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Sunday, January 8, 2006
Tech displays a clear case of composure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Let’s get this out of the way: As the howling increased and the seconds decreased Sunday inside the lovely madhouse that was Alexander Memorial Coliseum, the youngsters of Georgia Tech used clutch plays on offense and defense to shock the veterans of Boston College for the Yellow Jackets’ biggest basketball upset since they silenced the Cameron Crazies two seasons ago at Duke.
Now forget all of that, because what made this Tech’s most successful victory in years is what happened after the game.
Nothing. Not for the Tech players who calmly sauntered off the court with barely the hint of a smile despite the stands emptying onto the court around them in a delirious scramble.
Nothing. Not since Tech’s next game against something called Centenary is followed by a bunch of real teams on the road at North Carolina State and Wake Forest before the Jackets meet the formidable likes of Clemson, Maryland at home and Boston College on the road.
Nothing. Not with these Tech players maturing enough to realize that their fifth win in their past six games only means something to historians and to those in the ACC who don’t realize that staying with yesterday can get you beat today.
“I told the guys last week after we beat Vanderbilt to just calm down. You can’t have that swagger,� said Tech’s Jeremis Smith, among three sophomores in a starting lineup that includes a freshman and a lone senior. Actually, Smith only gave part of the reason why the Jackets responded with more shrugs than hugs after defeating their 11th-ranked visitors picked to finish second behind only Duke in the conference. Here’s the rest of the reason, provided by fellow sophomore Anthony Morrow: To those in Tech’s relatively mellow locker room, this wasn’t an upset.
Said Morrow, “Coach [Paul] Hewitt during the course of practice before games, he breaks things down so much for us to let us know that, no matter who you play, if you play them the right way, it shouldn’t be a surprise that you beat them. You play with a high level of energy. You go hard. You box out, rebound, defend, and you win.�
Sounds like what just happened to push Tech to a 60-58 victory, an 8-4 record overall and 2-0 in the conference. In other words, despite the Jackets losing their top six players from a group that reached the Final Two in 2004 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament last season, they expect to do nothing less than what they did to Boston College.
That is, the Jackets played stifling defense down the stretch of the first half to turn an eight-point deficit into an eight-point advantage early in the second half. As Boston College coach Al Skinner said of a Tech bunch that outrebounded his supposedly tougher Eagles 33-23, “They did a good job of bringing it to us physically. … They worked their tails off. They hustled.â€?
If that wasn’t enough, Tech freshman Lewis Clinch came off the bench after missing five games with a leg injury to nail a huge 3-pointer from the corner inside the final five minutes. Then there was Zam Fredrick, in his first year as the Jackets’ point guard, sinking his 3-pointer with 33 seconds left.
But back to Morrow, whose 15 points were nearly secondary to this: With Tech leading 58-55 after Fredrick’s bomb, Boston College tried to counter with one of its own from sharpshooter Tyrese Rice. The thing is, every time he sought to launch his 3-pointer from the corner, he kept facing every inch of Morrow’s 6-foot-5 stretching a few centimeters away. “Yeah, yeah,� said Morrow, easing into a chuckle. “I tried to make sure that he couldn’t even see. I wanted to keep my hands high so that he would have a hard time shooting over me.�
Then Morrow stopped chuckling, because he had a bigger point to make. “I know, myself, I can do better, because I did let Rice get a deep 3 at one point. Like Coach said, we’re still not clicking on all cylinders right now. So we can play better defense down the stretch.�
Translated: The streaking Jackets aren’t full of themselves.
Good.
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