(photo courtesy of Wake Forest athletics)īubble or not, Virginia can still make you question your life choices on offense. Tafara Gapare has averaged 9.2 points and 7.0 reboounds in Tech’s last five games. That pipeline shouldn’t strain credulity in Charlottesville – Virginia head coach Tony Bennett grew up in the state and played collegiately at Wisconsin-Green Bay. The state of Wisconsin had five players named Associated Press first-team boys’ all-state in 2022.įour of them play in the ACC – Danilo Jovanovich (Louisville), Seth Trimble (North Carolina), and Virginia’s tandem of Leon Bond III and Andrew Rohde. Virginia rarely sends teams to the foul line, but the Cavaliers have struggled mightily at the line themselves – they rank 338th in the nation, converting just 64.9 percent of their free throws. In its win over Wake Forest, Georgia Tech became just the fourth team in Division I to win a game this year while attempting two or fewer free throws. Virginia is 14-2 when it shoots better than 33 percent from three-point range. Virginia doesn’t attempt a gratuitous number of threes – their three-point rate (3PA/FGA) ranks 13th in the ACC, ahead of only Florida State and Louisville – but it’d be wise to pay attention to the arc this Saturday. Tech will need to play well when cross-matched and win 50-50 balls on defense. ![]() Isaac McKneely (12.2 ppg, 45% 3pt.) remains a cunning catch-and-shoot threat off screens who drilled 6-of-9 threes against the Jackets, while the Cavaliers recently inserted 6-11 Jacob Groves (48.3% 3pt.) into the starting lineup to give them another outside shooting threat. Georgia Tech) is a terrific reader of defenses coming off wide pindowns and baseline screens, which Virginia used often to enter into its offense in Atlanta. Guard Reece Beekman (19 points, career-high 11 assists vs. Virginia’s offense looked plenty functional in Atlanta, where they shot 50 percent and sank 11 threes to erase an early 11-point deficit. Yet scoring has been even more of a challenge than usual for the Cavaliers, whose offensive efficiency rating ranks 13th in the ACC in conference play. 9 in NCAA defensive efficiency), Virginia has never needed to light up a scoreboard to win. With its tortoise-like pace and bristling defense (No. (photo courtesy of Wake Forest athletics) Miles Kelly has hit 50 percent of his three-point tries in Tech’s ACC road games. Can the Jackets overcome those intangibles and deliver one more head-turning win to close out the regular season? Enjoy the top notes, quotes and anecdotes from my chart as Tech hits the road for the final time (8 p.m. But as they also surely know, Georgia Tech has beaten five of the top seven teams in the ACC. Motivation, desperation, home court advantage, the emotion of Senior Day – the Cavaliers have all the propulsive intangibles a team can want in March, not to mention the confidence of a 75-66 defeat of Tech in January. “We’re fighting for our lives right now,” Virginia forward Ryan Dunn said after a 73-48 rout at Duke last Saturday. Despite sitting in third place in the ACC, the Cavaliers have dropped three of their last four and find themselves teetering on the NCAA Tournament bubble. After defying the odds at Wake Forest, Georgia Tech (14-16, 7-12) now takes its late-season revenge tour to Charlottesville to face Virginia (21-9, 12-7 ACC) at John Paul Jones Arena. The Yellow Jackets can continue to be the ultimate chaos agent as the regular season winds down – while continuing to burnish themselves as a dangerous double-digit seed for the ACC Tournament. Georgia Tech’s next game: On the road, facing a team in ESPN’s “Last Four In” for the NCAA Tournament, that had beaten them once before this season – and has won 11 straight in the series, is coming off a midweek bye, will be playing on its Senior Day. Georgia Tech’s last game: On the road, facing a team in ESPN’s “Last Four In” for the NCAA Tournament, that had beaten them once before this season and had gone 15-0 at home. ![]() ![]() By Andy Demetra | Voice of the Yellow Jackets
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