February 7, 2015

@GTMBK Handles Wake Forest 73-59

Feb. 07, 2015

ATLANTA (AP) – Charles Mitchell was proud of how well he and Demarco Cox defended Wake Forest big man Devin Thomas.

Their combined work helped limit Thomas’ production and might have led Demon Deacons coach Danny Manning to bench his star forward for the game’s final 17 minutes.

Either way, Mitchell wasn’t complaining.

“We just wanted to be more aggressive with him,” Mitchell said. “Don’t let him get two feet in the paint because when he does that, he either gets fouled or he’s scoring. Push him off the block, make him take two of three dribbles to try to score on us.”

Mitchell scored 15 points, Chris Bolden added 14 and Georgia Tech beat Wake Forest 73-59 for a rare ACC victory on Saturday.

Marcus Georges-Hunt finished with 13 points for the Yellow Jackets (11-12, 2-9 Atlantic Coast Conference).

Georgia Tech was coming off a six-point loss at No. 4 Duke and had dropped seven of eight by seven points or less in conference play, but the Jackets began the afternoon with an 11-0 lead and never trailed.

Cornelius Hudson had 19 points in a reserve role and Dinos Mitoglou scored 15 as Wake Forest (11-13, 3-8 ACC) lost for the fifth time in seven games.

If Manning is frustrated with some of his players, he wasn’t giving many details after the game.

Thomas, the ACC’s second-leading rebounder and the only conference player averaging a double-double in points and boards, finished with just six points and five rebounds in 19 minutes.

“I decided not to play him,” Manning said. “I liked what the other guys were doing better than what he was doing. I just made a coach’s decision to play other people.”

Manning did say that forward Greg McClinton was held out of his first game this season after violating team rules, but the coach declined to specify what happened or how much time he could miss.

McClinton, who had started the last 11 games, sat behind the bench. He was suspended along with practice players Trent VanHorn and Stephen Prendergast.

Wake Forest was further hurt by having Codi Miller-McIntyre finish with only seven points. Miller-McIntyre had averaged a team-best 14.8 points but was scoreless until midway through the second half.

The Deacons were outscored 22-9 in fastbreak points and 10-1 off turnovers.

“Our guys did a great job on a tremendous player in Devin Thomas, a guy who’s difficult to guard one-on-one,” Jackets coach Brian Gregory said. “We got some with digging in the post a little bit, but those guys did a great job and then Chris Bolden did a phenomenal job on Codi Miller-McIntyre, who I think is one of the best guards in the conference.”

TIP-INS

Wake Forest: Miller-McIntyre, a junior guard, began the game needing 13 points to reach 1,000 in his career, but missed his first five shots before hitting a reverse layup that made it 57-41 with 10:37 remaining. He finished 3 for 10 from the field and had his worst outing since scoring just five points in a home win over Georgia Tech last month.

“Honestly I have no clue,” Miller-McIntyre said of about struggling against the Jackets. “I was thinking about that in the locker room. Every time we’ve played them I haven’t had a good offensive game.”

Georgia Tech: Gregory improved his fourth-year ACC record to 18-45. … The Jackets have won 10 straight over Wake Forest at home and five of six in the series overall. … The 1990 Final Four team, including Dennis Scott, Kenny Anderson, Brian Oliver and former coach Bobby Cremins, was introduced at halftime.

Up next Georgia Tech visits Virginia Tech on Monday.