Tech rebounds after tough Florida trip to knock off N Alabama 80-61

ATLANTA – Georgia Tech Basketball started off hot and led with stout defense throughout as the Yellow Jackets scored a bounce-back win against North Alabama on Saturday with a final score of 80-61.

The Jackets' offense started out on an 11-0 run in the first half and even withstood a 9-0 North Alabama run shortly after by following up with another 10-0 run to push the lead to double digits once again.

Josh Pastner felt as if he allowed the team to fall into bad habits that may have impacted the way they played in Fort Myers.

“Every team goes through a little bit of, as I call it, the mental virus. And I don’t blame it on our players, it’s kind of like a disease of me. What happens is it can affect you to where you don’t play the right way, you’re thinking about my shot instead of our shot. Or we’re not moving the ball and things aren’t as tight as they need to be, and that is not on our young men, that is on me. I allowed maybe that virus to get in there a little bit,” Pastner said.

He also admitted that a season is full of ups and downs, and losses that you play the right way in are a lot easier to stomach than ones that you know you could have done things differently.

“We had to really tighten some things up and clean some things up to be better. How we played on Monday and Wednesday is not acceptable. I wanna win every game, I hope we’re 38-2 when it’s all said and done with an ACC regular-season championship, tournament championship, and NCAA title. However, the reality of that is probably not a reality. There’s gonna be some ups, and hopefully, there are no losses along the way but if there is there is. I can live with a loss if we play the right way,” he said. “Sometimes shots just don’t fall, and if you play the right way maybe another team is more talented than you. That can happen and it's just part of sports. Credit to Utah and Marquette I just felt we didn’t play the right way. Even two years ago when we won the ACC Championship, we started out the year 0-2, we had the disease of me and it wasn’t the players’ fault, it was my fault. Every team goes through that, everyone has a bump in the road and people start thinking about me instead of we. It’s my job though to kinda nip that in the bud and make sure we’re playing the right way. If we are gonna take an L, it needs to be taken because we either get beaten by a better team or it’s just one of those nights where the shots aren’t falling. Glad it happened early and not later, and I was proud of our bounce back. I thought we had good work yesterday and a good practice this morning, and we executed our game plan for the most part today. That is why the blame is on the head coach and not the players. I wasn’t tight enough in some areas, and that allowed us to have looseness and that allowed us to not play well.”

A lot of Pastner’s team’s struggles in Fort Myers revolved around the team not moving the ball around as much as they should, and this looked improved against North Alabama with four of the five starters in double digits.

“I thought we were much better tonight in a lot of areas. We have been a balanced scoring team for the most part. I just felt for whatever reason going into Fort Myers that we didn’t play the right way. I know what playing the right way looks like. Look, Georgia State, it was an ugly game, there was a lot of good we did. We missed a lot of shots, it was an ugly game, but I felt a lot of times we played the right way,” Pastner said. “I also felt in Fort Myers, and maybe if we made a lot of shots I wouldn’t be saying this, I thought it was really evident from my chair that we didn’t play the right way. To the guys’ credit, they regrouped, they understood, we reconnected, and we understand moving forward what we have to do. The key thing is that we played the right way, nobody liked how we played in Fort Myers. Including myself, our young men, the fans in Yellow Jacket Nation and so that is something we had to nip in the bud, and I am glad it happened early and not later.”

In moving the ball around more, Tech saw better opportunities to score, and they capitalized on them. They shot almost 60 percent from the field in the first half, and even did better than their season average from behind the arc shooting around 35 percent from there. This was shown with 43 first-half points against the Lions.

Being on the same page is something that Pastner pointed to, and Deebo Coleman also pointed to that as a reason for the higher output against the Lions. Another reason potentially could be the lineup changes that Pastner implemented before the game, with Jalon Moore and Miles Kelly both getting the start instead of coming off the bench.

Tech ended the day shooting 60 percent from the field and 32 percent from three. There is room to improve for sure with those numbers and moving the ball around constantly to make that happen was a point of emphasis according to Deivon Smith.

