The last two times Georgia Tech visited Virginia Tech’s Cassell Coliseum, perhaps the most humble gym in the ACC, the Yellow Jackets cloaked themselves in distress.
In 2011, then-coach Paul Hewitt was ejected for the first time in his career as the Jackets lost 102-77, an ominous defeat in Hewitt’s final season. Last February, a desperation 3-pointer dropped Georgia Tech in overtime 74-73 in coach Brian Gregory’s first season.
Saturday, Tech finally exited Cassell victorious, having claimed a 64-54 win over the Hokies. Four days after losing to Florida State on a buzzer-beater at home, Tech ended its 11-game ACC road losing streak and a four-game losing streak to Virginia Tech. The Jackets also earned their first-ever win in Blacksburg after seven defeats, five in ACC competition.
Tech (13-9 overall, 3-7 ACC) didn’t slay a giant – the Hokies (11-12, 2-8) lost their sixth consecutive game Saturday and entered the game No. 156 on realtimerpi.com, lowest among ACC teams – but given that the Jackets haven’t done much ACC-level slaying anywhere, it mattered little.
“This is a great win for us, to get a road win,” Gregory said. “The last five games, we’re starting to play better, and that’s what you hope to do in this phase of the process that we’re under right now.”
Tech took a step in one particular area, its management of large leads. Challenging shots, retreating quickly on transition defense and then letting the Hokies’ errant shooting do the rest, the Jackets took leads of 11-1 and 25-8 before going into halftime up 37-18. It was the lowest-scoring half for a Tech opponent in an ACC game under Gregory.
In energetic bursts off the bench, forward Kammeon Holsey scored 13 in the first 20 minutes on seven shots and guards Brandon Reed and Solomon Poole produced seven points each, both with two assists and a three-pointer.
The lead grew to 25 with 16:27 left in the game when the Jackets ran into familiar trouble, failing to hold a lead by rushing possessions. From that point until 7:14 remained, a 13-possession span, Tech scored one point, missing eight shots, making one of six free-throw attempts and turning the ball over three times.
Said Gregory with a smirk, “We’re known for that.”
The lead shrank to 48-37 with 10:24 to go, a similar scenario to the last game between the two teams, when the Hokies came from 11 down with 13:52 to go to win in overtime at McCamish Pavilion Jan. 12. That loss crossed the mind of forward Marcus Georges-Hunt, whose 13 points co-led Tech with Holsey.
“But I felt like, yeah, they were coming back, but we’re a different team than we were at the begining of the season,” Georges-Hunt said.
In a TV timeout, Gregory drew up a play to free up guard Chris Bolden for a 3-pointer with forward Robert Carter as a second option. Bolden read the play properly, handing off to Carter. On the left wing, Carter rose up and made only his second basket of the game, a 3-pointer that pushed the lead to 14 and restored Tech’s footing.
Virginia Tech guard Erick Green, the nation’s leading scorer at 25.2 points per game, led a last charge and finished with 28 points before leaving the game with 31 seconds left with dehydration.
After Carter’s 3-pointer, “(I) just know that we stopped their run,” Reed said. “You could kind of see their heads sag a little bit after that. At that point, I knew we had ’em.”
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