A new year and the start of the ACC season will greet Georgia Tech when it tips off Saturday afternoon with Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.
“You head into conference play, everybody’s shooting zero percent,” coach Brian Gregory said. “The next basket one of them makes, they’re shooting 100 percent. You have to have that mentality.”
Such thinking would be particularly valuable regarding the Yellow Jackets’ 3-point shooting. In their first 12 games, when they won nine games and achieved a No. 34 RPI ranking, they were flagrantly errant with their shots beyond the 3-point arc. The Jackets are making 23.3 percent of their 3-point attempts, which as of Friday ranked last of 345 Division I teams. It is lower than the season-ending average of any Tech team since the advent of the 3-point shot in the 1986-87 season.
A saving grace for the Jackets is that they rank among the more effective 3-point defending teams in the country. The opposition is making 28.3 percent, which was 30th in the country.
“Thank God for the 3-point field-goal percentage defense because what it’s done is it’s kind of equaled out the fact that we haven’t shot the ball well from there,” Gregory said.
Forward Marcus Georges-Hunt made 33.3 percent of his 3-point tries as a freshman and 34.1 percent as a sophomore and is down to 14.3 percent. Guard Chris Bolden, who shot 30.4 percent as a freshman and 30.5 percent as a sophomore, has made 10 of 36 tries for 27.8 percent. Freshman guard Tadric Jackson has taken the most 3-pointers, 41, and made five (12.2 percent).
Georges-Hunt and Gregory are not panicking.
“That’s the least of my worries right now,” Georges-Hunt said of his 3-point shooting. “I’m just going to go out and do everything I can to help my team come out with a victory.”
After Tech shot 4-for-20 against Dayton in its 75-61 loss to the Flyers on Dec. 23, Gregory said that the team had enough data to warrant a valid look into the matter. His determination?
“We’ve got a lot of good shots,” Gregory said. He added that he hasn’t been a coach to tell different players not to shoot. “If you’re ready to shoot and open, we have to shoot those.”
The Jackets do have some company. No fewer than seven of the teams in the ACC are shooting less than 30 percent, including heavyweights North Carolina (29.3 percent), Syracuse (28.8) and Louisville (28.6).
On Saturday, and likely going forward into ACC play, such shooting won’t be sustainable. Notre Dame ranks No. 14 and as of Thursday led the country in field-goal percentage at 55.4 percent. Further, the Fighting Irish are No. 3 in the country in fewest turnovers per game at 9.3.
“You have to control the things you can control,” Gregory said. “That’s offensive actions, the quality shots and what happens after you shoot it. Our guys know that the guy next to him and the coaches on the bench have the confidence in the guys. So you’ve got to be ready to shoot and shoot it with confidence.”
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