Georgia Tech needs overtime to beat UMES

Georgia Tech’s start to the 2025-26 season was not of the impressive variety on Monday at McCamish Pavilion in front of 3,551 fans.

Coach Damon Stoudamire’s team needed overtime to hold off Maryland Eastern Shore, 56-52. Veteran guard Kowacie Reeves buried a 3-pointer with 37 seconds left to break a tie game and virtually win the game for the Yellow Jackets (1-0).

“Sometimes you just, I don’t know, I know up until that point I had missed like eight or nine 3s, so I’m just like, ‘They’re gonna leave me wide-open’ and they kinda face-guarded Kam (Craft) and they know he’s a hot-shooter,” Reeves said. “Sometimes you just can’t think about that, you just gotta have the guts to try to shoot it and back on your preparation.”

The Hawks, coming off a 6-25 season, got 17 points from Australian Joseph Locandro and led from the 17:44 mark of the second half until the 3:51 mark. They also led with 1:25 to go and with 10 ticks remaining.

But 19 turnovers, 13 of which came in the second half and overtime, proved too much to overcome.

“I don’t think I did a good job with our guys with execution,” UMES coach Cleo Hill Jr. said. “But give (Tech) all the credit – at home, first game, solid crowd. They did a good job.”

Tech, meanwhile, shot just 35% from the floor, missed 21 3-pointers, nine free throws and was out-rebounded by one. The 56 points were the fewest for Tech in a season opener since Nov. 12, 2010, when it beat Charleston Southern 52-39.

Freshman Mouhamed Sylla had 15 rebounds and 14 points in his debut, becoming the first Tech freshman with 15 rebounds in his first career game. Missouri transfer Peyton Marshall scored nine points to go along with eight rebounds. Reeves finished with 12 points, four assists and four rebounds. Nobody else in white and gold did much to write home about.

“Gave you guys a little bit of excitement for a Monday night,” Stoudamire said. “I’m extremely happy from the standpoint of this: I’ve been here two years, we would have lost this game before. So sometimes, in getting better and being able to catch guys’ attention, you need stuff like this to happen, but you want it to happen where you still get the win.

“(Tuesday) we’ll have everybody’s attention because I think sometimes what happens is that you can get full of yourself and you don’t think that you gotta do the things each and every day that make you successful.”

With 11 seconds left in regulation, Justin Monden gave UMES a 46-45 lead with a fall-away jumper from the right baseline. Out of a timeout with 8.8 seconds to go, Tech’s Jaeden Mustaf dumped the ball into the right block for Marshall, who missed a layup but was fouled on the putback attempt with 1.8 seconds on the clock.

Marshall made 1 of 2 to send the game to overtime.

Tech found some separation with 2:11 to play in the extra period on Sylla’s bucket that put the Jackets up 52-48. The Hawks (0-1) came back to tie the game at 52-all with 51 seconds remaining, only to see Reeves hit what proved to be the game-winner.

The Jackets are back in action at 7:30 p.m. Friday when they host Bryant (0-1).

“You can always take more from a win like this than winning by 30 points,” Stoudamire said. “Yes, you didn’t want the anxiety up, but at the same time, right out the gate, it put us in a state where we gotta be locked-in. It gives us something to go and work on as we move forward and get ready for Friday.”

At the outset, Tech looked not just like a team that hadn’t played together before, but maybe even a team that spent the whole preseason not playing with each other.

After going up 6-3 on a Sylla dunk less than two minutes into the game, the Jackets didn’t hit another field goal for 9:39 and turned the ball over six times during that stretch. Eastern Shore even went 8:13 without a field goal and still crept ahead 8-7 at the 11:28 mark.

Tech, playing without junior center Baye Ndongo and guards Lamar Washington and Dyllan Thompson, would eventually build a 21-14 lead on Kam Craft’s turnaround jumper from the left side of the floor, but wouldn’t score over the final 2:23 of the half and settled for a 21-18 lead at the break.

The Jackets missed 15 of their 24 shots in the first 20 minutes, 5 of 6 free throws and 7 of 9 3-pointers.

It took Tech more than six minutes to score to start the second half while it missed all eight of its shots. The Hawks built a 30-21 lead after guard Trey Brown drained a 3 from the top of the key.

Eastern Shore held its lead all the way until the 5-minute mark, then Mustaf buried a 3 from the right wing five seconds later to put the Jackets up 41-39. Mustaf’s free throws with 3:13 to go gave Tech a 43-41 lead, but Levi Beckwith hit a 3 from the right side at the 1:17 mark, making it 44-43 in favor of the visitors.

With 40 seconds left, Reeves found himself open on the perimeter on the right side and drove the lane for a strong layup, putting Tech up 45-44. That was one of two big shots the fifth-year senior made down the stretch.