With a shortened bench and able players off their games, Georgia Tech was an easy foil for Wake Forest.
The Yellow Jackets fell 81-69 to the Demon Deacons Saturday at Joel Coliseum, their back-to-back losses this week giving back the ground gained by their stunning wins over top-25 opponents Florida State and Notre Dame in the week prior.
Tech took the court Saturday already disadvantaged. Guard Justin Moore, who has averaged 22.9 minutes per game, was out with an abdominal injury. It was the Jackets’ first game without forward Abdoulaye Gueye, the primary post backup who fractured his left wrist in the loss at Clemson on Wednesday.
Not an efficient offense normally, Tech was not near its peak Saturday. The Jackets shot 35.7 percent, well below their season rate of 43.2 percent. Guards Josh Heath and Tadric Jackson particularly struggled, shooting a combined 3-for-16 for eight points with seven turnovers. The Jackets profited from a solid effort from line with 21-for-28 shooting.
Tech (13-10 overall, 5-6 ACC) was led by guard Josh Okogie, who scored 23 points on 6-for-15 shooting. Wake Forest (14-9, 5-6) dropped Tech’s road record to 2-7.
Trouble starts early
Georgia Tech put itself in a huge hole in the first half with foul trouble. Center Ben Lammers, who came into the game averaging 35 minutes per game, took his second foul and was taken out at the 13:15 mark. With backup Abdoulaye Gueye out with a fractured wrist, coach Josh Pastner was forced to play forward Sylvester Ogbonda, who to this point had played 14 minutes in the Jackets’ first 10 ACC games.
Pastner risked bringing back Lammers – the focal point of the offense – back at the 7:21 mark, and he was whistled for his third foul barely a minute later.
With Lammers playing just eight minutes and the Jackets lacking focus on offense – they shot 29.6 percent from the field in the half and turned the ball over nine times – it was a credit to their defensive play that they were down just 37-31 at the half.
Where the game was lost
Ahead by six points at halftime, Wake Forest freed up forward Dinos Mitoglou for a 3-pointer from the corner and a 40-31 lead. Heath was then blocked at the basket on the Jackets’ first possession, leading to a transition 3-pointer by Wake Forest guard Keyshawn Woods and a 43-31 lead.
Coach Josh Pastner immediately called timeout to try to arrest the Demon Deacons’ momentum, but the damage had already been done. On a day when the Jackets were having particular difficulty on offense, a 12-point deficit was going to be too much to overcome.
Hung in there defensively
Tech played effective defense for about 28 minutes before Wake Forest broke the dam. The Demon Deacons came into the game ranked 12th in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency, averaging 1.201 points per possession.
Through 52 possessions, Wake Forest had scored 49 points, .942 points per possession. However, against a defense that was weakened by a lack of depth, was playing inexperienced players on the floor, required Lammers to play a less aggressive style with four fouls and with Wake Forest taking advantage of transition opportunities after Tech misses, the Demon Deacons began to find the range.
They finished the game with a 1.095 points per possession average, including 32 points on their final 22 number possessions.
The John Collins challenge
Given the opportunity to take control of the game with the foul trouble that tangled Lammers and Ogbonda, All-ACC candidate John Collins was effective. Collins, who came into the game having scored 20 or more points in five consecutive games, finished with 20 points to go with 11 rebounds.
Collins came into the game as the only player in the ACC ranking in the top 10 in the conference in scoring (17.5 points) and rebounding (9.2 rebounds).
What’s next
Tech will get a break from ACC play Tuesday, playing Division II Tusculum at McCamish Pavilion. Against a presumably inferior opponent – Tusculum, a school of 1,800 students in northeast Tennessee, is 10-12 – the Jackets could use an opportunity to give minutes to backups. Heath has been battling illness while Jackson and forward Quinton Stephens have played with ankle injuries.
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