Georgia Tech may already be an NCAA Tournament team, but it also shouldn’t leave much to chance this week going into the ACC tournament in Charlotte.
Tech opens play at the league’s annual postseason event against Florida State at approximately 3 p.m. Tuesday. The Yellow Jackets (31-21) will then face Virginia at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Truist Field.
“We have a great league. Anybody can beat anybody and I think this tournament this week will be crazy,” Tech coach Danny Hall said. “We have six series wins in the ACC which not everybody can say that. Our tier one, tier two record and wins, we’ve played a lot of those games and I think those definitely matter. I feel like we’re in good shape, but the easiest way to just take care of it would be to go win this tournament certainly play our best baseball up there.”
Hall’s team begins the week with an RPI of 46 despite dropping 2 of 3 at Florida State to end the regular season. But winning one of those three, an 11-10 victory in the finale Saturday, slightly boosted Tech’s RPI rating and gave it nine wins over Quadrant 1 opponents.
Tech won six ACC series during the course of the regular season (only Clemson and North Carolina won more in the league). The Jackets also also have four teams inside the top 15 of the RPI on the road during league play. On Monday, Tech was projected by On3 to be the No. 3 seed in the Athens Regional and D1Baseball to be the No. 3 seed in the Knoxville (Tenn.) Regional.
“Tremendous opportunity for us to keep building our resume. Felt like the win at Florida State on Saturday was huge for us resume-wise,” Hall said. “Then just he fact who we have played down the stretch here and who we’ve been able to get wins against and win series against certainly should put us in great position certainly keeping our eyes on the Monday selection show.”
Tech, who will hand the ball to freshman Tate McKee (4-4, 7.07 ERA) on Tuesday, will be a part of Pool D at the ACC tournament which uses the pool play format to determine four semifinalists out of the 12 participating teams. The Jackets will need at least two wins to put itself in position to advance to Saturday and at least one to further pad its NCAA tourney resume.
Tuesday’s affair will be the fourth against FSU for Tech in a six-day span. The Jackets gave up 29 runs to the Seminoles (39-14) over the weekend in Tallahassee.
Virginia (40-14) swept Virginia Tech at home to end the regular season. The Cavaliers dropped 2 of 3 to Tech at home in mid-April.
Since the ACC tournament began in 1980, Tech has won nine championships with the last coming in 2014. The Jackets are 2-5 in their last seven ACC tourney games.
“You just gotta enjoy every moment you have playing together and competing for Georgia Tech, competing in a great league like the ACC,” Hall said. “Just enjoy the moment, take each moment as it comes and hopefully we can create some great moments for Georgia Tech.”
Burress named ACC freshman of the year
Tech’s Drew Burress was named ACC freshman of the year Monday, the league announced.
Burress also earned a spot on the all-ACC first team and all-freshman team. Joining Burress was Payton Green and Matthew Ellis, who were named to the ACC’s second team all-conference.
Burress is hitting a team-best .379 with 14 doubles, two triples and 22 home runs with 62 RBIs. With an OPS of 1.311, he’s slugging .803 with an on-base percentage of .508, having drawn more walks (51) than strikeouts (33). He also has eight stolen bases and has nine assists from center field – tying the program record for most single-season assists by an outfielder.
Burress currently leads all Division I freshmen in six statistical categories (home runs, home runs per game, slugging, total bases, walks, and walks per game), while ranking in the top three nationally in 11 categories.
Leading Tech in average, home runs and RBIs, the Warner Robins native has a chance at becoming the 12th Yellow Jacket to win Tech’s triple crown.
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