BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Paul Hewitt stood and stared. Referee Roger Ayers, 20 feet away, stared back.
Ayers won the staring contest, calling a second technical and ejecting Hewitt with less than eight minutes remaining in the first half.
Georgia Tech lost its coach, and then lost 102-77 to Virginia Tech in a raucous Cassell Coliseum on Sunday. It was Georgia Tech's (10-14, 3-8 ACC) fifth consecutive loss and 14th consecutive on an opponent's court.
"I want to apologize to our team and to Georgia Tech for putting myself in that position today," Hewitt said. "Whatever I did was warranted to get put out of the game."
With or without Hewitt, the Yellow Jackets seemed destined to lose. They already trailed by 20 when he was called for his first technical. Hewitt said he's not sure what caused it, only that Ayers called it correctly. It was the first time Hewitt has been ejected in his career.
A few seconds later, Ayers got tired of Hewitt looking at him and called a second technical with 7:53 remaining. During the game, Ayers said the second technical was for disrespect toward an official. The refereeing crew left immediately after the game, so Ayers wasn't around to explain the first technical.
"Poor judgment on my part," Hewitt said. "[The] official made his judgment. I have to go with that."
Iman Shumpert said the technicals didn't matter. He said the team didn't box out on the defensive end, didn't front Virginia Tech's post players and didn't follow their assignments, a common Jackets refrain during the losing streak.
"We were all messed up before coach even got tossed," Shumpert said.
Part of that failure was defending Malcolm Delaney. Whatever Georgia Tech did to contain the All-ACC performer in their first meeting, a 72-57 win for the Jackets, didn't work this time. After he was limited to 8 points on 3-of-11 shooting in Atlanta, a more-aggressive Delaney scored a season-high 33 points on Sunday.
Hewitt said the difference was Shumpert supplied good defense in the first meeting, causing Delaney to miss shots he normally makes. Delaney didn't miss them on Sunday, hitting 9 of 14 field goals and 12 of 14 free throws.
"We left Delaney open a couple of times and he started to feel good," said Shumpert, who led Georgia Tech with 27 points. "Once they were in the bonus you could forget about it."
With assistant coach Peter Zaharis in charge of the team and Hewitt in the locker room, the Jackets cut the lead to 13 on a 3-pointer by Glen Rice with 18:22 remaining. But Delaney made a layup and Jeff Allen added a dunk and free throw to complete a three-point play and they pushed the lead to 18. They completed the 11-0 run with another layup by Delaney to take a 67-43 lead with 15:41 left.
It didn't help the Jackets that Brian Oliver was injured and unavailable. He disrupted the Hokies' 2-3 zone in the previous meeting, making four 3-pointers and scoring 28 points. Georgia Tech missed 16 of its 28 3-pointers against that same zone on Sunday.
"The zone was really good today," Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. "In the end they made threes but the game was well in hand."
Georgia Tech was left to ponder how to break this losing streak against Chattanooga at Alexander Memorial Coliseum on Wednesday.
"We need to come out and play hard," Shumpert said. "This had nothing to do with coach Hewitt; this had nothing to do with the system. They played harder. They wanted it more."
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