Georgia Tech knew it wouldn’t be easy, opening ACC play on the road at Maryland with Robert Carter Jr. in warm-ups on the bench, injured. But it probably shouldn’t have been quite this hard.
The Terrapins put on a 3-point shooting display, making 10 of 19 from behind the arc, and led by as many as 20 points on their way to a 77-61 rout in front of 12,545 at Comcast Center on Saturday afternoon.
Nick Faust made his first four 3-point shots and finished with 16 points off the bench to lead the Terrapins (10-5, 2-0).
Tech (9-5, 0-1) lost its eighth consecutive ACC opener, but have no time to be disheartened. Next up, the Yellow Jackets travel to No. 7 Duke on Tuesday, the day Carter is scheduled to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery.
“We have to learn from it,” said sophomore Marcus Georges-Hunt, who led Tech with 11 points and defended Maryland’s Dez Wells to a draw, with 11 points of his own. “We have to learn what we did wrong to play better and not give up. We’ve got to stick together as a team and fight each game.”
Without Carter, who has averaged nearly a double-double (10.3 points and 9.3 rebounds), the Jackets were left searching for a new identity at a tough time. That was clear on the stat sheet, too. Who would have figured freshman Quinton Stephens would be the first Jacket into double-figures scoring Saturday afternoon?
The 6-foot-8 wing made back-to-back 3-pointers late in the second half to reach 10 points. That was with 7:11 remaining in the game. Stephens and senior guard Trae Golden finished with 10 points apiece. Georges-Hunt reached double-digits when he made a 3-pointer with 1:34 left.
“When you’re in the position we’re in, you need everything to go right, and unfortunately that hasn’t been the case,” said Tech coach Brian Gregory, who also lost freshman point guard Travis Jorgenson to an ACL tear. “But one of the things you also have to do is keep fighting, and you’ve got to keep figuring out different ways to put guys in position to be successful. And the guys have got to keep buying into that and keep fighting through it.”
Senior forward Kammeon Holsey got his first start of the season in place of Carter. He came out active, attempting five shots in the first seven minutes and making three of them. He scored Tech’s first three field goals to keep them afloat during an onslaught of Maryland offense. The Terrapins used three 3-pointers to open a 20-9 lead in the first six minutes of the game.
Holsey would not score again, however, and finished with six points on 3-for-8 shooting.
Tech outrebounded Maryland 36-34 in the game, but no Tech player had more than six rebounds. And the leader with six? Stephens again.
“I thought Q, for a freshman in his first ACC game, thrown into that situation, did a lot of good things,” Gregory said.
So did the Terrapins, who are off to their first 2-0 start in the ACC in 11 years.
They made seven of 12 3-pointers in the first half to open a 14-point halftime lead and command of the game. While Maryland was 10-for-19 from 3-point range, Tech was 5-for-19 — a 15-point difference. Four Terrapins made two or more 3-pointers, including Evan Smotrycz, Jake Layman, and Seth Allen.
Half of Maryland’s team, it seemed, was looking eye-to-eye with Daniel Miller, Tech’s 6-foot-11 senior center. The Terrapins used a pair of 6-9 wings to give Tech match-up problems on the perimeter. Case in point was 6-9 Smotrycz sizing up 6-3 Tech guard Chris Bolden on the perimeter midway through the first half. He drove Bolden to the goal and scored a layup over him to give Maryland a 24-13 lead.
Tech cut that lead to five points, 27-22, with 6:04 left in the first half, but gave up two baskets to Wheeler High graduate Charles Mitchell and two 3-pointers to Faust to get the Maryland lead back to 13.
“The most disappointing thing for me during the game was that,” said Gregory, referring to Maryland’s run late in the first half. “Anytime you play in this league there are going to be ebbs and flows to games, and you’ve got to be able to sustain your concentration during another team’s run.”
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