Observations, quotes and stats from Georgia Tech's 73-59 win over Syracuse Saturday night at the Carrier Dome.
1. Lineup change
Coach Josh Pastner’s decision to go with a lineup different than the one he had used for the previous six games paid off. Saturday’s starters were Abdoulaye Gueye and James Banks in the frontcourt and Jose Alvarado, Curtis Haywood and Michael Devoe in the backcourt. It was the first time Gueye and Banks had started together.
They both played smart games, not trying to do too much and doing well to look for each other from the high posts to the low post. Gueye was decisive in his post moves, making five of seven shots for 10 points. Banks was 6-for-10, scoring 16 points with seven rebounds. He played a career-high 37 minutes.
“I was really proud of those guys,” Pastner said. “They were patient in the middle. They took care of the ball.”
They ended up playing most of the game together until Gueye left the game with a muscle cramp four minutes into the second half and did not return. (It was the second game in a row that Gueye suffered a cramp.) After Gueye left the game, forward Evan Cole filled in nicely, finshing with eight points and eight rebounds.
Pastner said he was going on feel in making the change, but acknowledged that part of the reason was the thought that having Banks and Gueye could create a mismatch against Syracuse center Marek Dolezaj, who finished with four points and six rebounds.
It was also Haywood’s return to the starting lineup. He had been coming off the bench since the Arkansas game. The lineup of Khalid Moore, Moses Wright, Alvarado, Banks and Devoe had started each game since. Moore played seven minutes against Syracuse and Wright played none.
2. What the win means
The game continues to confirm that Tech is a very good defensive team. There are questions that can be raised about the Orange, including why a team that was shooting 30 percent from 3-point range would then take a season-high 33 3-pointers against Tech. (They made seven.) But consider that, in both of Tech’s past two games (Virginia Tech and Syracuse), the opponent has been held to its season low for points and field-goal percentage following.
And, to whatever degree the Jackets can continue to play that effectively, then they’ll have a chance. It was how the Jackets were able to be in the game against the Hokies, a 52-49 loss.
Tech’s offensive numbers against Syracuse were unusual, certainly. They shot 59.5 percent from the field and 50 percent from 3-point range (6-for-12), but turned the ball over 22 times. In Tech’s other road win this season, at Arkansas, the Jackets had 20 turnovers. Against Syracuse, the Jackets were also 17-for-27 from the free-throw line, 63 percent. It wasn’t a standard formula to get to 73 points, but it did the job.
In fact, according to sports-reference.com, going back to the 2010-11 season (which is how far back the database of games goes), Tech is the only team in Division I that won a game by double digits despite turning the ball over 20 or more times.
But it goes back to Tech’s reliance upon its defense. The Jackets may have to find screwy ways to get points, but if they can do it, they can win, because the defense will probably be there.
3. Put another way
Perhaps the most quintessential Josh Pastner quote of the season:
“We’ve been very good defensively. That’s who we’ve been. In my three years here, you just look at the numbers, our only way of survivability has been through defense. It’s our only way to survive in this league that is the best league in the country besides the NBA. Other than the NBA, the ACC is the best league and the only way for us to survive in the league is through defense. I repeat myself a lot. My wife can’t stand it. But, God bless her, she tells me all the time, ‘Stop repeating yourself, Josh.’”
4. Big game from Haywood
Haywood started and played 38 minutes, a career high, after missing Wednesday’s game with strep throat.
He made one of the bigger baskets of the game midway through the second half. After the Jackets built their lead to 51-33, Syracuse scored the next eight points to cut the lead to 51-41. Cole made one of two free throws to push the lead to 52-41. Buddy Boeheim then missed a 3-point try and, then at the other end, Haywood found himself with the ball with the shot clock running down, trapped in the corner. He squeezed through the double team and got off a shot from the baseline that somehow rattled in for a 54-41 lead.
As Pastner likes to say, it’s a make-or-miss game, that is to say, a team can have work for open shots, but if they don’t make them, it’s for naught. Had Boeheim made his 3-pointer and Haywood not made his, the lead would have been 52-44 and the momentum for a comeback would have been peaking. Instead, Haywood’s basket kept the Orange at bay.
“I knew that the shot clock was going down and I saw the big guy (Paschal Chukwu), so I tried to pump fake him, get a foul, but he didn’t move, so I just tried to go through the double team that they had and shoot a floater and it went in,” Haywood said.
Incidentally, when Haywood was out with strep throat, he tried to watch the game but was not able because it was blocked locally. Haywood first followed ESPN’s gamecast and then tried a more inventive means. He called family members via FaceTime and had them point their phones at the television so he could watch the broadcast through his phone.
“I was trying everything I could,” he said.
5. Playing smart on offense (when not turning it over)
Georgia Tech’s 12 3-point tries ties for the fewest attempted against Syracuse going back through the 2010-11 season, according to sports-reference.com.
After the game, Pastner said that that was what he was probably most proud of for his team. It was an indication of the team’s discipline on offense to stick to its plan to move the ball and get it inside and below Syracuse’s 2-3 zone rather than settle for 3-pointers on top of the zone, which can be a trap against the Orange. Syracuse opponents shoot an average of 26 3-pointers a game – the national average is about 22 – but make only 30.8 percent, 50th nationally.
“The game plan was to try to get the ball in the middle, either with a guard or a big man, and run deep corners,” Alvarado said. “If they hit us, we had an open shot, we made it.”
Perhaps as a result of its patience in waiting for open 3-shots, the Jackets made six of the 12, its second-best rate of the season. Tech made four of them (two by Alvarado, two by Haywood) in the first eight minutes of the second half when the Jackets expanded their lead to 51-33 to begin to put the game out of reach.
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