Tech Hosts Surging Notre Dame

Georgia Tech vs. Notre Dame

Saturday, January 8, 2022 | 6 p.m. ET | Atlanta, Ga. | McCamish Pavilion

Television:  ACC Network

Play-by-Play:  Wes Durham |  Analyst: Dan Bonner

Radio: Georgia Tech Sports Network by Legends Sports (In Atlanta: 680 AM/93.7 The Fan | XM 371, SiriusXM app 371 | Listen Online | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets App | TuneIn

Play-by-Play: Andy Demetra  |  Analyst: Randy Waters

THE FLATS – Back home for the second time in three games, Georgia Tech hosts a streaking Notre Dame team at McCamish Pavilion for a 6 p.m. Saturday night tip. It is the first of two scheduled meetings between the two teams this season.

Tech (6-7, 0-3 ACC) is looking for its first ACC victory after coming up short Tuesday night at No. 2 Duke, 69-57 in Durham. The defending Atlantic Coast Conference champion Yellow Jackets have also lost at home to Louisville, 67-64 last Saturday, and North Carolina, 79-53 on Dec. 5. Their Dec. 29 game at Syracuse was postponed.

Reigning ACC Tournament MVP Michael Devoe (Orlando, Fla.), the ACC’s leading scorer (21.2 points per game) and No. 2 three-point shooter by volume (2.92 per game) and percentage (44.3), leads the Jackets along with senior forward Jordan Usher (Canton, Ga.), averaging 14.7 points and 6.8 rebounds per game.

Notre Dame (8-5, 2-1 ACC) comes to Atlanta with four straight victories after holding off North Carolina, 78-73, Wednesday night in South Bend. That followed a 68-67 win at Pittsburgh on Dec. 28 and non-conference wins over Western Michigan and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi before Christmas. The Fighting Irish lost at Boston College, 73-57, on Dec. 3.

Saturday’s game will be televised live on the ACC Network, with the online live stream of the broadcast available through the ESPN app. Radio coverage will be on the Georgia Tech Sports Network by Legends Sports and flagship station WCNN (680/93.7 the Fan), and on satellite radio (XM channel 371, SiriusXM app 371).

THE OPENING TIP

• At home – Nine of the Yellow Jackets’ 13 games this season have been played at McCamish Pavilion, where the Yellow Jackets are 5-4, including ACC losses to North Carolina and Louisville. Saturday marks Notre Dame’s third conference game on the road out of four, and the Fighting Irish are 1-2 in road games this season.
• Mikey likes it – Senior guard Michael Devoe remains the ACC leader in scoring average (21.2 ppg) and is No. 2 three-point percentage (44.3), and ranks No. 11 and 25, respectively, in the nation on those categories. He also ranks the ACC in three-point field goals per game (2.92).
• Climbing the ladder – After beginning the season No. 36 in career points at Tech, Devoe has jumped to 21st on the Tech career points list with 1,403 points, passing such Tech luminaries as Iman Shumpert, Drew Barry, Jarrett Jack, Michael Maddox, Tico Brown, Marvin Lewis and Anthony Morrow. He needs eight points to pass 20th-place Lenny Horton (1.411 from 1977-80), and 27 to pass Jose Alvarado (1,429 from 2017-21).
• Hot streak – Senior wing Jordan Usher, who scored a career-high 30 points in Tech’ Dec. 21 win over Georgia State, is averaging 16.8 points and 6.4 rebounds over his last five games, having hit 28-of-37 shots from the floor and 10-of-19 threes.
• Countdown to 1,000 – Usher is 44 points away from the 1,000-point milestone for his career. He has 956 points entering Saturday’s game, 682 of them scored in a Tech uniform. Tech already has a pair of 1,000-point scorers in its roster – Michael Devoe (1,403) and Bubba Parham (1,452).
• Getting Moore done – Senior forward Khalid Moore has averaged 7.7 points over Tech’s last seven games, after scoring a total of 23 points in the Jackets’ first six games of the season. He has hit 21-of-39 from the floor over that stretch.
• Bubba’s back – Bubba Parham made his long-awaited season debut Jan. 5 against Louisville after missing the season’s first nine games recovering from pre-season knee surgery, and the next two under protocols. The 5-10 senior, taking advantage of his COVID season, played 27 turnover-free minutes at Duke with three assists and three steals.
• Two-point (guard) conversion – Splitting the point guard duties nearly evenly so far this season in the wake of the departure of Jose Alvarado, Kyle Sturdivant and Deivon Smith have combined to average 12.1 points and 3.6 assists over 13 games, while compiling a 47:41 assist/turnover ratio. Sturdivant has started nine games games, while Smith has started five. They both started and played together for much of Tech’s win over Charleston Southern in the absence of Michael Devoe.
• Big3 – To replace ACC Player of the Year Moses Wright, Tech has turned to a trio of big men in junior Rodney Howard, who started Tech’s first 11 games before missing Louisville and Duke, along with sophomores Saba Gigiberia and Jordan Meka. With Howard slowed by an ankle injury, Gigiberia and Meka stepped up to play nearly 35 minutes in Tech’s victory over Georgia State and contribute 10 rebounds and four blocked shots. Against Louisville and Duke, Meka started and played 20 minutes in each game, grabbing 12 rebounds and blocking five shots combined. Gigiberia returned from protocols to notch season highs of six points and six rebounds in a career-long 14:06 at Duke.
• Fight the power – Duke was the only ACC team ranked among the nation’s top 25 in the Associated Press or Coaches polls as of Monday. Should that hold at the end of the season, the Blue Devils would be Tech’s only game against a ranked opponent in conference this season. The Jackets have never played fewer than three games against top-25 opponents in a season (2012-13 vs. Duke, Miami, NC State).
• Prepping for ACC play – Tech played four straight games against power conference foes in the month of December, three of whom were ranked in the nation’s top 25 (No. 23/21 Wisconsin, No. 25/24 LSU, No. 10/9 USC). It was the first time the Yellow Jackets have faced as many as three top-25 teams in its non-conference schedule since the 1995-96 season. That season, the Yellow Jackets went 2-3 against No. 4 Georgetown, No. 17 Michigan, No. 5 Kentucky, No. 20 Louisville and No. 2 Massachusetts.
• PPD – Two Georgia Tech games were postponed in December under health and safety ptorocols, a Dec. 23 home game against Alabama A&M and a Dec. 29 road game at Syracuse. Neither game has a makeup date.

