His arms crossed, Jose Alvarado stood in a Carrier Dome portal. Stadium workers hustled nearby, stacking up plastic chairs that had sat on metal risers.
The Georgia Tech guard, the heart of a Yellow Jackets team that he has tried to lead out of ACC mediocrity since arriving on campus as a freshman in 2017, was not happy with what had just happened on the court less than 50 yards away from where he stood. With their fingers around a momentous road win over the Orange, the Jackets let it slip away Saturday afternoon. A sluggish start to the second half wasted perhaps their best half of the season and led the game to its painful result, a 79-72 defeat for Tech.
“I’m disappointed and just mad that we gave this all away,” Alvarado told the AJC. “We should have played harder. The second half, we knew they were going to come out with their best shot.”
» MORE: Moses Wright has historic night
There is no disgrace in losing at Syracuse (15-12, 8-8 ACC), where the court bears the name of its Hall of Fame coach, Jim Boeheim. But so much was at stake for Tech (13-14, 7-9), and early on, so much was going its way.
Having won their past two games, including a home win over top-5 Louisville, the Jackets were playing to go above .500 for the first time since they were 4-3 before a road loss at Kentucky on Dec. 14. A win Saturday would have strung Tech’s second three-game win streak in ACC play in coach Josh Pastner’s four-year tenure. It would have been its fifth road win in ACC play against four losses.
Since Tech joined the ACC in 1979, only one Jackets team has managed five road wins in the league – the 1995-96 regular-season champion team – although the league schedule was 14 games through 1991 and 16 through 2012, making such a feat more difficult previously.
More broadly, beating Syracuse in the Carrier Dome was the most significant opportunity remaining in the regular season to validate the progress that Pastner has insisted that his junior-heavy team is making, a claim that has had to come attached with the explanation that the Jackets were better than their record.
On Saturday, it looked as if that was going to happen. In the first half, Tech played with crackling energy and tight adherence to the game plan to feed forward Moses Wright at the high post against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone. The Jackets were challenging shots, pounding the offensive glass and taking advantage of the Orange’s sluggishness.
Wright showed off the range of his game, scoring on a reverse, on a jump hook and driving from the top of the key to the basket. He put down dunks in transition, including one on an alley-oop from Michael Devoe that prompted a primal scream from Wright as he circled back upcourt. It also led Boeheim to call a timeout, his team staggering, down 34-22 at the 1:55 mark.
“Guards were finding me, James (Banks) was sealing, so it made it a lot easier to get downhill,” Wright said.
He had 17 points on 8-for-9 shooting by halftime, when the Jackets led 38-27. He finished with a career-high 33 points on 14-for-17 shooting to go with 10 rebounds, the most impressive of his seven double-doubles this season.
“I think he’s the most improved player in the league,” Pastner said. “I truly believe that on Moses.”
At halftime, Alvarado couldn’t hide his pleasure with the way his team was controlling Syracuse.
“I even told one of the assistants that, ‘Yo, we’re a really good team, man,’” Alvarado said. “‘We can really do this.’”
As soon as the second half started, however, Tech’s grasp on the game loosened. Syracuse guard Joe Girard got loose for a 3-point bomb on the opening possession, triggering a 12-2 run that swallowed up all but one point of Tech’s halftime lead. Pastner pinpointed Girard’s 3-pointer as the game’s turning point.
“It really is frustrating, being up nine (actually 11) at halftime and then losing like this the way we did,” Wright said. “Because this is definitely a winnable game.”
Pastner said he warned his team at the half to pay heed to what had happened in the previous game, in which the Jackets gave up an eight-point halftime lead at Wake Forest on Wednesday before prevailing. But the focus and bounce that built the first-half advantage was gone.
Syracuse took the lead at 52-51 with 9:15 to play and never gave it back, the crowd of 26,661 growing louder with each score. With the score 58-55 in Syracuse’s favor, Banks fouled out with 6:22 remaining on a putback that put Syracuse ahead 58-55, depriving the Jackets of their best defender.
Syracuse scored on 12 of its final 15 possessions with Banks out. Just as in losses to Duke, Virginia, Notre Dame and Louisville (in the first meeting), Tech was close to a statement win, but couldn’t finish it off.
“That’s why I’m so disappointed,” Alvarado said. “Because I know how good we are. To fall short here because of a lack of effort, it’s pretty disappointing.”
Four regular-season games remain, starting with a home matchup with Clemson on Tuesday. The Jackets could well win all of them, but none would be as significant as the one that slipped away Saturday.
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