Kelly's 20-point second half leads Tech to comeback win over Howard 88-85

ATLANTA- Georgia Tech behind a furious second-half run by Miles Kelly to come from behind to defeat Howard 88-85 on Thursday night in McCamish Pavilion. Tech trailed by 14 early in the second half before pulling away by outscoring the Bison 45-28 in the final 17 minutes of the game. A 16-2 run by the Jackets put away Howard.

Damon Stoudamire moved to 2-0 as Georgia Tech's head coach.

“I thought it was a good comeback win for the fellas. They showed a lot of grit. We finally got stops. I thought offensively we were fine. I told anybody that would listen, offensively we are way ahead of the defense and I’ve never been with a team like that as a player or a coach. I was happy more for them because they took a stand. They didn’t allow themselves to cave in and they kept fighting until the game turned. We have a ways to go. It is easier to critique and teach winning rather than losing. Hats off to Howard, they are a good team. Coming back to college they look like they are going to win their league again. They play hard and play together and that was a great early season test for us,” Stoudamire said.

Howard missed eight of the final 11 shots they took including five of six three-point attempts in the final 10 minutes of the game as Tech clamped down.

Kelly led all scorers with 27 points, 20 came in the second half including nine of the final 13 points and four key free throws to ice the game after the Jackets finally retook the lead with 2:43 left on Kelly’s three-pointer.

My teammates believed in me," Kelly said of his role in taking over the game in the second half to spearhead the run. "They came to me down the stretch and it was my job to make big plays. So they just instilled a confidence in me and that's what I did."

Tyzhaun Claude added 19 points in 28 minutes before fouling out late in the game. He had three offensive rebounds including a key putback on Kelly's miss late in the game to put the Jackets back up four.

The Jackets actually had more offensive rebounds 22 to 21 defensive rebounds in the game in a rare feat.

Kowacie Reeves added 15 points and seven rebounds with a block and a steal while Kyle Sturdivant added 11 points off the bench to round out the offensive firepower for the Jackets.

It was a very different win than the previous two games Tech has played in public with just 12 assists as much of the second half was iso-basketball from Kelly against the Howard defense. Tech struggled with three hitting just four of 18 shots from outside. Howard hit just six of 21 shots.

“We showed a lot of grit today and that was big for our team to show that. We showed that we also need to start the game off with a little more energy too,” Kyle Sturdivant said.

Shy Odom led Howard with 22 points in 37 minutes and he took over in the second half once Bryce Harris (17 points) got in foul trouble. Forward Dom Campbell also fouled out changing the momentum of the game.

“It was a game of runs and two of our top guys fouling out also put a lot of pressure on our bench, we are a really new team and collectively we’ve only had four practices with our whole team together,” Howard coach Kenny Blakeney said.

Missed free throws also held the Jackets back as they missed 11 of 27 attempts at the line shooting just 59.3% at the charity stripe.

"I think everybody gotta get game legs and we just got to keep working on you know, the fact that we went to the foul line 27 times, you know, I can accept that, you know, but making 16 You know, you know, it's a mental thing again," Stoudamire said of the free throw shooting woes. "The 27 attempts show we were attacking the rim."

Tech opened the second half with a rough start with several missed shots and turnovers allowing Howard to take a 53-41 lead in the first two minutes leading Stoudamire to call a timeout. A flagrant foul call on Deebo Coleman made it 57-43 Howard with 17 minutes left. Tech’s defense forced three stops in a row to cut the lead to 57-47 at the first media timeout with 15:20 left in the half. Tech clamped down defensively forcing five turnovers in four minutes to go on an 11-1 run to make it 57-54 Howard. Deebo Coleman tied the game at 59 with a deep three but Joshua Strong answered back on the other end and Howard held a 64-59 lead at the second media timeout with 10:48 left. Howard forward Dom Campbell fouled out with 6:28 left and the Bison was up 73-70. Sturdivant drew the fifth foul from Bryce Harris with 4:49 left and he cut the Bison led to two with an old-fashioned three-point play. 75-73. Kelly hit a three off a Claude screen to give Tech the lead 78-76 with 2:43 left. Kelly added another basket to make it 80-76. Shy Odom hit a pair of FTs with under a minute left to cut the GT lead to two. Claude had a putback on the other end to put GT back up four, Claude fouled out with 22.4 left and Joshua Strong hit a pair of free throws to make it a two-point game 84-82 with 22.4 left. Kelly was fouled with 15.2 left, he hit both free throws to make it 86-82 and stole the ball on the other end with eight seconds left.

The two teams tied in the first frame through the first media timeout at 14:52 13 all. Howard made nine straight baskets to pull ahead 25-21 with under 12 to go in the half. Tech trailed 34-30 at the third media timeout despite 11 points from Claude including a corner three at that point. Tech cut the lead to two by the final media timeout with 39-37 thanks to a two-plus minute scoring drought by the Bison. The Jackets closed the half with a 1-for-10 run shooting to dig a six-point deficit 47-41. Howard shot 58% in the first half while Tech shot just 40% overall and 2-9 from three. Claude had 12 points at the half and Reeves added 10 points. Bryce Harris led all scorers with 15 points on 6-8 shooting at the half.

The Jackets will aim to improve to 3-0 with UMass-Lowell coming to town on Tuesday at 7:30 pm in McCamish Pavilion to close out a three-game homestand to open the season.