Georgia Tech played its final home game of the calendar year Saturday, beating visiting Alabama A&M 70-49 at McCamish Pavilion in front of a crowd of 3,919.
Guard Kowacie Reeves had his best game in a Tech uniform by scoring 20 and pulling in a career-high 10 rebounds for his first career double-double. Reeves, a Florida transfer and Macon native, went 6-of-12 from the field and made all six of his free-throw attempts.
It was only Reeves’ third 20-point game of his career spanning his time at Florida and Tech.
“Since Day 1 coach (Damon Stoudamire) just instilled a level of confidence in me that I’ve never had while I’ve been in college,” Reeves said. “It’s kinda like just go out there and play hard, play the right way, and everything else will kind of find you. I’m just real grateful to have the coach that we got, man. I couldn’t ask for a better coach and staff. That dude’s awesome, man.”
The Jackets (5-3) led the final 37:55 of the contest as they bounced back from a road loss Tuesday and improved to 5-1 at home. Tech is off for a week until it faces Penn State (4-5) on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Miles Kelly added 11 points, and Nait George dealt eight assists to give the freshman an average of 3.8 assists per game in five games played. Tyzhaun Claude scored 10 points to go with nine rebounds.
Alabama A&M shot 27.6% from the field and was out-rebounded 55-28.
“We did do a great job defensively. We were able to start to get out and run and we got easy buckets,” Stoudamire said. “You could see us coming with the last 10 minutes of the first half dictated. Then in the second half we just picked up right where we left off. So I am proud of them from that standpoint. Alabama A&M, they’re gonna beat some teams. You don’t wanna be the team that loses to ‘em.”
As it had Tuesday at Georgia, Tech got off to another slow offensive start Saturday by missing seven of its first nine shots and falling in a 7-5 hole. But the Jackets responded with a 7-2 run that included 3′s from Reeves and Kelly, respectively, to take a lead they would never relinquish.
Reeves broke a Tech drought of 5-1/2 minutes without a field goal when his three-point play made the score 18-11 with 6:33 to go in the half. Another Reeves three-point play four minutes later upped the margin to 27-15.
The Jackets led 34-17 at the break after Alabama A&M went the final 6:12 of the period making only one field goal. Reeves poured in 14 to go with eight rebounds, Kelly had all 11 of his points and Tech recorded eight assists on 11 made shots. Tech also had the 17-point lead despite nine turnovers.
Stoudamire’s team finished with 20 turnovers, a season high.
“Out of those 20 turnovers, I think 20 were unforced,” Stoudamire said. “Big picture, it’s gonna be hard to win games if we keep playing at a deficit in terms of the turnovers. Saying, ‘Playing down to the level of your opponent,’ is really disrespectful to the opponent because you can get beat on any given night in college, as you see. But you gotta hold yourself to a standard.
“It’s not about Alabama A&M. It’s about what are we trying to do to improve. And that’s not improving, having 20 turnovers.”
Tafara Gapare made a 3 from the right corner midway through the second half to put Tech up 30, 57-27. The Bulldogs couldn’t keep up from there in their sixth loss in as many tries against Tech. The 49 points scored by A&M were the fewest by a Division I opponent against Tech since Elon managed only 41 on Nov. 11, 2019.
Alabama A&M, which received $100,000 from Tech to play Saturday’s game, was led by Chad Moodie, who scored eight. The Bulldogs fell to 1-7 this season.
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