Nick Petrus
Sunday, Mar 6th 2016 at 11:26am EST
ATLANTA, GA – Sparked by its senior class, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets rallied from 9 points down in its final game of the regular season to defeat the Pittsburgh Panthers, 63-59. The Senior Day victory at McCamish Pavilion makes the Jackets winners of 5 of their last 6 and one of the ACC’s hottest teams heading into the ACC tournament.
“This team has unbelievable resiliency, unbelievable resolve, they’re tough, [and] are obviously playing extremely well right now,” said Head Coach Brian Gregory.
In all the Jackets’ seniors scored 59 of the teams’ 63 points, led by the trio of Adam Smith (23), Nick Jacobs (19), and Marcus Georges-Hunt (10).
Tech’s two other seniors, Charles Mitchell and James White, contributed primarily on the defensive end. Mitchell pulled down 11 rebounds while White added 3 rebounds and 2 blocks of his own in 12 minutes.
In familiar form Gregory gave all credit to the players.
“Marcus was steady the whole game, Adam made some big shots as he has all year long, Chuck was Chuck with 11 rebounds and really good defensively on their 4-man,” said Gregory in his opening comments following the game. “James gave us an athletic lift – a couple plays, a couple blocked shots. He plays 12 minutes and gets 3 rebounds for us and 2 blocks. And then Nick probably played his best overall game.”
Jacobs final line of 19 points and 12 rebounds doesn’t tell the whole story. Offensively he played aggressively and worked his way to the free throw line for 9 attempts, a season high. Defensively he was challenged at halftime to slow down Pittsburgh forward Michael Young, who carried the Panthers with 18 first half points. Young managed only 6 more in the second half on 2 of 6 shooting from the field.
As has been the case most of the season, when Tech needed buckets in crunch time they looked to Georges-Hunt and Smith. On Saturday it was Smith who found his touch.
In the game’s final 8:19 Smith went 3 for 3 from behind the arc: he tied the game at 51-51, gave the Jackets a 56-55 lead two minutes later, and drilled a dagger with 2:17 remaining to extend the lead to 61-57 as the shot clock wound down.
Said Panthers Head Coach Jamie Dixon, “Those were big. We guarded pretty well, but he seems to make guarded shots. He raises up, he’s got a high and pretty quick release. Those were obviously big. Those were the game changers right there. They took the lead and it looked like we had an opportunity, but he hit two big ones late.”
Georgia Tech heads to the ACC tournament as the conference’s #10 seed. They’ll face off against the #7 seeded Clemson Tigers. Due to scheduling oddities Wednesday’s game marks the 3rd time the teams will face off in 26 days. The teams split the previous, each winning on their home court.
By most projections, Georgia Tech and Clemson will need to do more than win a single game in the ACC tournament to enter the NCAA tournament selection discussion. Nonetheless it makes it imperative they win the first one. For the Jackets, Wednesday is an opportunity to write a postseason story to rival their end of regular season surge.
