Tech's Cinderella season continues with ACC Tournament Title win over FSU
Nothing has come easy for Georgia Tech basketball during the 2020-21 season, but a late-season run propelled the Jackets into the NCAA Tournament and on Saturday night in Greensboro, Tech took home some hardware winning the ACC Tournament Championship for just the fourth time in school history. The Jackets defeated Florida State 80-75 on national television in front of most of the basketball world.
Fifth-year Tech coach Josh Pastner talked about a five-year plan when he was hired in 2016 and in his fifth season, he has an ACC Crown and his team back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009-10.
"It's the first time for Georgia Tech to win an ACC Tournament championship since 1993. This is our first fifth top 20 win this year because Florida State was 15th coming in. I don't think people understand how hard it is to beat Florida State twice in one year," Pastner said. Our guys have just scrapped, fought, kicked, clawed, whatever they had to do to find a way to get wins this year, and I'm just so darned proud of these young men. It's been a grind. I mean, and everybody here knows the document of the grind, from day one -- from the Saturday in Houston, Texas, in the hotel room with me, the search firm and the three people -- Mike Bobinski, Marvin Lewis, J.D. Wicker in the hotel room, to where we are now, it's been an unbelievable five years."
Tech set an ACC Tournament Championship Game record for steals in a game with 15 and they forced 25 turnovers and it was the Jackets' eighth straight win after falling on the road at Clemson 74-72.
"Obviously we're extremely disappointed. Your hat goes off to a team that -- Georgia Tech was extremely scrappy," FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said after the game. "They kind of showed you what intensity and sound defensive principles are like. It's very unusual for you to have a team that shoots 56-percent from the floor and 53-percent from three and 78-percent from the free-throw line and then loses. How do you lose doing that? Well offensively turning the ball over 25 times."
The stage and the stakes of the game made this extra special for Pastner who had support from his bosses and people around the program through NCAA issues and a postseason ban last year.
"It was humongous for Georgia Tech, the exposure, the publicity, the recognition. It was obviously the largest audience we've played in since maybe Georgia Tech was last in the Final Four. Really, I mean, the amount of audience -- and you think obviously every hotel, restaurant or bar or whatever, all across the country, it's on ESPN, and so -- and we were the primetime game. To be able to do that was just incredible for Georgia Tech, incredible. There was a watch party with the students at McCamish," he said.
ACC Defensive Player of the Year Jose Alvarado came up with the steal and dish to Mike Devoe that sealed the win late. Alvarado hit five of his final six free-throw attempts to ice the game for the Jackets. It wasn't the first time Alvarado was in that position, but after missing two key free throws in a buzzer-beating loss at Clemson, Alvarado converted and talked about reliving that moment in his head as they were trying to close out Florida State.
"The feeling that I felt when I missed those free throws, I didn't want to feel like that ever again. You can ask Coach Pastner, I was in the gym after that game. I was in a deep place, deep, deep hole. I literally stood in the gym probably until 2:30, 3:00 in the morning and he did not leave my side. I literally sat there and shot free throws and just doubted myself," Alvarado said in the aftermath of the loss at Clemson. "(Coach) was there saying the opposite and he stood there the whole time until he said, 'Jose, you need to get rest. Hey, it's okay, this is basketball, life happens and life moves on.' And he said at any point, I still want the ball in your hands after that day. And me just stepping up making him -- knowing how much he trusts me, I want that confidence. And I missed, I think, the first one, but that didn't faze me. I wanted to get on the line again and make them, and what a feeling, man. Those two free throws that I missed at Clemson put me in a deep, deep, deep, deep place, and look at that. It all paid off in the end. I'm just happy."
Alvarado ended up with 13 points, five steals, three assists, and five rebounds while hounding Florida State’s players on offense throughout the game. He said doing homework on the court helped him on the final steal that sealed the win for Tech.
"I knew it. It's not like I'm just naturally good on defense. I study. I do my little film work. The first play he came down, he did a pick-and-roll -- they basically ran this play like twice. I saw where he had the ball the first time, and I could have done it the first time but I didn't. The second time it happened and I saw it, so I just reacted. I saw the ball was in reaching distance and once I hit it, I knew I got it. And my teammates always know I'm pretty good at that, and they know they're going to be right there. So I hit it, and then I knew that was like the dagger, and I knew it was just something that I was just so happy about."
