At Notre Dame, Deivon Smith became the first Tech player since Iman Shumpert to post a double-double with at least seven assists. (photo by Danny Karnik)
Of the eight Pitt players who logged floor time in Tech’s 68-62 win last February, 6-4 Jamarius Burton is the only Panther who’s still currently playing.
Don’t let the lack of holdovers give you the wrong impression. Pittsburgh already has four Quad 1 wins, and Burton is the ACC’s second-leading scorer in conference play (20.5 ppg). That included 28 against Clemson and a 31-point heater in a win over North Carolina.
A sturdy, attack-minded point guard, Burton reads pick-and-roll coverages well and has a knack for off-balance, one-legged runners, especially when driving to his right. The Panthers re-tooled their perimeter in the offseason – the transfer portal figured prominently – and now have a fleet of hard-nosed, experienced guards who all possess heat check potential. Burton, Colgate transfer Nelly Cummings (10.8 ppg) and senior Nike Sibande are each skilled at scoring off isolations in the midrange.
The spacing they create has also allowed Pitt to shoot threes more freely: after finishing 14th in the ACC in three-point field goals last year, the Panthers currently rank fourth (8.6/g), with 6-3 Greg Elliott and 6-7, 235-pound Blake Hinson the main targets off skip passes. Look for Hinson (16.4 ppg, 6.7 rpg), who’s also the Panthers’ top rebounder, to lurk physically along the baseline.
Georgia Tech’s mixing defenses and hard digs forced Burton into tentative drives and hesitant passes when they met last season. Burton dished out a team-high seven assists, but he also went 1 of 11 from the field and finished with his second-worst offensive rating of the season. Can Tech shut off transition and make Pitt score against its set defense Saturday? That slowly wore the Panthers down in the second half against Duke. The Jackets will also need to rebound well out of their area – Pitt ranks third in the ACC in offensive rebounding percentage (31.9 pcy.).
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Before his double-double against Notre Dame, Ja’von Franklin spotted a familiar face courtside. One of his classmates at Parkview Magnet High School in Little Rock, Ark., now works as a videographer in the Notre Dame athletic department. The two caught up briefly after Tech’s pregame warmup.
A stomach bug has made Franklin questionable for Saturday, but his work switching on pick-and-rolls could once again come under the lens. Pitt loves to screen and re-screen for Burton, both at the top and on re-directs to the wing. If the Yellow Jackets switch, as they did for most of the second half against Notre Dame, Franklin, Jalon Moore and Rodney Howard may all find themselves trying to stay in front of Burton. Joining him on pick-and-rolls is 6-11 Federiko Federiko, a lanky, light-on-his feet “5” man who scores on lobs, stickbacks and drop-off passes.
Fun fact: Burton and Moore’s mothers narrowly missed each other as college teammates. Burton’s Mom Kim played at Alabama A&M from 1990-92. Two years later, Jalon’s Mom Walidah started her playing career for the Bulldogs.
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In the last two games, Georgia Tech has shot 11 of 12 from the field before the first media timeout of the first half … and 3 of 13 before the first media timeout of the second half.
They’ll face a Pitt team that plays exclusively man-to-man and loves to sit on skip passes. Tech can’t get overheated or let the Panthers’ aggressiveness coerce them into careless turnovers.
