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Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Winning formula or a mirage?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you were watching the men’s basketball team play at Alabama on Saturday, I wouldn’t blame you for switching it off early.
Tech fell down by 30 with about nine minutes left, 73-43. Then a couple things happened.
The Tide let up, or at least lost some focus. And Tech woke up. The Jackets probably haven’t played harder all season than they did over the next eight minutes.
Not only were they trapping fullcourt and sprinting back on defense, the Jackets refused to allow an easy basket. They committed hard fouls at the rim, plus two intentional ones that angered the crowd.
Gani Lawal and Alade Aminu were scoring at will inside, Iman Shumpert hit a pair of threes, and the crowd was getting, if not antsy, then frustrated. Tech cut the deficit to 10 with about a minute to go.
Obviously it was too little, too late. But the question is whether the Jackets can bottle that energy and aggressiveness and bring it tonight against Georgia. And can they play that way against ACC teams?
“I’m hoping that what they saw in themselves, with the effort level we played at, the aggressiveness we played with, I told ‘em, That’s what it was like in the old days around here,” CPH said. “When we walked out of the building, everybody was like, those guys played hard. That’s the way it was every single time. We were not a team people liked to play against because it was a physical, tough pressing game.
“We went hard and put ‘em at the foul line, and that’s how you’re supposed to play basketball. If you want to be a winning team, any winning team contests plays at the rim really hard and they run back really hard every time.
“If we take anything out of this game, that’s how we’re supposed to play.”
It was a stark contrast to the end of the Virginia game, when the Cavaliers ran the ball “down our throat,” Hewitt added.
If nothing else, the way they finished allowed the Jackets to leave Tuscaloosa holding their heads up.
Do you think Tech found a successful formula, or was it just a mirage?
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