RALEIGH —Walking out of the RBC Center late Wednesday night, Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory found himself with an unlikely task — tempering rising expectations.
“I don’t want to say everything’s solid,” said the coach, still wearing his gray pinstriped suit and toting a backpack over one shoulder.
The Yellow Jackets had just scrapped their way to an 82-71 upset win over N.C. State, stopping the Wolfpack with physical interior play and their best 3-point shooting of the season. The win ended Tech’s four-game losing streak, gave Gregory his first ACC win and stopped N.C. State’s six-game winning streak. For most of the game, the Jackets played with the ferocity and attention that he has urged since his arrival last spring.
Gregory, though, recoiled from any suggestion of arrival for his 8-8 team.
“The problem is, you have to do it for awhile,” he said, as the team bus waited behind him. “One week, two weeks isn’t enough.”
True enough, Tech’s upcoming games at Maryland on Sunday and at Philips Arena against No. 16 Virginia next Thursday offer the potential for involuntary humility. The Jackets, picked to finish 10th in the ACC after going 13-18 last season, losing guard Iman Shumpert to the NBA and changing coaches, have experience with coming up short. But the win over the Wolfpack provided a slice of evidence that perhaps the Jackets can apply Gregory’s formula of energy, effort and attitude with more efficacy than previously thought.
“No doubt, I feel like we’re building momentum,” said forward Kammeon Holsey, who led the Jackets with eight rebounds in 23 exertive minutes.
The significance of Wednesday’s win is debatable. N.C. State seemed off its game, and leading scorer C.J. Leslie was limited in foul trouble, thanks in part to Holsey’s activity around the basket. Further, Tech would be wise not to expect another 9-for-15 shooting night from 3-point range. And it is early.
However, consider the early returns from Tech’s first two ACC games. The Jackets nearly upset then-No. 5 Duke on Saturday, trailing by two points with under a minute to play and holding the Blue Devils four points below their season field-goal percentage. They beat N.C. State, which had rolled up a 12-4 record, in front of a raucous crowd at the RBC Center, where the Jackets had lost in nine of their previous 10 visits.
The win gave the Jackets a 3-2 road record, not exactly headline material. But it’s as many road wins as Tech had in any of the past three seasons, when they were a combined 7-28 under former coach Paul Hewitt and 2-22 in ACC games. Further, Tech’s 26-point blowout in March of a collapsed Wake Forest team aside, the Jackets had not had an 11-point ACC road win since the 2003-04 season, when they advanced to the national championship game.
Said Gregory, “We’re changing that mentality where you really embrace that challenge of going into a tough environment and playing well and playing tough with kind of a blue-collar approach.”
Despite his caution, Gregory sees his group adopting the bruiser mentality that he is trying to instill. Holsey and center Daniel Miller, in particular, went bruise for bruise with the Wolfpack’s frontcourt. N.C. State claimed the first 10 rebounds of the game. After that, however, Tech owned a 34-19 advantage on the boards. That edge helped the Jackets to a 40-29 halftime lead that they never gave up.
“Right at the beginning of the game, they were really physical, but then it felt like we took over and they weren’t crashing the boards like we were,” said Miller, who had 10 points to go with four rebounds and four blocks. “We were getting bodies on them.”
The Jackets played with active hands on defense and challenged shots. They retreated in the transition game to limit N.C. State’s fast breaks. When the Wolfpack closed to within 45-40 early in the second half, Gregory called timeout, and the Jackets scored the next 11 points.
In the timeout, “we talked about the same things we’d talked about all game, staying focused, don’t get frustrated,” said Rice, who led Tech with 22 points in a standout performance. “We knew we’d pull it out if we did the things we needed to do.”
Rice described those objectives — keeping poised, sharing the ball — as “Yellow Jacket basketball.” His coach might advise that the full expression of the term may be a long way off. Regardless, it already carries a considerably different meaning than what it has come to represent in recent years.
“If you come out there and give it your best effort, you’re not going to win every game,” Rice said, “but you’re going to win most of them.”
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