A few more thoughts and observations from Georgia Tech's 69-54 win over Pittsburgh on Saturday. You can read the "5 observations" story here.
1. Guard Josh Okogie had a plus-32 total for his plus/minus, which is by far the team’s highest in its four ACC games this season. After the game, I asked him if he knew what his plus/minus was (he did not), and when I told him, it caught him by surprise.
I don’t know how much a single-game plus/minus means – small sample size and all – but it does speak to the impact he had on the game. He did a little bit of everything – 12 points, three rebounds, four assists, two steals and one block against three turnovers in 31 minutes.
Since returning for the Florida A&M game December 17, his game has returned bit by bit. Most notably, he was forcing tough shots, but he seems to have settled in.
His shooting lines on two-point field goals since returning: 4-for-10, 4-for-13, 6-for-9, 2-for-7, 1-for-5, 9-for-18, 3-for-5, 5-for-12 and 3-for-6. It seems there’s a trend line toward making 50 percent inside the arc. He has nine assists in the past two games. The arrow would seem to be pointing up.
2. Guard Brandon Alston had five assists, a career high even going back to his two seasons at Lehigh. He had a really nice feed in the second half, driving the lane, drawing defenders and then making a tight-quarters pass to Abdoulaye Gueye, who muscled up for one of his seven baskets.
(This is not that important, but on the ensuing play at the other end, I had my head down writing something, and I missed what happened, but the writer next to me kind of moaned about what he saw. He said something about how Pitt tried to do the same thing as Tech did, “except the guy threw it 100 miles an hour.” It might have been the hardest I laughed all day.)
With Tadric Jackson apparently sticking in the sixth man role he filled last season, Alston is holding down the third guard spot in the starting five as Curtis Haywood tries to find his form after missing six games with a shin injury. Haywood was playing well at the time of his injury, but has been having a tough time getting back to that place so far, probably not unlike Ben Lammers and Okogie’s challenges with their own returns.
Neither is doing outstanding but both have their moments. It’s an area Tech will have to get more production from as the schedule ramps up.
3. Lammers was feeling better about his shot after Saturday’s game. Lammers has been stuck in something of a shooting slump, which he recognizes as a mental struggle more than anything. But on Saturday, he hit his first jumper, from the baseline during the opening 21-1 run.
He hit two more jumpers after that and finished 4-for-9. One was a bit labored. He didn’t make the catch on a pass cleanly, and then his shot bounced off the rim three or four times before falling through.
“It was nice,” he said. “It wasn’t going in, like, straight away, but it went in. That’s why I’m almost positive it was all in my mind because I made the first shot in the corner. After that, I wasn’t even thinking about it. Obviously, I didn’t make every single shot, but I wasn’t as hesitant, which is a good step. Hopefully it continues going in more.”
That could be a critical stage for Lammers and Tech, which could use more scoring from him. He finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds for the 23rd double-double of his career.
4. The Jackets are about to learn a lot about how legitimate their 3-1 ACC record is. They have played fairly well, although not great. Starting Thursday over an 11-day stretch, the Jackets face (KenPom ranking) No. 3 Virginia, No. 9 North Carolina, No. 28 Florida State and No. 15 Clemson. The UNC and FSU games are on the road. Tech’s KenPom ranking on Sunday afternoon was No. 101.
They could make it through 1-3 and it could reasonably be considered successful. To me, the how will matter almost as much as the final outcome.
Tech has not matched up with Virginia well in recent years. North Carolina won’t have played since Tuesday, while the Jackets will be going on the road for the back end of a Thursday/Saturday double. Florida State had a 28-game home winning streak until losing to Louisville last Wednesday and then came back to beat Syracuse Saturday. Clemson is playing really well defensively.
All four should be in the NCAA tournament. If Tech can be legitimately competitive with all four, even if the Jackets don’t win, that’ll say a lot, maybe even more than starting 3-1.
From my iPhone
It was pretty sparse Saturday at Petersen Events Center, where the announced attendance of 3,544 was the lowest for a Pitt home ACC game. Pitt is now 0-6 in the ACC and has been besieged by transfers since the hire of Kevin Stallings in 2016.
Pitt fans may be missing Jamie Dixon, who was under some public criticism when he left after the 2015-16 season for his alma mater TCU, though he had taken the Panthers to 11 NCAA Tournaments in 13 seasons.
You may remember that TCU hammered Tech in the NIT finals.
As things would have it, Vanderbilt, the school Stallings left seemingly ahead of the mob to take the Pitt job, is having a tough time in Bryce Drew’s second season. The Commodores are 6-11.
Plus/minus
Totally unrelated to the game
I had an interesting (from my perspective, at any rate) conversation with my Uber driver on the way back to my hotel from the arena. The driver was from Palestine. Among the things I learned: He is the youngest of 15 children (seven brothers and seven sisters) and the only one not living in Palestine. He has a cousin who is a professor at UGA. He grew up in a two-room house and slept on the floor. (I sometimes think about this, that pretty much everyone else in the world must be confused by the American obsession with big houses and the idea that a 3/2 or 4/2 home isn’t big enough.)
Anyway, I asked him what he found confusing about American culture. He said one thing was how some people value animals over people. He said he didn’t have anything against animals (he said everyone in Palestine has animals, like dogs, sheep, donkeys, etc.) but he found it strange that, for instance, someone in a dating relationship could give a “me or the dog” ultimatum to his/her significant other, and the dog (or cat) has a pretty good chance. (Heavy paraphrasing.)
I like dogs, and I understand the bond between pets and their owners, but I also see his point.
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