Moses Wright the ACC Player of the year ended up with 15 points including several clutch free throws down the stretch.
Mike Devoe led Tech in scoring with 20 points including the game icing layup to make it 80-73 off Alvarado’s fifth steal of the night. Devoe ended up winning the ACC Tournament MVP after the game.
"There's a lot of emotions, joy, happiness, everything," he said. "This goes down in history for us. It's been a journey for us as a team, me individually, everything. For us to win this and people counted us out and just staying down and staying as a brotherhood, it's so surreal for me. It's huge for me (to win the MVP). It's truly a blessing. I feel like I've been disrespected for the last two years on the ACC selections, but for me, it's just something I use as motivation and to play with a little chip on my shoulder. This is huge for me. It's definitely -- all the work has definitely paid off and just continue to keep doing that and keeping my head down and staying focused, so for this, it's huge for me."
Reserve guard Kyle Sturdivant came up big in the second half handling the ball against Florida State’s press and facilitating on offense He didn’t hit a field goal, but made five of his six free-throw attempts and had two steals and two assists including a great fake and pass to Jordan Usher for a dunk.
"Kyle Sturdivant was huge," Pastner said. "We made some adjustments at shootaround with our press break stuff and Kyle Sturdivant was big for us today. How about Michael Devoe? How good was he today? MVP of the tournament, really proud of him. I thought Bubba Parham hit some big shots for us that first half, big three. Khalid Moore hit a big three in the first half, had a big basket in the second half. Moses Wright was -- I know they're big, but he hit some big shots for us. Jordan Usher was a stud, Rodney Howard gave us minutes, and we made free throws including Kyle down the stretch. We were 21 for 28 and we only had seven turnovers compared to their 25."
Usher rounded out four double-digit scorers for Tech with 15 points.
Scottie Barnes led Florida State with 21 points including a three and two key free throws late to keep the Noles in the game.
Alvarado said the win is a culmination of four years of hard work for these players many of whom made up the bulk of Pastner's first two full recruiting cycles including Wright, Alvarado, Devoe, and Khalid Moore.
"It means everything, man," Alvarado said of the title. "I've got a daughter and when she grows up I can tell her, hey, your dad did this, your dad did that. You know, I'm just so happy about that. Just for the four years, I've been here, it was a struggle. I broke my arm freshman year, didn't win the ACC Tournament, and we played Tuesday. Sophomore year, we didn't win, we played Tuesday. Junior year, we had a little whatever ban and we had a good season. We could probably have did some noise then. Come back my senior year, lose the first two beginning games. And if someone had told me you're going to be in the ACC championship in a few months, I never would have believed it, I would have looked at them like they're crazy."
Georgia Tech did not attempt a free throw in the first half, but after an offensive adjustment and a lot of late fouls from Florida State, the Jackets got 28 attempts at the line hitting 21 of them.
"I think they decided not to try to run a whole lot of offense and they just drove the ball," Hamilton said. "Obviously we're a pretty decent defensive team. They're really clever with the ball. They protected the ball, and they drove the ball to the basket, and we were called for the fouls and I'm sure we committed some of them. We drove to the basket and they were able to defend us without fouling. They did a much better job of not fouling than we did with them. Seems we put them on the foul line when they were driving the ball."
For the first time since 2010, Georgia Tech will spend selection Sunday waiting to see where they end up in the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis. Tech will travel from Greensboro to Indianapolis on Sunday at 11 am and maintain their bubble until the season ends either in an NCAA Tournament loss or a National Title.
Pastner also spoke of Bobby Cremins and the heyday of Georgia Tech basketball and his hopes of returning the program to those glory years of the 1980s and 1990s and the Thillerdome.
"At the time Bobby Cremins was the coach, he was the hottest ticket in town. So we hope to get -- obviously there's a lot of things, you've got the Braves, the Falcons, you've got the Hawks, so there's a lot of things going on, but you want to start creating that interest," he said. "Winning these type of games, winning championships, going back to the NCAA Tournament helps not only with the fan base, but how about recruiting? I don't think people understand the audience that was watching our -- do you realize for the last 24 hours all people were talking about was Georgia Tech playing Florida State? Moses Wright was on Game Day earlier today. Georgia Tech was all over the television. The exposure for that is so important."
