It may be too late for Georgia Tech’s postseason hopes but after an 0-7 start in ACC play, it appears the Yellow Jackets may be finding their form.
Rather than dwell on the first seven games — the Jackets lost five of them in which the margin at the one-minute mark of regulation was three points or less — coach Brian Gregory has tried to keep his team’s memory relatively short-term.
“I thought over the last four games, we’ve played very well,” Gregory said after the Jackets defeated Wake Forest 73-59 Saturday at McCamish Pavilion. “In this league, you can play very well and be 2-2 in this stretch and that’s exactly where we’re at.”
Tech will have the opportunity to win its second game in a row Monday night at Virginia Tech (9 p.m., ESPNU).
There are signs that the Jackets’ play is picking up, particularly on the offensive end. In the Jackets’ four-game stretch against Miami, N.C. State, Duke and Wake Forest, their per-game assist-turnover ratio was 12.5/11.3, compared to 10.6/12.6 in the first seven ACC games. Field-goal percentage in the four games was 46.1 percent, compared to 37.1 percent in the first seven.
It didn’t hurt, certainly, that N.C. State, Miami, Duke and Wake Forest ranked sixth, 11th, 12th and 14th, respectively, in field goal defense percentage in the conference after Saturday’s games. It helps, too, that the Jackets are running more effectively. Tech has eight games this season in which it has scored double-digit fast-break points. Three of them have been in the past three games, including a season-high 22 against Wake Forest.
“We’ve gotten better,” Gregory said. “Our guys have gotten better. They’ve worked. They haven’t pouted. They haven’t sat around and (said) ‘Woe is me.’ They just kept working.”
After averaging 2.6 turnovers per game in the first 19 games, forward Charles Mitchell has three turnovers in the past four games. Junior guard Chris Bolden has three double-digit scoring games in the past four, the first time he has done so since his freshman season.
Mitchell attributed the improved ball handling to “just being smart with the ball, playing aggressive but being smart. Knowing when to pass the ball, knowing when not to try to force a shot up.”
Forward Marcus Georges-Hunt continues to play efficiently. He has five consecutive games in double figures (18.7 points per game in those games) and is shooting 57.9 percent in the stretch with 7.2 rebounds. He was averaging 12.6 points per game and shooting 38.1 percent before that point.
“He came out and it wasn’t a great game for him, but you certainly felt his presence out there on the court,” Wake Forest coach Danny Manning said Saturday. “Even when he was not scoring the basketball, he did a good job to get it into the paint and facilitating for his teammates.”
Beating Virginia Tech — the Hokies are 1-9 in league play — would demonstrate a step forward. The Jackets have won back-to-back ACC regular-season games just once in Gregory’s tenure. Progress is one thing, but having something to show for it is another.
“We still want to win, we still want to be a good team,” Mitchell said. “We’ve still got to finish the season strong. We’ve still got a lot of basketball left.”
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