Keeping leads not Georgia Tech’s specialty

Tech, which will face N.C. State at 1 p.m. Sunday in Raleigh, N.C. (WATL), has indeed experienced the latter. The Commodores swallowed up all but two points of Tech’s 14-point lead in the final 5:26 of the first half on the way to a 76-63 win. The Fighting Irish erased the Jackets’ 15-point advantage in a little more than seven minutes before Tech ultimately rallied again. (Notre Dame had chopped a 10-point first-half lead down to two points before halftime.)

Boston College, which trailed 50-32 with 18:06 to play Tuesday, had two shots to take the lead in the final four minutes of the game before Tech guard Trae Golden delivered the Jackets with two clutch baskets.

It’s a habit Tech has tried to shake, dating to last season. In the Jackets’ final two games of the season, both losses to Boston College, Tech led by 10 in the second half in the regular-season finale before losing and by 15-0 and 28-14 in the ACC tournament opener, but lost the lead by halftime.

Living with success obviously is a challenge for the Jackets.

“I think it’s always the toughest to have a big lead and kind of stretch it out,” Golden said. “As a team, we have to do better at that, but I think that’s the toughest thing, is to keep that lead.”

In the past, Gregory has said the team gets away from its principles on offense and goes for big plays. To keep building a rally, he has said, it’s necessary to just keep hitting singles.

“You can tell that’s when we stop doing what we’re supposed to do,” forward Marcus Georges-Hunt said, “getting in the right play, not rushing the offense, being poised.”

ESPN analyst Len Elmore has called a few Tech games this season and was courtside for the drought against Boston College.

“I thought that they kind of took their foot off the pedal, so to speak,” he said. “They didn’t seem as aggressive in the second half, aggressively looking for shots, aggressively challenging Boston College’s shots.”

It is a pattern that the Jackets don’t need to be told about. Boston College started tearing off chunks of Tech’s lead with a 3-point binge. Gregory called a 30-second timeout after the lead dropped to 10. The lead continued to drop. After two TV timeouts could not arrest the BC surge, he called timeout again with the lead down to four, which produced a Georges-Hunt layup. Only when the Eagles closed to 57-56 with 4:44 to go did the Jackets bow up, tightening on defense and getting a drive and 3-pointer from Golden on successive possessions.

“At first, you have that feeling like, Oh, here we go again,” guard Corey Heyward said. “But I thought we answered in a good way.”

Part of it is that Tech has some players with limited offensive skills who can go cold, sometimes all at once. Part of it is playing evenly matched teams who are equally capable of turning the tables on the Jackets. Part of it, as Elmore noted, is between the ears.

“That’s an acquired skill for a team, to be able to smell blood in the water, so to speak and be able to finish opponents,” he said.

Should Tech find itself ahead by 15 points Sunday, Gregory knows this much. There won’t be a “Hey, remember what happened last time” message in a timeout. He said Friday that he’ll emphasize what his team is doing well.

“The one thing that is a big key for us in those times is, what’s our identity and what are we going to be able to rely on?” Gregory said.

Tech fans hope the Jackets can be relied on to do something other than what they’ve done thus far.