Georgia Tech women open ACC Tournament with a head of steam

Talayah Walker scrunched her eyebrows at the podium when Georgia Tech coach Karen Blair mentioned — in a complimentary way — that her star sophomore had committed only one turnover Sunday. Walker picked up the stat sheet on the table in front of her, zeroed in on the turnover column and quietly corrected her coach.

“Oh, you had none,” Blair said. “You had zero. Even better. Let’s everybody correct that. Talayah had zero turnovers.”

The light-hearted moment is typical of the drive with which Walker and the Yellow Jackets play and hope to continue when they open the ACC women’s basketball tournament Wednesday at the Gas South Arena in Duluth.

The Jackets (13-17, 8-10 ACC), who are completing their first season under Blair, finished the season with a resounding 79-49 win over Miami on Sunday. That earned them the No. 11 tournament seed and a first-round matchup against No. 14 seed Florida State (10-20, 5-13) at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Walker, a 5-foot-10 sophomore transfer from Penn State, did little wrong in the regular-season finale. She matched her career high with 33 points and shot 12-for-17 from the floor, including 5-for-6 on 3-pointers, adding six rebounds and three steals.

“When she finally missed, she looked at me and I looked at her and said, ‘Well, that’s your first one. You’ve been dang near perfect the whole game,” Blair said.

It wasn’t surprising. Walker has been playing at a high level all season. She has scored in double figures for the final 11 games and produced three 30-point games. She has scored 20-plus points in nine ACC games, the second-most in the league.

Walker averages a team-high 17 points with 5.9 rebounds. She was the ACC Player of the Week for Jan. 5.

Blair, hired to replace the popular and successful Nell Fortner in April, had to rebuild the roster. Widely recognized for her skills as a recruiter, she brought in Walker and five transfers from historically successful high school programs in the Atlanta area.

All fit nicely into what has become an eight-player rotation: Brianna “Snoop” Turnage, a Florida State transfer from Westlake; Erica Moon, a Texas A&M transfer from St. Francis; Catherine Alben, a Charleston Southern transfer from Grayson; La’Nya Foster, an Austin Peay transfer from Lovejoy; and Savannah Samuel, a Boston College transfer from St. Francis.

Georgia Tech coach Karen Blair with Briana "Snoop" Turnage, the team's rebound leader, on Senior Day, March 1, 2026. (Danny Karnik/Georgia Tech)

Turnage, a 6-foot-1 senior, anchors the defense and rarely misses an opportunity to grab a rebound. She had 11 boards in the season finale — her 20th double-digit effort of the season, and only two away from the single-season record of 22 set in 2021-22 by Lorela Cubaj. Turnage averages 10.9 rebounds (No. 11 in the nation) and needs 28 to catch Cubaj for the single-season record (356).

“I don’t know how you don’t love Snoop’s game,” Blair said. “The way she rebounds, the joy and passion she plays the game with. I’ve just been extremely proud of her and she’s become the epitome of the heart and hustle of the team.”

Turnage typifies the sort of scrappy team that Tech fields. With its offensive limitations — Walker is the only player who averages double figures — the Jackets survive on the boards and by limiting turnovers.

“We’ve really hung our hat on defense and rebounding,” Blair said. “It’s why we’ve won so many games and been competitive in so many games.”

Tech will look to make it two consecutive wins against Florida State. The Jackets won 80-69 in Tallahassee on Jan. 25. Walker scored 25, and Turnage had 18 rebounds against her old team in that game. Tech is 1-1 against FSU in the tournament and won the most recent meeting in the 2003 quarterfinals.