I want to commend the student section. Loud. Chanting at the opponents. Chanting a recruits name that was there. Great job.
Makes me think back to the Drive to Succeed special shown earlier this year where they showed Pastner going to meet with a group of students and like 8 showed up. Now look. We have a student section again and they are helping with the energy and atmosphere in the building.
I also saw this stat from FTRS this morning about Ben Lammers
He's been on the court for 87.6% of the minutes Tech has played this season, which ranks 56th in all of Division I basketball and 1st among players who primarily play in the post.
Since the Tusculum game, Lammers has played 158/160 possible minutes. Josh Heath has played 149/160 possible minutes. Josh Okogie has played 144/160 possible minutes. Quinton Stephens rolled an ankle and sat most of the Boston College game, but has played 116/120 minutes in the three games since. Last season, Marcus Georges-Hunt played the full 40 minutes against Notre Dame on February 20th, becoming the first Georgia Tech player to do so since 1999. This year, Ben Lammers has done that four times and Quinton Stephens has done it five.
so basically Lammers is playing more minutes than any post player in the country.
Red's comments are dead on as usual.
Crowd was great last night - probably less than 1000 from sellout and less than 1000 NC State folks in the house (I sit behind the visitor bench - and sometimes (Syracuse, Lousiville, and UNC games this year in particular feel like I was at a road game). Students filled it up well before tip and were loud/chanting .. but not sure getting on Dennis Smith was the one I would have picked to try to get in his head (but he did shoot the air ball).
To me this game could have been won - too many missed FT, too many missed layups (some contested, but you expect to make higher percentage when you get those looks), and Lammers had an off night (proved he is human - was not anything NC State did, he just did not have it last night).
What this showed (exposed - that we already knew) is lack of depth - if this were UNC, Duke, FSU, etc - they would have tried different combinations to try to find something that was working - sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, but CJP has very few options that can consistently play at this level - and if one or two of our 7 man rotation is not on, we will struggle against any P5 team. Not sure how much fatigue was a factor - might be more mental than physical - but most of the team was a step slow most of the game (lost more 50-50 balls and got out hustled for rebounds than we've become accustomed to seeing).
Team did not quit - as some teams could. NC State made mistakes to give us a chance and it nearly cost them.
