Early in the second half, Georgia Tech forward Charles Mitchell ran down an offensive rebound off Quinton Stephens’ missed 3-pointer. As the ball bounced to the baseline, Mitchell caught it, and, going out of bounds, flung a behind-the-back pass back inbounds.
With Mitchell’s save keeping the possession alive, Marcus Georges-Hunt found Adam Smith on the wing, and Smith buried a 3-pointer, giving the Yellow Jackets a 52-29 lead over South Carolina with 17:49 left in the second half.
“When that whole sequence of events happened, I’m not going to lie,” forward Nick Jacobs said. “In my mindset, I was like, Yeah, we definitely got ’em.”
Not all of Tech’s points in its second-round NIT win over South Carolina were scored with such flair, but the Jackets’ energy and high-level execution were hard to miss Monday night at Colonial Life Arena. Tech shot 30-for-59 from the field (50.8 percent) and 11-for-22 from 3-point range (50 percent) against South Carolina, a team that prior to Monday had permitted just one team this season to make half of its shots either from the field or 3-point range.
Georges-Hunt seized on creases to attack the basket. Smith continued his hot shooting from 3-point range, picking up his fourth 20-point game in the past five. Mitchell was a relentless force, facing up and driving to the basket.
“Just a rhythm,” Smith said. “Everyone’s just in a good rhythm.”
It followed the first-round win over Houston last Wednesday, when the Jackets shot 52.5 percent from the field and 50 percent from 3-point range and turned the ball over a reasonable 11 times. Monday, Tech turned the ball over 12 times in 67 possessions, but five of them were in the final eight minutes when the lead had already grown to 30 points.
Tech has reached 80 points in back-to-back regulation games for the first time since the 2009-10 season, when the Jackets were last in the NCAA tournament.
Georges-Hunt played another exemplary game, scoring 14 points with a career-high eight assists and no turnovers.
“Unfortunately, we almost come to kind of expect that, and kind of look over that, but that’s unbelievable,” coach Brian Gregory said.
Georges-Hunt took the lead for the Jackets, running the offense with patience against a team that came into the game ranked 27th in the country with 14.7 opponent turnovers per game. Tech often passed the ball deep into the shot clock to create scoring opportunities, usually with success.
“If they take away one option, you look at the next option and we just kept the ball moving,” Georges-Hunt said. “I think with the great flow moving the ball, everybody got great looks. They were ready to shoot and they knocked down the shots.”
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