Tech stuns FSU in ACC Tournament comeback win 61-60

GREENSBORO, NC- Georgia Tech trailed for over 36 minutes from the 16:39 mark of the first and didn’t take the lead again until Ja’von Franklin hit the game-winning free throw with 0.3 left on the clock to put Florida State away 61-60.

Florida State's Darin Green Jr. missed a three-point shot with the game tied at 60 with 28 seconds left and Miles Kelly came up with the rebound. Tech head coach Josh Pastner made the call to let his guys play with the shot clock off.

Point guard Kyle Sturdivant kicked the ball to Lance Terry with a few seconds left and he missed a dunk, but Franklin grabbed the rebound and got fouled on the putback. Franklin hit the first free throw with 0.3 left and intentionally missed the second to seal the win for the Jackets.

“In the Georgia and Georgia State game we called a timeout to set a play and this time I felt like Kyle and Miles (Kelly) had it and Kyle made an excellent play to Lance on the backdoor and Ja’von cleaned it up and when you have good players they make good plays and the players deserve all the credit,” Pastner said. " I want to give an incredible shout-out to our young men, our team. They had to fight, scrap, kick, and claw their way to find to be able to win this game. I'm just so darned proud of these guys."

Sturdivant said the play is a bread-and-butter call when the Jackets need a bucket in a key spot.

"That's our famous play. We've been very successful running that play. I kind of saw how they was helping off me pretty much the whole game, and I told my teammates, to make sure we're cutting back door, so when I saw the guy was kind of lifted, I threw it to Lance and he attacked the rim violently. I thought it was a foul, but Ja'von, credit to him to go and get that put-back," Sturdivant said.

Franklin had a tough matchup inside with FSU’s big men and was held to 3-10 shooting, but he hit 4-8 from the line and had 19 rebounds and three blocks to make his ninth double-double this season. Eleven of the 19 rebounds came in the second half for Franklin. The 19 rebounds set a record for Georgia Tech in the ACC Tournament passing Luke Schenscher's 17-rebound record in a 2004 win over North Carolina.

Kelly led all scorers with 21 points with 16 coming in the second half as he hit 5-10 and 3-7 from three and 3-3 from the line all in the second half.

“We needed to get going and I knew we needed a little spark in the second half,” Kelly said of his hot half.

The young guard had several big shots in very small windows against a good Florida State defense.

"I thought we were just a little sluggish in the first half. Second half we picked up on energy, and I think shots just started to fall, and credit that to Miles, too, he got his energy up and he started to cook," Sturdivant said.

The Jackets traveled down to Greensboro Saturday night after beating Boston College and Pastner used the extra time to take his players to the movies to see "Creed III" and the team used the movie as motivation during the final media timeout with the game tied at 53.

"We saw "Creed" the other day, and this is what we watched the movie for. We knew we was going to be down, but it's never over until the game is over, and that's why we fought," Sturdivant said.

The movie was a teaching tool and motivation tactic that Pastner and his staff used to help the team when Florida State had the Jackets on the ropes.

"If you haven't seen "Creed 3," I would recommend it, and I'm not Michael B. Jordan's agent, even though I wish I was. But that was a heck of a movie. These guys performed like Adonis Creed with the toughness and we used the analogies out of the movie. It was pretty cool," Pastner said.

Cameron Corhen had a double-double for Florida State with 12 points and 12 rebounds. Darin Green Jr. had 12 points, but it took 14 shots to get to 12.

Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton was impressed with what he saw from the Jackets. His team handled Tech easily in Tallahassee 75-64 back in January. His team had nine turnovers and a nearly seven-minute stretch without a field goal in the second half.

"I thought that they made the big shots when the game was on the line, and I thought that we had the same looks on the other end, and they just didn't go in," Hamilton said. "When you're in the ACC, every possession of every game is important, and I thought they played with a little bit more desperation, and I thought that they showed a little bit more maturity, and it gave them an opportunity to be successful."

Tech hit 4-10 from three in the second half and shot 46.4 percent in the second half.

The Jacket opened the game with back-to-back threes and then was outscored 29-15 the rest of the half to dig a 31-21 hole thanks to a lack of offense. Tech shot 28 percent from the field and 4-17 (23.5 percent) from three in the first half. FSU shot a slightly better 40.6 percent to take the lead.

"I had no doubt that we were going to be able to scrap our way back because that's what we've done over this last month," Pastner said. "We've won seven of nine, and we've just been at a really high level in the way we've played the right way. Kyle Sturdivant had seven assists."

We won the second half. Yes, we gave up a big size advantage, but our toughness, our scrap, our 50/50 balls, our motor, that's the power of being at Georgia Tech. You develop that great toughness in there at an incredible school. I'm just really in awe and proud of where these guys -- I can't say enough about these gentlemen.

Protecting the ball was also a big part of the second-half comeback for the Jackets. Tech turned the ball over once in the second half and just five times overall another hallmark of the recent string of successful games.

"In 35 years, seven times in Georgia Tech history, five or less turnovers, this year we've done it six. This was our sixth time today. Just so darned proud of these guys," Pastner said.

The Jackets last played Florida State in the ACC Tournament in 2020 and defeated the Noles to win the ACC Championship.

Tech returns to action on Wednesday in game five of the ACC Tournament against 5-seed Pitt who knocked the Jackets off twice this season including a very close win in Pittsburgh three weeks ago. That game will tipoff at 2:30 pm on ESPN on Wednesday.

Georgia Tech opened up with a pair of threes from Lance Terry and Kyle Sturdivant, but did not score again before the first media timeout at 14:19 and trailed 7-6 in the midst of a 4:03 scoreless stretch. Miles Kelly also picked up two fouls in the first four minutes of the half. Coleman finally snapped the 6:19 scoreless stretch with a corner three ahead of the second media timeout to cut FSU’s lead from four to one 10-9 with 11:45 left in the half. Florida State extended the Noles’ lead to seven during the next segment holding a 19-12 advantage at the third media timeout with 6:13 left in the game. The Noles maintained the seven point lead at the final media timeout with 3:53 left 23-16. The Noles extended the lead to 11 with 1:37 left in the half 29-18.

Tech opened the half with a 5-0 run and cut the FSU lead to all the way down to five, but three three-pointers in a row by the Noles extended the lead back out to 11, 40-29 with 15:51 left leading to a Pastner timeout. Tech held Florida State without a field goal for the next four minutes to cut the lead to six, 42-36 at the next media timeout with 11:55 left. Tech held the Noles without a field goal for nearly seven minutes during that stretch. Miles Kelly hit a trio of free throws after getting fouled on a three-point attempt to shrink the FSU lead to four, 47-43 leading to a Leonard Hamilton timeout after Kelly just missed a shot to make it a three-point game. Kelly hit a three to make it a three-point game with 5:08 left in the game 51-48. Terry added a hoop and harm to make it a two-point game with just over four minutes to go and Coleman stuck a jumper to tie the game at 53 leading to a Hamilton timeout. Deebo Coleman took a charge with 1:13 left and FSU up 60-58 to give the Jackets the ball and Sturdivant hit a turnaround to tie the game. After a miss by Darin Green on a go-ahead three, Miles Kelly rebounded the ball and Tech did not call a timeout and Lance Terry missed a dunk and Ja’von Franklin was fouled on the putback. He hit the first free throw with 0.3 left on the clock and intentionally missed the second.