If Georgia Tech’s season goes as planned — or at least as hoped — in about 3 1/2 months, the NCAA tournament selection committee will be reviewing the Yellow Jackets’ resume. And, while Tech’s next two games at the NIT Season Tipoff likely won’t make or break its candidacy, a win or two would be valuable.
“Two very good teams — we know one of them, we don’t know who the other one will be yet — but we’re going to get two really good games, and if you can be successful in either or both, that provides evidence to the committee of the quality of your team,” Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski said.
Bobinski would know. He served on the selection committee for four seasons and was the committee chair in 2012-13, during which he was hired at Tech. He is in full approval of Tech’s participation in the event, which begins at 2 p.m. Thursday for Tech with a game against Arkansas at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. On the other side of the bracket are No. 11 Villanova and Stanford, last season’s NIT champion. The third-place game is at 12:30 p.m. Friday, while the championship will be contested at 3 p.m. Friday.
“I think the committee always looks at, and has looked at for a number of years now, are you willing to put yourself into different situations and circumstances against decent competition away from the friendly confines of home,” Bobinski said. “I think these games are an example of that.”
Tech’s overall non-conference schedule strength is healthy. Seven of Tech’s 13 non-conference opponents finished last season ranked in the top 102 by RPI. By comparison, Miami has four such opponents. Pittsburgh has five.
“We won’t have any problem with the strength of schedule when the end of non-conference is here,” coach Brian Gregory said.
Gregory’s larger concern is helping his team bounce back from a 69-68 loss to East Tennessee State last Sunday at McCamish Pavilion. The Jackets permitted ETSU to make 15 of 26 field-goal attempts in the second half to overcome a five-point halftime deficit. Gregory was not happy with Tech’s inconsistency with guarding the dribble on defense, feeding the post on offense and its failure to put away a lesser team.
“There were probably two or three segments that we were up five, six or seven and if you get a couple stops in a row and make a couple baskets, you can carry it through for the rest of the game,” he said. “We weren’t able to do that.”
Tech’s inability to subdue the Buccaneers enabled them to be in position to make a game-winning 3-pointer with nine-tenths of a second remaining over two Tech defenders. Against Tennessee last week, the Volunteers had a similar 3-point try that was errant at the buzzer, giving the Jackets a 69-67 win.
The ETSU defeat recalled last season, when the Jackets were 0-13 last season in ACC games decided by seven points or less or in overtime. One repeated challenge that Gregory has given to his team has been to make the plays over the course of the game so that opponents won’t have the chance to win late.
“At that point, it’s not necessarily who the better team is, it’s which team makes a play or two,” Gregory said.
Gregory isn’t concerning himself yet with building the Jackets’ resume.
“We go one practice, one game at a time,” he said. “We need the process of (learning) what it takes to win games and what it takes for us to be successful, what is our identity that will lead us to success. And if you do those things, you’re going to have a great chance to be successful, and then in the end, that takes care of itself.”
