Nov. 25, 2012
Box Score | Box Score | Quotes | Photo Gallery | Post-Game Press Conference
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) – Brandon Reed scored 19 points and Georgia Tech made six 3-pointers in the second half to beat Saint Mary’s (Cal) 65-56 on Sunday, capturing third place in the DirecTV Classic.
Stephen Holt had a team-high 10 points for Saint Mary’s (4-2) in the first-ever meeting between the schools.
Saint Mary’s led 26-23 at halftime despite the fact that guard Matthew Dellavedova, who had a career-high 32 points in Thursday’s win over Drexel, missed all three of his shots in the half before finishing 1 for 8 with five points.
Kammeon Holsey, who has come off the Georgia Tech bench after starting every game last season, did not make his first field goal until he converted a jumper with 6:28 left for a 46-42 lead. The Yellow Jackets (4-1) broke it open with an 11-2 run, including two 3-pointers by Reed, and took a 58-48 lead with 56 seconds to play.
Georgia Tech’s offense had been struggling severely from 3-point range this season, and things didn’t get any better in the first half against Saint Mary’s on Sunday. Suddenly things turned around, particularly for Reed.
Reed finished with 19 points, including two of the Yellow Jackets’ six 3-pointers in the second half, helping them beat Saint Mary’s (Cal).
“Obviously we want to get the ball inside first, because that starts our whole inside-outside game,” Reed said. “And when we’ve got chances, we have to be ready to shoot and knock them down. So I think this game will definitely raise the confidence level of all the guards so that we’re willing to take those shots. But we also need some of the big men to do it. Robert Carter, for example, didn’t get any threes to go in the first half, but he knocked one down in the second half and that was big for us.”
Stephen Holt had a team-high 10 points for Saint Mary’s (4-2) in the first-ever meeting between the schools.
The Gaels led 26-23 at halftime despite the fact that guard Matthew Dellavedova, who had a career-high 32 points in Thursday’s win over Drexel, missed all three of his shots in the half before finishing 1 for 8 with five points.
“We kept different guys on him,” Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory said. “He’s a tremendous passer, but we kept our hands active, which caused some of his turnovers. So we made him work for everything that he got, and I’m just really pleased with the way our guys responded to that challenge.”
Dellavedova had five of the Gaels’ 21 turnovers, which were converted into 18 points by Georgia Tech’s stifling defense.
“People have seen us and scouted us, and they’re making it harder for Matt to score,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said. “But we can’t be a team that needs Matt to get 30 for us to win. We have much better players than that, and we have to figure that out as a team. Tonight was an ugly game, but that’s how they play. That’s their style. In the first half, we were winning ugly. We had 21 turnovers for the game, and that’s terrible.”
Kammeon Holsey, who has come off the Georgia Tech bench after starting every game last season, did not make his first field goal until he converted a jumper with 6:28 left for a 46-42 lead. The Yellow Jackets (4-1) broke it open with an 11-2 run, including two 3-pointers by Reed, and took a 58-48 lead with 56 seconds to play.
“We stepped it up on defense, and that makes everything else easier,” Reed said. “Everyone was dialed in and we just made some shots. Our defense is always going to be there — and once the offense gets going, it’s going to be hard to beat us.”
Carter’s 3-pointer with 16:38 remaining gave Georgia Tech a 29-28 lead — its first since Reed’s game-opening trey. Another 3-pointer by Reed and a fast-break layup by Marcus Georges-Hunt extended the margin to 34-28 with 14:50 left.
“The first five minutes of the second half, we didn’t come out with the same intensity that we played with in the first half,” Bennett said. “We let them hit easy 3-pointers, made some turnovers and had poor shot selection.”
Dellavadova got his only basket on a 3-pointer with 13:28 to play, cutting Georgia Tech’s lead back to four, and Beau Levesque’s two-free throws temporarily regained the lead for Saint Mary’s at 40-39 with 8:32 left.
After a 3-pointer by Georges-Hunt regained the lead for Georgia Tech, Holt made it 42-all on a pair of free throws with 7:30 to go becoming the first player on either team to reach double figures.
The Yellow Jackets shot just 32 percent from the field in the first half, going 1 for 8 from 3-point range, and finished 7 for 19 from behind the arc after coming in 11 for 67 through its first four games. They did not make a basket of any kind during a 5:49 stretch after Reed’s 3-pointer, and Saint Mary’s scored the next nine points before Tech eventually pulled into a 15-all tie on a jumper by Chris Bolden.
James Walker III hit a 3-pointer from the right corner that kissed off the glass, giving the Gaels a 20-15 edge with 6:03 left in the half. It could have been worse for the Yellow Jackets had they not converted Saint Mary’s 12 first-half turnovers into nine points. Tech came in with the lowest scoring defense among ACC teams, allowing 50.8 points per game.
