Without Glen Rice or many fans in the stands, Georgia Tech fell to Virginia 62-56 on Wednesday night at Alexander Memorial Coliseum to lose its seventh consecutive game in the ACC.
Tech is 11-16 and 3-10 in the ACC with three games remaining before the conference tournament. Only Wake Forest is below them in the standings.
Coach Paul Hewitt said on Tuesday that he wanted the Yellow Jackets to attack the basket for higher-percentage shots. They tried for a few minutes in the first half and the plan worked. But Virginia changed its defense and the Jackets, the ACC's worst-shooting team, missed 17 of their 25 3-pointers and and 35 of their 56 field-goal attempts.
Shooting jumpers was more difficult without Rice, Tech's second-leading scorer and rebounder. He didn't start because of disciplinary reasons that Hewitt would not divulge. Rice entered the game at the 13:22 mark. He was taken out five minutes later after back-to-back questionable shots on offense. He entered around the same time in the second half, but was taken out after three minutes once he made a bad pass. He returned with two minutes left and the Jackets trailing by nine. He played 14 minutes and made just one of his five shots.
The game turned a few minutes before Rice's re-insertion -- on a surprise move by Virginia's Tony Bennett.
With Mustapha Farrakhan and Assane Sene complaining of stomach problems, Bennett elected with eight minutes remaining to switch to a zone. He said it was the first time his team has played it this year.
"We went dry," Hewitt said.
The Cavs went on a 12-0 run, taking a 55-46 lead with 2:23 left on a layup by Sene. Hewitt said he didn't call a timeout during the stretch because he thought his players were getting good looks that they simply weren't making.
Moe Miller broke the drought with a short jumper and three-point play to cut Tech's gap to 55-51 with 1:39 left. After a free throw by Sene, Rice scored his first basket to cut the lead to three. But Virginia's Joe Harris got loose in the corner for a 3-pointer to push the lead back to six.
Tech's last chance came when Mfon Udofia was fouled shooting an off-balance 3-pointer with four seconds left. Hewitt said the plan was for Udofia to make the first two and then intentionally miss the third to set up a possible steal. A 61.2-percent 3-point shooter in his career, Udofia missed all three.
At that point, the few fans began leaving. The paid attendance was 5,537, but there were far less than that at the game. Hewitt could clearly be heard shouting out instructions to his team during the game. Tech's attendance average has dipped to less than 6,000 this season with one home game remaining, the regular-season finale against Miami on March 6.
"You feed off the energy, whether it's your teammates or the crowd, but you can't use that as an excuse because the gym is quiet to not go out there and play hard on every possession," Jason Morris said.
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