’s better than Charleston Southern. Then when you have a guy like Neoklis Avdalas go for 33, he becomes the talk of the sport. Give me guys like this all day, because now I feel invested into Virginia Tech. I need to see him play, well, VT doesn’t really play anyone since Atlantis sucks this year. But at least if they are on Monday nights during the ACC he’s worth watching.
