10 teams making semifinals debuts

On Tuesday morning, Georgia Tech forward Lorela Cubaj was named the ACC’S defensive co-player of the year. The news made for a pleasant wake-up call.

“I woke up to a lot of messages, was basically how I found out,” Cubaj said in an interview with the AJC.

Cubaj was joined by Yellow Jackets guard Lotta-maj Lahtinen (most improved player) and coach Nell Fortner (voted coach of the year by media). No Tech player or coach had ever earned those awards. It continued a season of developments marking the progress made by Tech in Fortner’s second season. The next will be the Jackets’ push to the ACC championship, beginning tonight in Greensboro, N.C.

As the No. 3 seed, Tech will play the winner of Thursday night’s winner between No. 6-seed Notre Dame and No. 11-seed Clemson. The third seed also is a program first; the highest it had been previously seeded was fourth.

“There’s a lot of special things that have happened since I’ve been here,” Fortner said. “These kids, they’re a resilient bunch of young women, and they compete hard and they work hard every day.”

In the preseason, Tech was picked to finish fifth in the ACC by the league’s coaches and ninth by media. The Jackets finished the regular season 14-7 overall and 12-6 in the conference, tying the team record for ACC wins in a season initially set in 2012, when the league season was 16 games.

As Cubaj sees it, a strength of her team is its selflessness, demonstrated in players not caring who gets the shots and in its unity on defense.

“We want to succeed,” said Cubaj, who led the ACC in rebounding and was named first-team all-conference. “We don’t care who’s scoring. We’re really unselfish from that point of view.”

Her response to being co-defensive player of the year exemplifies it.

“Honestly, I think that,

ACC TOURNEY

Tech forward Lorela Cubaj led the ACC in rebounding and was named first-team ALL-ACC.

At Greensboro Coliseum Greensboro, N.C.

First Round Wednesday

Boston College 67, Pittsburgh 56

Second Round Thursday

Wake Forest 82, North Carolina 71 Syracuse 67, Boston College 61 Virginia Tech vs. Miami, late

Notre Dame vs. Clemson, late

Quarterfinals Today

Louisville vs.

Wake Forest, noon Florida State vs. Syracuse, 2:30 p.m. N.C. State vs. Va. Techmiami winner, 6 p.m. Georgia Tech vs. Notre Dame-clemson winner, 8:30 p.m.

Semifinals Saturday

Louisville-wake Forest winner vs. Florida St.syracuse, noon

N.C. State-virginia Tech-miami winner vs. Georgia Tech-notre Dame-clemson winner, 2:30 p.m.

Championship Sunday

Semifinal winners, noon without my teammates, I wouldn’t be able to perform as well,” she said. “I just feel like that made me feel really comfortable about my game. The chemistry we have on the court is so good. It makes everybody better.”

To Fortner, that cohesion likely has been a product of the team’s response to the pandemic.

“They’ve probably become a tighter-knit bunch because they hang out together so much,” Fortner said. “We encourage that because we don’t want them out hanging out with other people during this point in time. So I think that’s helped as far as team chemistry goes.”

Whether it’s hanging out in the locker room or watching movies together at a team member’s apartment (usually senior guard Kierra Fletch- er’s), it’s a group that enjoys being together. That commitment to limiting interaction with large groups of people and adhering to other health protocols evidently has been beneficial.

In December, Tech did postpone one league game (Miami) and a nonconference game against Central Florida when it went on a pause because of COVID-19 protocols within the team. (The former was made up but not the latter.) However, the Jackets played 18 of their 20 league games, which was tied for most with Miami and Wake Forest.

“I actually want to give us a shoutout because everybody took care of business,” Cubaj said. “Everybody made sure we were all safe and everybody in the bubble was safe. I’m happy we got to complete the regular season. We never knew because COVID is really unpredictable, but I’m just glad that we were able to complete the regu- lar season.”

As for the ACC Tournament, Louisville and N.C. State appear to be solid favorites. They’re the only two ACC teams in the Top 25. The Wolfpack are No. 3, and the Cardinals are No. 5.

Tech is in a bit of a recovery, having lost two of its past three games.

