BasketJackets: Game 30 at Louisville, Mar. 1 Tue., 8pm (ACC Network)

[GTJT622]

The red hot Jackets head to the Yum! Center to take on the Escort Service Academy in what will be the Cards' final home game of the season. The game will be telecast on the ACC Network as part of a split distribution along with the Wake-Duke game.

Check these affiliates for coverage of the GT-ESA game... http://www.theacc.com/news/acc-basketball-on-acc-network-georgia-tech-at-louisville-03-01-2016

This is the 2nd meeting of the season between the 2 teams. UofL defeated the Jackets by 4 in Atlanta back on Jan. 23rd.

We can expect the Cards to open as around 12 pt favorites.

The ESA only has one game left after this one - traveling to Gay Paris. We can expect the players and crowd to be pretty jacked up for this season home finale. Tech tends to play to the level of our competition though. Will take a monumental effort by the Jackets to win this game on the road. Lots riding on it for Tech. Pride for the ESA.

 

[GTJT622]

Some interesting stats from Rick Pitino's blog... http://thecrunchzone.com/rick-pitinos-new-blog-thank-you-thank-you/

Swiped from the linked copy of RP's blog...

Georgia Tech has won four in a row and is playing great basketball.


Important stats:


* Georgia Tech is second in the league in free throw attempts.


* Charles Mitchell is #1 in offensive rebounding percentage per 40 minutes in the ACC.


* Adam Smith is first in the league in three-pointers made per game and total three-pointers made, and is second in the ACC in three-point percentage at 40.8%.


*Fifty-seven percent of Georgia Tech’s points come from two-point field goals (19th in the country)


Senior night is always very special. We will have a surprise for the guys after the game.


Our last two games will be very difficult as we are banged up and short handed. Anas was a major factor vs. Georgia Tech last time in Atlanta. But as we watched with the ending of the first half at Pitt, these guys will not make excuses, but will step up and give extraordinary effort.


Go Cards!


Coach P

 

[BornAJacket]

This will be a difficult game.

I would love to see the team get a 5th straight conference win. I am not sure when that happened last.

 

[GTJT622]

Tech won 4 straight over A.C.C. opponents in 2004 with 3 to finish the regular season and then defeated the Cheaters in the A.C.C.T. before falling in the A.C.C.T. semifinals.

The last time we won 4 straight regular season A.C.C. games before this current streak was the last 4 games of the 2002 season (Blewitt's 2nd year as HC).

We have to go back 20 years to find a streak of 5 or more. 1996 was of course Tech's only outright regular season A.C.C. "title". We went 13-3 that year. We had a winning streak of 7 conference games to end that season before continuing on with 2 more wins at the A.C.C.T. before losing in the tournament championship to Wake.

 

[BornAJacket]

Amazing this team is in a rare position. And really should be better positioned in the A.C.C. They lost several early conference games that they should have won.

It seems the coaches decided too late that they could not develop a PG during A.C.C. play. Ball handling is what makes the difference in A.C.C play. The coaches (whoever they may be) need to FOCUS on finding the best ball handler they can get.

Hopefully, the team will grab some of that GaTech history and keep this winning streak going.

 

[Texwood]

The ESPN basketball power index ranking currently has us as the first team out of the at large bids. Not sure how meaningful this is, but we are certain to be bubbly should we pull off the upset tomorrow evening.

 

[GTJT622]

FWIW, Escort Service Academy opens as 12.5 pt favorites vs the BasketJackets

 

[GTJT622]

Louisville-GT game note courtesy of the Cards... http://sidearm.sites.s3.amazonaws.com/gocards.com/documents/2016/2/29/ULGAME30_GeorgiaTech.pdf

Justin Kutcher with the p-b-p tomorrow night accompanied by Mike Gminski

 

[GTJT622]

Louisville's 7-foot Sophomore Center Anas Mahmoud (who Tech recruited hard) scored 15 off the bench in their win in Atlanta earlier this season. He did not play in their loss at Miami this past weekend and might not play tomorrow night (ankle injury).

 

[Buzzforlife]

Do we ever win a game Gminski is the color man on?
Offset by all of their injuries, we should stay within single digits....until the G-Man puts the final whammy on us!

 

[BornAJacket]

wow, 12.5 points? I think G.T. will cover that...

 

[Texwood]

Much like the BC game, way too many turnovers. Feels great to be down only 1 at the half, but if they start hitting their shots this one could get away from us in a hurry. Let's clean things up and find a way to gut this one out in the 2nd half!

 

[GTJT622]

Yep. Jacobs can't catch the ball tonight for some reason.

To be down only 1 with MGH essentially being taken out of the game, I like where we are.

Stephens played well. Smith needs to be selfish in this 2nd half, IMO. Put this team on his back and give it a shot (pun intended).

 

[Texwood]

I'd like to see us attack their token pressure (designed to shorten our half court sets) to get some open looks for Smith and Stephens (who seems to be feeling it tonight).

 

[Buzzforlife]

If Tech can some how pull this off....
"Tongue Meets Leather". I might get indigestion.

 

[Buzzforlife]

Taking a few "licks" from the leather belt, however back to our regularly scheduled choke session.

 

[Texwood]

Brutal 15-2 run right there. Tip of the hat to some awesome D by our opponent tonight.

 

[Buzzforlife]

Shooting 27% in second half. Too many TO's, at least 15 in last count. Points off of are the difference.

 

[Texwood]

Still think we should attack their press more aggressively. Once they set up in the half court defensively, there just isn't much to be had...

 

[Texwood]

Chuck came to play tonight!! Find a way BasketJackets!!!!!!

 

[Texwood]

YUGE block by White. WOW!

 

[Texwood]

Should be 2 FT's and the ball right there.

 

[Texwood]

Find. A. Way.

 

[GTJT622]

It wasn't the last 5 minutes that killed us this time. We actually outplayed them down the stretch. Nice guts shown by Tech. Just couldn't throw it in the hoop by Smith on 3 tries at the end (2 at point blank range...last one was a prayer and well defended). Proud of the effort. The stretch from around 15:00 to 7:00 or 6:00 killed us.

Need to get home and defeat Pitt to get that 10-seed and avoid having to play on Day 1. This team has shown it can play with every team in the conference - beat what could be the top seed in Virginia and staying with the Cheaters the whole way, for instance - and a run in the A.C.C.T. is plausible...but, avoiding Day 1 is important.

 

[BornAJacket]

Another close lose which could have been a win with just a few more shots falling. I loved the effort and thought the team played well enough late. Not sure there was any made mistakes by the coaches. Players just failed to come out early in the second half. Maybe they were not prepared for what Louisville was running then??? But they responded.