The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jackets sting Panthers on road
Tech’s 21-1 run at start of game holds up for easy victory.
PITTSBURGH — Georgia Tech did the unusual Saturday, hammering an ACC opponent on the road. The Yellow Jackets’ 69-54 win over Pittsburgh at the Petersen Events Center broke an eight-game road losing streak in ACC games and was also their largest margin of victory in an ACC road game since a 26-point win over Wake Forest in March 2011, coach Paul Hewitt’s final season.
“I just thought overall it was a good team effort,” coach Josh Pastner said.
Here are four observations from the game:
Where the game was won
Tech (10-7, 3-1 ACC) ripped Pitt in half to start the game, taking a 21-1 lead a little more than six minutes into the game.
Using their length and quickness to create turn- overs, challenging shots and sealing the defensive glass, the Jackets allowed no baskets in Pitt’s first 11 possessions and created five turnovers. At the other end, the cutting was crisp and the shotmaking unusually on-target.
“You spot a team 20, it’s going to be hard to get back from that,” Pitt coach Kevin Stallings said.
After scoring six points a gainst Notre Dame on We d nesday, guard Jose Alvarado made his first two 3-point tries and then scored on a cutter from forward Abdoulaye Gueye with an and-one foul.
“I was thinking, he has nine points in the first two (actually four) minutes,” center Ben Lammers said. “I was like, OK, this is look- ing pretty good so far. Keep doing this and we’ll win the game.”
It was remarkable to witness unfolding. Tech made 11 of its first 13 shots. Even contested layups, a perpetual weak spot, were going in. The Jackets got the offensive rebounds off both misses and scored later in the possession.
Decisive rebounding edge
Tech controlled the glass at both ends, as Lammers and Gueye overpowered a young team perhaps over- whelmed by Tech’s roaring start and still smarting from its 35-point loss to Duke on Wednesday.
The Jackets grabbed 15
offensive rebounds to Pitt’s 14 rebounds, a season-high 52 percent rate in a cate- gory where 35 percent is exceptional.
Both Lammers (five offen- sive rebounds) and Gueye (four) had more offensive rebounds than any Pitt player had defensive rebounds.
At the other end, Pitt (8-10, 0-5) had six offensive rebounds to Tech’s 24 defensive rebounds, 20 percent, Tech’s second-best rate of the season at that end.
Lammers finished with 16 rebounds, one shy of his career high.
Another starring role for Gueye
After playing perhaps the best game of his career the previous Saturday against Yale, Gueye topped it, going for a career-high 16 points on 7-for-8 shooting and bringing down eight rebounds.
He was critical to Tech’s quick getaway, blocking a layup, finding Alvarado on the cutter for the and-one basket, scoring on a screenand-roll feed from Okogie and then beating Pitt down the floor to score on a putback dunk after Okogie missed a layup in transition.
He scored mostly going to the baskets or scoring at it, missing only his final shot, a jump hook.
He showed his rough edges with three turnovers, by foul- ing out and getting hit with a technical in the second half, which Gueye said was for responding to trash talking from the Pitt bench. “I got caught,” he said.
Four in a row
Tech has now won four games in a row (Miami, Yale, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh). Tech is 3-1 in the ACC for the first time since the 2003-04 season, a year that ended with the Jackets playing Connecticut for the national championship.
“It feels nice to be on a little bit of a streak here,” Lammers said.
Tech is defending expertly and the offense is getting better.
Turnovers are still a prob- lem, as are scoring lulls. The
Jackets combined both after the 21-1 start, turning the ball over seven times in the final 19 possessions of the first half after committing just one turnover in their first 14.
Tech had problems against Pitt’s full-court pressure, even losing the ball on a 10-second call.
Miami had a bad night. Yale is under .500. Notre Dame was down its two best players. Pitt probably is the worst team in the ACC and played poorly to boot. Still, Tech won all four.