“We all spoke about that as a team, and tonight we came together and played for one another. It definitely showed the first couple of possessions of the game, I think we started out 11-0 or 9-0, something like that. But as the game progressed, we still stayed down, played as a team and just ran our offense.” Smith said.

Speaking of Smith, he led the team tonight with 16 points, and this is what he had to say about what he saw out there.

“Just running our offense, the guys looked out for me, and we all looked out for each other. Just running our offense, trusting our offense and trusting the system” he said.

Despite playing well in a lot of areas defensively, Tech still struggled at keeping North Alabama off the offensive glass. This is something they have struggled with all season so far and are working on correcting. Coleman pointed to rebounding being more of an effort thing and that is something the team must take pride in.

“Well, rebounding is nothing physical, it’s just effort that’s all there is to it. So, I mean if we’re not getting rebounds it’s an effort issue. Sometimes it’s just bad luck, or bad bounces but that happens sometimes. We just gotta make sure we are boxing out.” Coleman said.

North Alabama ended up out-rebounding the Jackets 32 to 29, but Tech did hold them to less than 45 percent from the field and under 30 percent from behind the arc. Tech also forced 16 turnovers with eight steals, and Smith felt good about their performance on the defensive end.

“I think it was really good, we did pretty well, the first few games we were slipping and getting tired and had some mental breaks, but our defense is building each and every game.” Smith said.

The Jackets have struggled a bit this season from the charity strike, and today saw a slight improvement in this area. 75 percent on the day is not the most ideal number, and we will see if that improvement continues down the stretch.

Coleman added 14 points and was 6-6 on his free throws, with Moore and Kelly finishing at 13 and 12. Even though it wasn’t the best game offensively for Javon Franklin, he was everywhere on the defensive end with four blocked shots and four rebounds and Moore led the team in rebounds with six.

For North Alabama, KJ Johnson led the way with 10 points, with Dallas Howell coming in at a close second for the Lions with eight points.

We will see if the Yellow Jackets can continue to play the right way, and if they can sharpen their transition defense up as Pastner said was a focus when they head up to Iowa to take on the fast-paced Hawkeyes next Tuesday.

Georgia Tech opened the game on an 11-0 run that was mostly fueled by Deivon Smith. North Alabama then went on a run of their own scoring nine, which Tech then countered with a 10-0 run of their own. The Jackets then had a 3-minute scoring drought, which was broken by a Lance Terry three. Tech continued to get after it on the defensive end, with back-to-back blocks that led to another 7-0 Tech run. North Alabama then broke a four-minute scoring drought, which Deivon Smith responded to immediately for the Jackets with a three of his own. Tech then went on another scoring drought; this time being broken up by a Rodney Howard dunk with two minutes left in the half. Tech ended the first half with an 8-2 run, led by two Jalon Moore layups and one from Deivon Smith to push their lead to 20.

This ended the first half, and Tech started the second half off with a stop and a Deivon Smith bucket on the other end. North Alabama then countered with a three of their own, and Deivon Smith made one in three attempts after being fouled on a three-point attempt. Jalon Moore followed up with multiple buckets in a row for the Jackets, and Deebo Coleman followed that up with a three. Tech continued to get easy buckets and expand their lead following the first official's timeout of the second half. This was followed by a four-point play by the Lions after being fouled by Kyle Sturdivant on a three-pointer. Both teams exchanged buckets after this, and Tech was able to make their free throws after multiple fouls to keep their lead over 20. North Alabama then followed this up with two buckets of their own, forcing the Jackets to call their first timeout of the half. Tech turned the ball over out of the timeout, which North Alabama was unable to capitalize on. North Alabama went on a 4-0 run after this which was halted by a Deivon Smith putback on an effort play. Both teams exchanged buckets after this, with Tech getting some free throws from Miles Kelly that stretched their lead once again over 20. A North Alabama turnover then allowed Lance Terry to stretch that lead even more and put up a highlight dunk in doing so. Tech ended up bringing in some bench guys in the final two minutes and Cyril Martynov got the final bucket for the Jackets closing out the game and securing the win.