A touch of history will grace Georgia Tech’s matchup with No. 2 Duke Tuesday night in Durham, N.C. Barring a meeting in the postseason, it will be the final Yellow Jackets game against Duke legend Mike Krzyzewski.
The man whom Tech coach Josh Pastner often hails as one of the greatest coaches in any sport, and perhaps the greatest of all, is coaching Duke one final season, his 42nd with the Blue Devils.
However, the Jackets, having lost five of their past six, including a Sunday night home loss to Louisville, have their focus elsewhere than paying homage to Krzyzewski.
Five things to know about Tuesday’s game:
1. Farewell, Coach K
This will be the 80th game that Krzyzewski has coached against the Jackets, first against Dwane Morrison, then Bobby Cremins, Paul Hewitt, Brian Gregory and Pastner. Under Krzyzewski, the Blue Devils are 60-19 against Tech, including an 11-game winning streak at Cameron Indoor Stadium and a 37-5 record there overall. The Jackets ended a 14-game losing streak to the Blue Devils last season.
On the goodbye tour for Krzyzewski in his final trip through the ACC, Tech had a pretty good gift lined up. As a surprise to Krzyzewski, Cremins, who lives in Hilton Head, S.C., was planning to attend the game and watch from the Jackets bench, Pastner told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The two were friendly adversaries and their relationship has remained over the years.
However, Pastner said that Cremins had “a slight medical issue” and will not be able to make it.
“I was going to have him sit on the bench, because there were so many great games between coach K and coach Cremins back in the day,” Pastner said. “If you ask coach K, he’ll tell you all the great teams and success that Georgia Tech had with coach Cremins, and coach Cremins is one of coach K’s all-time favorites.”
Pastner said Monday he hadn’t given thought to what he’ll tell Krzyzewski in their pre-game greeting.
“He knows the level of respect I have for him, as does everybody,” Pastner said.
2. Need to fix scoring droughts
The 67-64 loss to Louisville on Sunday night was the fifth game in a row in which the Jackets had a second-half stretch of at least four minutes in which they were held without a point. Not surprisingly, four of them were losses. In four instances, the Jackets gave up leads in those droughts, three times for good.
Against the Cardinals, the Jackets took a 49-45 lead with 11:07 to play in the game before failing to score over the next 4:49, allowing a 10-0 run and giving up a lead they could never regain.
It perhaps goes without saying that, against the No. 2 team in the country in its own arena, the Jackets likely won’t be able to survive such a scoreless duration. Tech misses Jose Alvarado and Moses Wright in a multitude of ways this season. Having two players who played with grit and were capable of generating defensive stops and finding different ways to score in situations like these is another.
3. Scouting report from Durham
Krzyzewski’s summation of Tech:
“They have two of the best players in the league in (Michael) Devoe and (Jordan) Usher, and it’s built around those guys. Josh has done a great job of highlighting them. They take about half their shots. They make a lot of them and as a result of the scrutiny that you have to have in trying to guard them, it creates openings for their other guys.”
Devoe leads the ACC in scoring at 21.2 points per game and Usher is 11th at 15.1 points per game. At a combined 36.3 points per game, they are the highest scoring set of teammates in the ACC.
4. Challenge in the post
After center Jordan Meka made his first career start against Louisville with post players Rodney Howard and Saba Gigiberia out – Howard has an ankle injury and Gigiberia had just been cleared from health and safety protocol – Pastner was expecting Gigiberia to be able to play against the Blue Devils, but said Howard was doubtful.
Playing the fifth game of his career, Meka was energetic on defense (two blocks) before fouling out in 20 minutes, but the Jackets will be in dire need of bodies in the post. Duke center Mark Williams is a highly productive scorer and rebounder, and 6-10 freshman forward Paolo Banchero could be the No. 1 pick in the next draft, capable of shooting and handling the ball like a guard but also rebounding and scoring down low.
Louisville took advantage of Meka’s inexperience and lack of big-man depth as 6-11 forward Malik Williams scored 20 points on 9-for-12 shooting. The Cardinals shot 61.3% on 2-point field-goal shots, a season high for a Tech opponent.
“We struggled against (Williams), especially when we were smaller,” Pastner said.
5. Duke coming off pause
Duke has not played since Dec. 22, postponing two ACC games because of its COVID-19 pause. Krzyzewski said that the coronavirus “hit our program extremely hard,” infecting most of the players on the team. He expected Monday to be the first day that every player would be available to practice from its pause, although he said that there only might be one or two coaches available for that practice.
“We’re not in the shape we have been in before so it’s going to take time to ramp up,” Krzyzewski said.
From a competitive standpoint, it should be an advantage for Tech, which returned to practice on Thursday from its pause and found its conditioning base eroded.
At the first practice back, Pastner said, “We looked like we were at the Life Time (Fitness) 40-and-over league the way we were (running) up and down and couldn’t even get past half-court half the time. Guys were so tired.”
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