Not in any worst-case scenario did Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt imagine his team would shoot as poorly as it has this season.
Now he needs the least accurate team in the ACC to warm up and help the Yellow Jackets win at last-place Wake Forest Thursday night. The Jackets are in jeopardy of going 0-for-11 on the road this season, which would mark the second 0-fer the program has posted in Hewitt's 11 seasons. Dating back to last season, Tech has lost 16 straight road games.
"At this point it's about winning," Hewitt said. "We've had stretches of good basketball where we've played well, but it's all about winning."
In addition to being the last chance, it would seem to be a good chance. The Jackets (11-17, 3-11 in the ACC) hammered Wake Forest (8-21, 1-13) in their first meeting this season, 74-39. Tech has won just one ACC game since while dropping five road games.
There are a few theories why the team has struggled away from home: bad shooting, a lack of a consistent inside game and a lack of patience.
Tech has yet to shoot better than 50 percent in a game this season. It is the worst shooting team in the ACC (40.6 percent), as well as the worst 3-point shooting team (29.1).
With Brian Oliver, Glen Rice, Iman Shumpert and Jason Morris, Hewitt said he thought he had a chance to have four 3-point shooters.
"It just hasn't worked out that way," he said.
As the year has progressed, opponents have played Tech tightly along the 3-point line, daring the Jackets' inexperienced post players to do something offensively. For much of the season, they haven't. Tech has tried to establish 6-foot-11 redshirt freshman Daniel Miller on the post early in the past few games and it has had some effect. But there hasn't been enough consistency.
"People have dared us throw the ball inside," Hewitt said. "They have said, ‘You are going to beat us off the dribble or throw it inside.'"
Tech's other big man, 6-8 red-shirt freshman Kammeon Holsey, received a cortisone injection in his sore right knee before last weekend's game against N.C. State, Hewitt said.
Hewitt believed that Holsey, who is coming off last year's ACL surgery, was physically improving after a team-leading 18-point performance in the ACC opener at Boston College. But he hasn't hit double figures since and hasn't attempted a shot in three games. He is averaging 3.6 points.
"Physically he just wore down," Hewitt said. "[A] product of getting over the ACL. With some people it takes a year. A combination of getting adjusted to the ACC and the knee."
With the inside game in flux, Hewitt has elected to start Morris in place of Rice the past two games and will do so again against the Demon Deacons. Morris is shooting a team-leading 39.5 percent from the floor. The team hit 47.4 percent from the field in the last game at N.C. State, its highest mark in 10 games.
Hewitt has pointed out that it's not who starts that's important; it's who finishes. Rice has been finishing. He said the change hasn't affected how he approaches the game or his role. Morris said his role hasn't changed either.
"[Hewitt] is still stressing the same thing as in October, to run the floor and play good defense," Morris said.
The lineup change hasn't led to victories the past two games, but Hewitt said he has liked what he has seen. Guard Moe Miller said if they can maintain their patience for 40 minutes, they can put together more performances like the first game against Wake Forest or in the 20-point victory against North Carolina. With the ACC tournament starting next week, Miller said now is the time to solve the issues.
"It's a culmination of a lot of things," Miller said. "We've just got to figure it out, come together and stay together.
"It's constantly repeating itself. That's something that coach is stressing to us."
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