AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2009 > January > 15
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Recapping Duke
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The hope was that having Lewis Clinch, Maurice Miller and Zachery Peacock in the lineup together for the first time this season would help solve Georgia Tech’s problems. The problem is a little bigger than that.
Peacock, who missed last Saturday’s game against Maryland because of severe indigestion, actually played pretty well. He shot 5-for-7 from the field, 3-for-4 from the line, six rebounds, two blocks against two turnovers in 29 minutes.
Miller, out a few weeks with a broken nose and playing his second game with a mask, made all three of his three-point field goal attempts after he’d missed his first 21 of the season. Clinch, out for the first semester because of grades, shot and passed better.
The team defended Duke pretty well - the Devils shot 39.0 percent from the field, which was their season-low, although it seemed in the first half that they were just not shooting well.
But I think you’ve seen different versions of Wednesday night’s game before. They made twice as many turnovers as Duke. They were horrendous at the free throw line. They couldn’t, or didn’t, get the ball into Gani Lawal as much as they probably should have.
(For what it’s worth, this is most of what Mike Krzyzewski said about Lawal after the game. I alluded to it in the game story. “He’s good. He’s gotten really strong. You can tell that kid’s really worked. I don’t think anybody I’ve seen - and I know I haven’t seen everybody - I don’t think anybody runs the floor quicker than Lawal. He goes from the defensive end to the offensive end real fast. He’s a big-time player.”)
Paul Hewitt made an interesting observation after the game - Duke only made two more baskets and one more three-pointer than Tech did.
The problem was that, in part because the Devils had so many more chances (and shoot free throws a lot better), they made nine more free throws. (Duke was 16-for-27 and Tech was 7-for-19) (Just so we’re clear, he didn’t make this point to try to spin the game. He was being critical of his team’s free-throw shooting.)
Tech will have a brief practice today (Thursday) and an early-morning practice Friday before going to N.C. State. Not exactly the sort of preparation you’d want to try to break a three-game league losing streak.
The rest of the schedule doesn’t offer much. Two games against Wake, two games against Boston College, two games against Clemson, on the road against North Carolina, for starters.
Given what you’ve seen, what do you think Tech’s ACC record will be?