SERIES NOTES VS. NOTRE DAME

• Georgia Tech snapped a four-game losing streak to Notre Dame and knotted the series as 12-12 with an 82-80 win last Feb. 6 at McCamish Pavilion. The Fighting Irish had swept the regular season series in 2019-20, and had won the last two meetings of 2018-19, the final regular season contest and an ACC Tournament meeting. The teams did not play in South Bend last season due to COVID-19.
• Since Notre Dame joined the ACC, the teams have split their regular season series four times, and the Fighting Irish have swept the Yellow Jackets twice. Tech has yet to sweep the Irish.
• The Yellow Jackets are 6-10 against Notre Dame since the Fighting Irish joined the ACC, the 16 meetings decided by a total of 84 points. Notre Dame’s 69-59 win in South Bend on Feb. 10, 2019 is the widest margin.
• At McCamish Pavilion, Tech is 5-2 against the Irish (plus one 2017 win vacated by the NCAA), and the games have been decided by a total of 26 points.
• Notre Dame has won all seven meetings at South Bend since the Fighting Irish became a member of the ACC.
• The Yellow Jackets won five straight meetings between the two teams from 1972 through Tech’s 74-69 victory in McCamish Pavilion on Jan. 11, 2014, the team’s first meeting as ACC foes.
• All but one game in the series has been played on the two campuses, the exception being a 2007 meeting in the third-place game of the Paradise Jam. The Yellow Jackets erased a 9-point deficit in the final 5:11 and won the game on a three-point basket by Matt Causey with two seconds remaining.
• Tech is 2-9 in games played in South Bend, and 1-8 in Purcell Pavilion, including an 88-80 overtime win on Feb. 24, 1990, with the Jackets headed toward an ACC title and Final Four berth later that season.
• That game and a 90-80 Tech victory in Atlanta a year earlier were the only two face-offs ever between legendary coaches Bobby Cremins and Digger Phelps.
• Tech is 8-2 all-time against Notre Dame in Atlanta, three of those wins at Alexander Memorial Coliseum and five at McCamish Pavilion (the 2017 win was vacated by the NCAA Committee on Infractions).
• Four of the five meetings before that were played with Whack Hyder as Tech’s head coach, and the Jackets won three of those, including an 82-62 win in 1972 at Alexander Memorial Coliseum in Phelps’ first season as the Fighting Irish head coach.

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Georgia Tech’s men’s basketball team won the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship in 2021 after finishing fourth in the regular season. Tech has been a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference since 1979, winning four ACC Championships (1985, 1990, 1993, 2021), playing in the NCAA Tournament 17 times and playing in two Final Fours (1990, 2004). Connect with Georgia Tech Men’s Basketball on social media by liking their Facebook Page, or following on Twitter (@GTMBB) and Instagram. For more information on Tech basketball, visit Ramblinwreck.com.