Georgia Tech tries to recover against Clemson

By Ken Sugiura

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia Tech was roughed up to a historic degree Thursday night and goes on the road to play its next game less than 48 hours later.

Coach Brian Gregory is trying to frame the Yellow Jackets’ Saturday afternoon game against Clemson in a positive light.

“Where we’re at right now, we’ve got to use every opportunity to build some stuff for the program,” he said.

After losing 70-38 to No. 15 Virginia, the Jackets will attempt to gather themselves at Littlejohn Coliseum, where they’ve lost six consecutive games. Tech has lost the past three games overall to the Tigers.

In the Virginia loss, Tech scored its fewest points since a 53-38 loss to Wake Forest in February 1982 in coach Bobby Cremins’ first season, a span of 1,042 games. The Jackets shot a season-low 29.2 percent, were out-rebounded 45-22 and now have lost six of their past seven. Their season is taking on the dismal cast predicted by many.

“There was no sleep in the Gregory household,” the coach reported Friday morning.

After shooting 50 percent from the field in their first two ACC games, against Duke and N.C. State, the Jackets made 31.7 percent of their shots in the past two, losses to Maryland and Virginia. More alarming to Gregory was the regression in effort level that Tech showed against the Cavaliers.

“They just attacked us, and we weren’t ready for it,” center Daniel Miller said.

In his first season as Paul Hewitt’s replacement, Gregory couldn’t say he was entirely surprised.

“If you’ve been through it before, you don’t always know when it’s going to happen, but you do know those situations, unfortunately, are going to occur, because right now, it’s not our identity of performing that way or playing at that level,” he said. “It’s not solid yet.”

Nonetheless, Gregory looked at the Clemson game as an opportunity to prepare for future games — such as the NCAA tournament, for instance — when the Jackets will have time for only a light practice and preparation more on the mental side than the physical. After Clemson, Tech will have only two days’ rest before playing Miami on Tuesday night at Philips Arena.

Further, it’s a chance for his team to gain resolve from such a dispiriting result. The Jackets’ Jan. 3 loss to Alabama, a 73-48 blowout, was to that point the worst loss of the season and triggered Tech’s determined performances against Duke, N.C. State and Maryland before the Virginia debacle. The Jackets hope the Virginia loss has a similar effect.

The Tigers likely won’t do much to assist the Jackets’ attempted reversal. Clemson has lost its past three games by a combined 12 points, but ranks second in the ACC in scoring defense, at 59.6 points per game. Point guards have bedeviled the Jackets, and the Tigers have a good one in Andre Young, who ranks second in the ACC in assist/turnover ratio.

“We’re a much better team than we played [Thursday] night, and we’re a much better team than we were at the beginning of the year,” Gregory said. “We are making some steady progress, and we just need to continue to do that.”