My nerves haven’t grown with our program. I get nervous before Virginia tips in the ACC Tournament, but I’m not nervous about them not winning it so much as I’m worried about laying an egg and not winning at all. That’s the kind of flashback anxiety you get when your team goes 20 years without a semifinal appearance and won a total of two ACCT games from 2006-2014, and it’ll take a while to grow out of.
We have as good a chance to win it all as anyone else here in DC, and the added benefit of a bracket that has us avoiding Duke and North Carolina until a potential championship game appearance. Miami is the best team in the ACC on a lot of nights, but I’d rather face them in a one-game elimination scenario than I would a team like Duke with singular individual talents like Grayson Allen or Brandon Ingram.
Tomorrow night’s opponent doesn’t boast a transcendent, NBA-bound talent, but they’ve got a lot of guys who can at least kind of play. Four Jackets — Marcus Georges-Hunt (16.6), Adam Smith (14.6), Nick Jacobs (10.8) and Charles Mitchell (10.3) are averaging double figures for the year, and while only two of those guys (Smith and Jacobs, who each scored 16) hurt us in Atlanta, the attention paid to them and to Georges-Hunt (who had four assists and lived in the lane) opened things up for guys like Quinton Stephens to rise up from nowhere and hit four threes (he made 28 and shot 32% for the season). We’ve defended better in the months since — Georgia Tech was the third of eight straight opponents to post an offensive efficiency over 100, and three of 10 have since — but GT is also playing improved ball, as their hot stretch (six wins in seven games) includes victories over Notre Dame, Pitt, and two wins over Clemson.
It’s Georges-Hunt that worries me the most. Brian Gregory will send him on endless high pick and rolls, and how well we defend them will determine how quickly he goes to staggered screens for Adam Smith and opens the rest of his bag of tricks. Georges-Hunt’s stat line from the game in Atlanta won’t wow you, but he spent a lot of time in that game hanging out in the area below the foul line, making trouble. Smith adds a deadly long distance threat to the equation that Georgia Tech had been lacking; he’s hit multiple threes in seven straight games and has hit 41.3% fo the season. Tech has beef inside, too: Nick Jacobs and Charles Mitchell are 518 pounds of 6’8” guy, and another one — James White, who gouged us for five offensive boards in meeting number one — provides springs off the bench. The Jackets don’t shoot the three well (33.7% in ACC games) or often (26.8% of their shots, 14th in the league), but they don’t turn it over much (16.9% in ACC games) and all that beef puts in work (35.1% in ACC play) on the offensive glass.
Defensively, they have a lot of athletic guys, but it feels like their focus comes and goes. They rebound well this end, too (71.6%) and limit the three (30.9%), but opponents have hit half of their twos (their bigs are sluggish afoot) and lived (36.3 FTA/100 FGs) at the line, and Georgia Tech doesn’t force turnovers (14.2%).
We need to keep Georges-Hunt out of the lane, contest Smith’s every move, and rebound, rebound, rebound.
On offense, I’m more worried about us taking care of our own business than I am adjusting to Georgia Tech. We’re better when we attack at the first opportunity without delaying for delaying’s sake, and I worry some that our tendency to stagnate will catch up to us in one of these single-elimination tourneys over the next month. Just some, though: we’re playing very well on that end right now, and I expect that to carry over. Georgia Tech doesn’t have a seven footer or a high flying smaller big, so this is a pretty good matchup for Anthony Gill.
Verdict:
I’m confident enough in this team after how they’ve played over the last month that I don’t even think tomorrow is about our opponent so much as it’s about how we come out and approach the game. If we defend and attack like we have in recent weeks, we’ll be back in the ACC semis for the third straight year. GT will be feisty — they’re fighting for Brian Gregory’s job and have the “no one believes in us” angle — but Virginia is the better team.
