Georgia Tech’s fight through 18 regular-season ACC games and then two more in the conference tournament was a test of will and a series of tense, hard-fought matchups. Out of those 20 games, only two were decided by double digits.
For the Yellow Jackets, in their final home game of the season, the first-round NIT matchup with Houston was a different experience. A better team than the Cougars, the Jackets pulled away in the second half for a refreshingly tension-free 19-point victory.
It was a release from the ACC cauldron.
“We play in the best basketball conference in the country,” coach Brian Gregory said. “There’s nothing easy in our league.”
Perhaps the play most emblematic of that freedom was a behind-the-back pass in the second half from forward Charles Mitchell in transition from his spot near the rim to guard Marcus Georges-Hunt in the corner. Gregory said that in two years of coaching Mitchell – he of the 20-56 assist-turnover ratio going into the game – he had never seen him attempt such a pass in a practice, individual workout, open gym or any other time.
“So I have no idea what his thought process was on that,” Gregory said.
But, given Mitchell’s effort – 12 points and seven rebounds, four offensive – he was willing to live with it.
“Sometimes, you’ve just got to let Chuck go,” he said.
Tech scored in bunches, effectively challenged shots and used their physical advantages to overpower the Cougars. A game after being held to seven points on 1-for-8 shooting by Virginia guard and ACC defensive player of the year Malcolm Brogdon, Tech guard Marcus Georges-Hunt scored over smaller defenders and repeatedly worked his way free for clean looks at the basket. He scored 19 points on 7-for-13 shooting from the field with five assists against two turnovers.
“It’s just a new team, so I took it as a new challenge,” Georges-Hunt said. “I really didn’t know too much about them, and just going through the process of watching a lot of film and learning their tendencies and different things like that, it was pretty fun, and (Wednesday) was pretty fun.”
There was no game like this in the previous 20, where the Jackets took a lead and continued to build on it. In ACC play, the largest lead the Jackets built was a 17-point lead against Florida State in a game that the Jackets barely escaped. Wednesday, Tech had an advantage of as many as 24 points against the Cougars, who could only reduce it to 19 by game’s end.
In the ACC, “everybody knows you and it’s not only that they know what you’re doing, half the teams have a hall of fame coach and there’s All-Americans on the other team, so you’ve got to play great every single possession,” Gregory said.
Houston is no slouch. The Cougars won 22 games and beat four league opponents who made the NCAA tournament. They just were no match for the Jackets on this night.
“We have no excuses,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “We got beat by a better team (Wednesday).”
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