Georgia Tech met defeat Saturday, again by the narrowest of margins. The form was improbable, but the end result was perhaps entirely unsurprising.
Down by 23 in the first half and by 16 with seven minutes to go in regulation, the Yellow Jackets forced overtime against Clemson before losing 70-63 at Littlejohn Coliseum. Tech (12-17 overall, 3-14 ACC) is now 0-10 in ACC games decided by five points or fewer or in overtime. Further, the Jackets have lost their past 10 regular-season overtime games in league play, six under coach Brian Gregory.
“It’s like, ‘Wow’,” said forward Marcus Georges-Hunt, who led Tech’s stunning comeback with a game-high 20 points, nine rebounds, six assists and three steals.
“Me and my guys are fighting, fighting, fighting, and we come up short every time. It’s like we’re one possession or one shot, just one something away. We’re waiting to see what it is and figure it out.”
Unlike many of their ACC losses, the Jackets played from behind for nearly the entirety of the game. Tech missed its first 14 field-goal tries and didn’t score a basket until 6:05 remained in the first half, ending a dry spell that lasted the first 20 possessions. Georges-Hunt’s 3-pointer made the score 26-7 and drew patronizing applause from the Clemson faithful.
“We didn’t match (the competitiveness of) Clemson in the first half by any stretch,” Gregory said.
Tech fell behind by as many as 23 in the half before closing to 35-16 by halftime, its lowest-scoring half since producing 16 and 12 points in the Jan. 22 train wreck against Virginia. But the Jackets showed fight throughout and after trying to chip away at the lead through the first 13 minutes of the second half, finally mounted a charge. Down 54-38 at the seven-minute mark — a larger deficit and less time than Louisville faced in its comeback win over Tech on Monday — the Jackets caught Clemson at the wire with a 22-6 closing run.
Said guard Tadric Jackson, “We were just going possession by possession. Coaches were telling us in the timeouts, ‘You’ve got to win it round by round.’”
“Obviously, that’s a great character trait, but you’re supposed to have that,” Gregory said of his team’s refusal to lie down.
Scoring in transition and then using full-court pressure, the Jackets erased a nine-point deficit in the final 1:21 to send the game to overtime at 60-60. Georges-Hunt twice scored baskets after stealing inbounds passes from a frazzled Donte Grantham.
“Donte just got nervous,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said.
Despite the relentlessness, there was the usual assortment of lapses and could-have-been moments in Tech’s product. Clemson was the more aggressive team in the first half, forcing nine Jackets turnovers in 31 first-half possessions. As it usually does, Tech overwhelmed Clemson on the offensive glass – bringing down 21 offensive rebounds compared with the Tigers’ 27 defensive rebounds — but could convert that into only 15 points. Jackson, who made a big 3-pointer to start the rally from 16 points down, was 2-for-7 from the free-throw line.
In overtime, the Jackets had three shots on their first possession to take the lead, but came up empty. Grantham made a jumper on the next possession for Clemson, which built its lead to 68-60 as Tech failed to score until 42 seconds remained.
“We need to play hard like we did in the second half in the first half,” Jackson said. “Like Coach said, ‘You can’t win the game when you go hard for one half.’”
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