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Saturday, January 10, 2009
Highs (67-62) and Lows (68-61) This Week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Jackets were on the road today in an ACC match against Maryland and led from the 14:57 mark in first half until midway through the second half before losing a 10 point lead in the course of just a bit over two minutes. The game remained nip and tuck until the last minute when fouls and free throws resulted in the final 68-61 margin of victory for the Terps.
The game ultimately turned on a turnover differential of 28 to 13 and a poor 57% free throw shooting.
I guess the old “its tough to win on the road in the ACC” rule applies here. Still…the Jackets have let games against Virginia and Maryland slip through their grasp now and the odds of making things up against the likes of Duke, North Carolina, or the tougher ACC teams is slim.
For now Tech fans will have to look back fondly on the 67-62 win over the UGA hoops team earlier in the week. I was fortunate enough to attend that game as the guest of a UGA acquaintance and his daughter and son-in-law.
The first half of the UGA game was about the ugliest basketball I’ve ever witnessed in person. Some of that might be attributed to the fact that I’d had my eyes dilated earlier in the day and was wearing an old backup pair of glasses. I could make out the white jersies and the red jersies but that was about it. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise though, since the Tech team played extremely soft and extremely poorly.
The fans for both teams seemed quiet and content to sit quietly by while the two teams thrashed about in futility. For a rivalry game (even on a week night) the crowd was pitiful. I would wager that AMC was only about 80-90% full and that there were less than 100 UGA fans in attendence.
By the time the second half began, my eyes had adjusted. Unfortunately, the mutts quickly pushed a 10 point lead to 13 points and the Tech fans began to get restless.
After about five minutes of UGA domination in the second half, Paul Hewitt decided to have his team press and things began to change quickly. The Jackets began to make a run and cut into the UGA lead. The only problem was the quick rate at which Tech was picking up fouls. I know at one point I looked up at the score board and the Jackets had 18 fouls on the court…three guys with four fouls and two guys with three fouls.
Amazingly, the Jackets avoided fouling anyone out and tied the game up around the seven minute mark. This got the crowd back into the game and things went back and forth until the 1:22 mark when Peacock hit a layup that gave Tech a two point lead that swelled to five by the end of the game.
So now Paul Hewitt finds himself in a strange sort of limbo…0-2 in the ACC but supported by the recent win over UGA.
Duke, NC State, Boston College, Clemson, and Wake Forest make up the next five games. An 0-7 ACC start would overshadow the win over UGA and the coaching chairs in AMC would heat up again very quickly.
Duke is ranked #2, Wake is #4, Clemson is #11, and Boston College is #24.
Even the NC State game is on the road.
Talk about a long row to hoe…Coach Hewitt has his work cut out for him…
Go Jackets!
THWG…45-42, 67-62!
