If Georgia Tech were to win its last two games of the regular season, it’s possible that the Yellow Jackets could finish as high as a tie for 10th place – which is exactly where they were projected to place before the season.
Tech plays its final two regular-season games Wednesday at Clemson and home against Boston College on Saturday. The Jackets are 11-18 overall and 4-14 in ACC play and are tied for last with N.C. State going into Wednesday’s games.
“We’ve got a lot to play for,” coach Josh Pastner said. “It’s no doom and gloom. The sun’s out, we’ve got some great opportunities this week, and if we play well and try to get two wins and a couple things happen, we can slide into 10th place, which would be not bad.”
Aside from winning its last two games, Tech also would need Boston College, Clemson, Louisville and Pittsburgh all to lose its remaining games to finish in a tie for 10th.
On the other hand, if things don’t go as well, a few dubious distinctions also could await Tech.
There hasn’t been a team that won the ACC Tournament and finished in last place the next season since Virginia won the 1976 tournament and finished in a tie for last place with Duke in 1977.
Tech itself has not finished last in the ACC since 2012, and if it can’t win a 12th game, it would be the team’s fewest wins in a season since that same 2012 team was 11-20 overall.
No matter what happens in the next two games, the team’s league record will be the poorest in Pastner’s six-year tenure. (The Jackets were 6-12 in both the 2018 and 2019 seasons.) That would follow two history-making seasons of the sort that Tech fans would prefer.
In 2020, Tech finished with an 11-9 league record, which was the first time that the Jackets had earned a winning ACC record since 2004, when they reached the national championship game. That was followed by last year’s ACC championship – Tech’s first since 1993 – and the first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2010.
For Wednesday’s game, Tech will again be without guard Deivon Smith, who has missed the past three games after suffering a concussion in the loss Feb. 19 at Pitt.
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