The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets won their last game in McCamish Pavilion as they beat the Belmont Bruins 71-57 in the second round of the National Invitational Tournament.
Senior and all-time leader in games played at Georgia Tech (132) Quinton Stephens led the team with a career-high 23 points and eight rebounds. Josh Okogie followed behind with 15 points to add to his season total of 536 points. Center Ben Lammers dropped 14 points and 10 rebounds to notch his 15th double-double on the season.
Georgia Tech’s largest lead of the first half came from Okogie’s free throw that put them up nine 10-19, with nine minutes left to go. The Bruins fought their way back and cut the lead to four 26-30 going into halftime. Belmont (23-6) was held to a 30 percent shooting percentage in first half.
Lammers got the Yellow Jackets started in the beginning of the second half scoring their first six points including an emphatic dunk that caused Belmont to call a timeout. Georgia Tech came out on a 16-2 run in the first 4 minutes and Taylor Barnette of Belmont, ended their run on his three-point jumper from the top of the key. They only allowed the Bruins to score eight points in the first 10 minutes of the game. The dagger came at the 9:15 mark off a no-look pass from the top of the key from Stephens to Lammers for the dunk to put the jackets up by 22, 56-34.
Belmont, a team that averages 12 turnovers a game, committed 17 turnovers in the game of which Tech scored 21 points from. Tech mostly stayed in their coveted 1-3-1 zone, but switched around here and there to a 2-3 or 3-2 zone but Pastner made sure to keep Lammers anchored close to the basket.
With Lammers close, it prevented Evan Bradds from pounding the inside (scored 10 points) and caused them to move outside to the perimeter. That is certainly no problem for the Bruins because they’re essentially a three-point team. In their first-round game against Georgia, the Bruins went 14-31 from behind the arc. Normally, over half (52.7 percent) of their attempts are three pointers. But in this game, they couldn’t find a rhythm and went 11-33 (33 percent) from the perimeter.
This win advances Georgia Tech to the third round to meet Ole Miss in Oxford.