“I think we were playing some really good basketball, and we’ve got to get back to that place,” Fortner said. “So I think that there’s still a huge amount of potential for how much better this team can get.”

The state basketball semifinals will be played with homecourt advantage for the first time today and Saturday with 32 games in high school gyms, each qualifying a team to next week’s finals in Macon.

In recent years, the final fours have been staged in large neutral venues, from the Buford City Arena to Valdosta State University, but citing COVID-19 concerns, the Georgia High School Association decided in October to restrict this season’s semifinals to the participating teams’ home courts.

In most cases, the locations were decided by coin flips. So random chance is sending Upson-lee’s girls — ranked No. 1 in Class 3A and making its first semifinals appearance – to defending champion Greateratlantachristian.pace Academy, the defending Class 2A boys champion, is driving 240 miles to fifth-ranked Thomasville.

Those semifinal trips are routine in most GHSA sports, but basketball had been unique since the original tournament in 1922. For many years, the entire tournament was played at the Macon Auditorium. Expanded playoffs later put early rounds into home gyms, but it took a pandemic to end 100 years of neutral semis.

At this point, most won’t mind, especially the 10 semifinalists making it for the first time. Here are more storylines and facts from the 2021 final fours.

Defending titles: Nine 2020 champions remain. Five areboysteams:wheelerof6a, Dutchtown of 5A, Pace Academy of 2A, Hancock Central of 1A Public and St. Francis of 1A Private. Five are girls teams: Westlake of 6A, Forest Park of 5A, Greater Atlanta Christian of 3A and Holy Innocents’ of 1A Private. Westlake’s girls are chasing their fifth consecutive title. St. Francis’ boys can win for a third straight time.

Twice as good: Five schools have qualified girls and boys teams to the semifinals. They are Mceachern (7A), Dutchtown (5A), Cross Creek (3A), St. Francis (1A Private) and Holy Innocents’ (1A Private). It’s happened 19 times that a school has swept the boys and girls titles, most recently in 2019, when Buford and Carver of Columbus did it.

Cinderellas: Three teams have reached the semifinals as No. 4 seeds. Each finished fourth in its region but won three consecutive road games in the state tournament. They are Chapel Hill’s boys (5A), Cedar Shoals’ girls (4A) and Galloway’s girls (1A Private). Chapel Hill was just 14-10 in the regular season and 0-7 alltime in the state tournament, but the Panthers then defeated No. 4 Veterans, No. 6 Lithonia and Region 7-champion Calhoun. Cedar Shoals has beaten No. 1 Luella and No. 4 Spalding. Galloway, ranked No. 7, is less surprising, but this will be the Scots’ first semifinal.

Most interesting boys game: Dutchtown, the defending Class 5A champion, is at No. 3 Tri-cities, the 2019 6A champion. Dutchtown beat No. 8 Clarke Central 72-64 in Athens this week. Tri-cities beat No. 1 St. Pius 73-71 in overtime. Tri-cities is led by Region 4 player of the year Peyton Daniels, a guard who signed with Vanderbilt. Dutchtown counters with first-team all-region 4 performers Micah Evans and Coen Carr.

Most interesting girls game: Brookwood, unranked despite a Region 4 championship and a 2020 quarterfinal finish, is in the semifinals for the first time in the program’s 40-year history. Woodstock, a 25-year-old program, also is in the semifinals for the first time. They’re meeting in the 7A bracket. The Broncos have beaten No. 4 Campbell and No. 6 North Forsyth. Woodstock is ranked No. 9. Brookwood sophomore point guard Diana Collins is a major college recruit. Woodstock guard Briget Utberg was her region’s co-player of the year. She scored 32 points in the quarterfinals against Newton.

More first-timers: Brookwood and Woodstock are among 10 boys or girls teams in the semifinals for the first time. Others include Upsonlee’s girls and Kell’s boys, both ranked No. 1. Other first-timers are Chapel Hill’s boys, Towns County’s boys, Chattahoochee County’s boys, River Ridge’s girls, Lumpkin County’s girls and Galloway’s girls.

Next: The championship games will be March 10-13 at the Macon Coliseum.