Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Virginia heads down to Atlanta to start the road-heavy portion of its schedule against a disappointing Jackets squad that nonetheless can be upset-minded at home. Will the Hoos stay sharp as they leave the comforts of JPJ?

Game Details:

Date/Time: Thursday, Jan 18th, 8:00 PM Eastern
Location: McCamish Pavilion, Atlanta, GA
TV: WatchESPN, ACCN 

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of GT:

A) Throw out the first 8 games of their season. The start of their year was a disaster. Tadric Jackson and Josh Okogie got hit with “improper benefits” accusations days before the start of the season, and were immediately suspended. Okogie, GT’s unquestioned star, then broke a finger, and missed over a month. In that span, GT went into a tailspin, losing 4 of their first 8, including at home to Grambling-f***ing-State (KenPom #320). Okogie came back, and the season in many ways finally began. There was still some rust, and they dropped 3 of the next 5 (including to Wright State), but they’re finally working back into a semblance of form with the start of ACC play, scoring wins over Miami and ND. Yes, enough damange was done to kill their postseason hopes, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still playing for pride.

B) Defense has stayed the calling card. As bad as their offense has been this year, and it’s been atrocious, Pastner has them buckling in on the defensive end to at least keep them in some games. Their KenPom AdjD is 96.6, 39th nationally, and through the first couple weeks of the new year, is the best in the ACC, with a defensive efficiency of 87.2 in ACC play (ours is 2nd best at 89.4). They’re shutting down shooters in the paint (opposing offenses shooting 41.8% from 2 in ACC play) and from deep (29.6% from 3). They’re generating steals and turnovers too, and grabbing offensive boards. Now, here’s the part where I qualify that by saying they’ve gotten relatively fat by playing some of the ACC’s worst offenses so far: Pitt, Miami, and a Bonzie Colson-less Notre Dame. But given how good their defense was last year (2nd best defense in the ACC behind ours) anchored by shot blocking expert Ben Lammers, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt for now.

C) The supporting cast behind Okogie and Lammers need to step up. There was some hope that in Okogie’s absence, role players would elevate their games with extended minutes and opportunities. That hasn’t happened. Freshman PG Alvarado has been effective in stretches scoring in the lane and drawing fouls, though he has been turnover prone in bigger games (7 TOs against Miami, 4 hosting ND). Tadric Jackson is cold from 3 (9 for 38 on the year). As a team they’re dead last in conference play in 3P%, 26% from deep. To do any real damage, the Jackets need reliable options to emerge to open up the court for their stars.

Their season to date:

Georgia Tech is 10-7 on the season, 3-1 in the ACC. They’ve split with ND and beaten Pitt and Miami, the latter at home. They have bad losses to Wofford, Grambling State, and Wright State. 

Keys to getting the win:

1) Find our 3-point stroke. GT has seen some bad shooting ACC teams this month (Pitt and Miami are both terrible, and ND is injury plagued lately), inflating it’s defensive statistics. Over their whole season, the 3-point line has been their defense’s achilles heel, allowing teams to shoot over 36% (236th nationally). As geared as they are to shutting down the paint, good ball movement, drive-and-kicks, should free up open 3’s from the corners and wings. We’ve got the gunners to make GT pay.

2) Lock down Okogie. I expect Okogie to see 40 minutes of dedicated coverage by Devon Hall and De’Andre Hunter. No switching screens here. We leave our best two perimeter defenders on the guy. Okogie hasn’t seen defenders like those two yet this year, and while I’m sure he’ll get a few points on volume alone, I’m looking for Devon and Dre to make it their personal mission to make Okogie look bad. Do that and I have little confidence their role players can pick up the slack.

3) Win the turnover battle. Alvarado isn’t a bad young guard, I like his long term potential, but he’s a true freshman about to go toe to toe with Ty Jerome and Nigel Johnson. Both are nightmare matchups for him. We have a real opportunity to force a lot of steals out of the GT guards. But that needs to be balanced by good ball protection on our end. GT’s been really effective forcing turnovers; Miami lost 19 to GT in their upset loss. Ty lost 6 last game out to the disruptive Wolfpack; he needs to tighten up those handles tonight.

Predictions:

This is going to be a slow, grinding, defensively oriented game. I don’t see our lead ever truly ballooning only because of the quality of GT’s defense and the matchup of two of the conference’s slowest paces. If we can find our shot on their rims, we should be able to build up a small to moderate lead and then protect it over the second half as GT’s offense struggles to ever truly find momentum.

Hoos Win – 61-48