Brian Gregory was hired by Georgia Tech to restore the school's once-proud basketball tradition.
He and his team re-visited the wrong segment of Yellow Jackets basketball history Thursday night at Philips Arena.
The Jackets got swamped by an efficient and relentless Virginia team in a 70-38 loss. It was the fewest points Tech had scored in a game since Feb. 6, 1982, a 53-38 loss to Wake Forest in Bobby Cremins' first season.
"They just attacked us and we weren't ready for it," Tech center Daniel Miller said.
Tech reaches the quarter turn of its ACC schedule at 1-3 in the league and 8-10 overall. In winning its fifth consecutive game against the Jackets, No. 15 Virginia improved to 15-2 overall and 2-1 in the ACC. It's the Cavaliers' first 15-2 start since the 1982-83 season, the senior season of Virginia legend Ralph Sampson.
The Jackets' offensive fragility was on full display Thursday for the 5,885 in attendance, particularly when set against the ruthless and canny Cavaliers defense. Tech shot a season-low 29.2 percent from the field, including 1-for-15 from 3-point range. The Cavaliers pressured the ball, double-teamed well, rarely allowed open looks at the basket and caused the Jackets to hurry shots and play tentatively.
"What they do defensively is they play extremely well together," Gregory said. "They communicate very well. They're there to help each other. They're a very unselfish team."
Virginia, which entered the game ranked No. 2 in the country in scoring defense at 51.1 points per game, did as it pleased. It used a 13-2 run midway through the first half to open up a 27-13 lead and was not challenged after that. Tech went into halftime down 35-17, the second consecutive game in which it failed to score 20 points by the end of the first half.
The Jackets did not get any closer than 16 points in the second half, permitting the Cavaliers to continue to inflate their lead.
"They were tougher than us [Thursday]," Miller said. "They just played harder."
The Jackets had played with the level of energy in their first three ACC games that Gregory has sought to elicit. It seemed that, after a flat 73-48 loss to Alabama Jan. 3 that seemed to provoke the Jackets, a corner had been turned in understanding the all-out effort that Gregory has demanded. It showed in a near-upset of Duke in the ACC opener and a road win against N.C. State last week.
Thursday was a step back. The rebounding advantage, an all-important statistic to Gregory that represents his team's energy level, went to Virginia by an unthinkable 45-22 count. The Jackets had five offensive rebounds.
"When you're not shooting that well, you've got to do the things like play defense and rebound the ball," said forward Kammeon Holsey, who led Tech with 12 points.
The Cavaliers' offense produced clean looks and had Tech scrambling to recover from picks and switches throughout the game.
"Their crispness, sharpness in their screening action and setting screens, using screens, really got us on our heels right off the start," Gregory said. "There was no answer to it, unfortunately."
Miller said the loss to Virginia hurt worse than the one to the Crimson Tide because "now we know with the other games, that we've seen that we can play as well as we have been."
The grind continues for the Jackets, who play at Clemson Saturday and at home against Miami Tuesday, a stretch of three games in six days. Tech will only have a light practice Friday in order to try to prepare for the Tigers and rebound from Thursday's debacle.
"It's an advantage for our guys," Gregory said wryly. "If they had a few days (of practice before the next game), they'd be in deep, deep, deep trouble."
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