Jan. 7, 2006
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech, winners of two straight games and four of its last five, finishes off a three-game homestand Sunday night with a nationally-televised Atlantic Coast Conference game against No. 11 Boston College at 5:30 p.m. at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
Fox Sports Net will televise the game nationally, while the Georgia Tech-ISP Sports Network will provide radio coverage in Atlanta on WQXI-AM (790), WTSH-FM (107.1) and WREK-FM (91.1). The Tech broadcast can also be heard nationally on XM Satellite Radio Ch. 191.
Tech (7-4 overall, 1-0 ACC this season) scored an important win over Vanderbilt, 76-67, last time out, and won its only ACC game to this point, 63-54 over Virginia back on Dec. 4. Boston College (11-2, 0-1) has won five in a row since losing to Michigan State (77-70) and Maryland (73-71) in early December.
After making some alterations in their starting lineup over the holiday break, the Yellow Jackets have steadily improved on defense during the last five games, allowing just 61.2 points per game over that stretch. Tech is playing two men short and has just eight scholarship players available with guards Mario West and Lewis Clinch out with injuries.
Tech, which has a 498-167 all-time record at Alexander Memorial Coliseum, is within two wins of 500 in its home arena. Boston College is visiting Tech’s home arena for the first time.
Tech and Boston College last met in the second round of the 2004 NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee, with the Yellow Jackets prevailing 57-54 on their way to the Final Four. Only two current players (senior Theodis Tarver and junior Mario West) were on the Tech roster for that game, and only Tarver actually played in the game. Four of the five BC starters from that game are still with the Eagles.
After using the same starting lineup for the first five games, Hewitt has altered it three times in the last five, the latest due in part to injury.
Sophomore guard Zam Fredrick returned to the lineup for the Bethune-Cookman game in place of Paco Diaw, who started against Jacksonville and Air Force, and freshman D’Andre Bell made his first start in place of Mario West, who sustained a sprained left big toe at Air Force and will miss two to three weeks.
They join leading scorer Anthony Morrow on the perimeter, and leading rebounder Jeremis Smith at power forward and Theodis Tarver at center in Tech’s starting five.
Morrow, a 6-5 sophomore from Charlotte, N.C., leads the Jackets and ranks seventh in the ACC in scoring at 17.5 points a game. He leads the ACC with a 47.7-percent success rate from three-point range and is third in the conference in three-point field goals (2.82 per game). He is one of three Tech players averaging in double digits, including Smith (13.0) and Dickey (11.1).
Fredrick, a 6-0 sophomore from St. Matthews, S.C., has averaged 9.8 points, including six double-figure games, and 4.2 assists this season. Bell, a 6-5 wingman from Los Angeles, Calif., has averaged 8.0 points per game over the last four, including two double-digit efforts. He averages 4.1 points and 1.8 rebounds for the season.
Smith, a 6-6 sophomore from Fort Worth, Texas, has transformed himself into a force in the paint since Tech’s near miss at Michigan State, averaging 14.8 points and 9.8 rebounds while hitting 54.5 percent of his field goals over that stretch. Fully recovered from a dislocated kneecap that sidelined him for 17 games last year, Smith is the ACC’s second-leading rebounder at 8.9 per game and leads the team with 24 steals (4th in ACC).
Tarver, a 6-9 senior from Monroe, La., in the starting line for the first time since his freshman year, scored a career-high 11 points against Jacksonville and has hit 53.8 percent of his field goal tries.
Due to injuries to West and freshman Lewis Clinch, who has missed the last three games with a left leg stress fracture, Tech has just one scholarship reserve in the backcourt in Diaw, a 6-6 freshman from Dakar, Senegal. He has played more than 15 minutes a game in his last five, notching career highs of six points and five rebounds against Bethune-Cookman, and eight assists against Vanderbilt.
In the frontcourt, Dickey, a 6-9 sophomore from Clio, S.C., is shooting a team-high 58.6 percent from the floor and taking 6.5 rebounds per game. He has averaged 9.3 points and 8.0 rebounds off the bench in the last four games. Freshman Alade Aminu, a 6-9 player with good athletic ability and shot-blocking skills, has averaged 2.5 points and 1.9 rebounds.
Head Coach Paul Hewitt says …
[On Boston College] “They take care of that basketball. The thing that is interesting about Boston College as a coach is that they’re very methodical. They get the ball exactly where they want it to be. They’re very patient. They play right through Smith and Dudley, and depending on how they’re going, the rest of the guys get theirs.”
[On Tech’s chemistry] “It’s really coming. We’ve talked a lot about how we’ve worked our defense, but in the last couple of weeks we’ve invoked the camp rule, at least five passes before a shot goes up. It’s amazing how much it’s improved our ball movement. We’re getting more ball reversals and scoring opportunities.
“The strength of our team going forward has to be balance. It’s great to have Anthony Morrow out there shooting the ball well, along with Zam Fredrick and D’Andre Bell. Ra’Sean Dickey and Jeremis Smith are both very good scorers inside. Hopefully, the balance will be the thing.”
[On Tech’s offense, after the Vanderbilt game] “When we communicate the way we’ve communicated the last four games now on the defensive end, good things are going to happen. Offensively, this is probably the best we’ve moved the ball since the Michigan State game, and consequently we got a lot of good looks.”
“We’ve been really struggling, other than Anthony Morrow, to shoot the ball from the three-point line. As you know, I’m convinced this is a good shooting team, but when you’re not getting good looks because the ball is stalling, you’re not going to look like you can shoot the basketball. Against Vanderbilt, we moved the ball extremely well. Zam got some clean looks, D’Andre got clean looks and of course Morrow got clean looks, so you’re going to look a lot better offensively. And again, the key for us is what we do defensively. There were one or two threes we weren’t pleased with, but for the most part, I thought we defended their cuts pretty well. They run a lot of sets, and I thought our guys were really active, put good pressure on the ball and contested a lot of shots.”
[On D’Andre Bell] “Since the Jacksonville game, D’Andre has really started to get comfortable out there. He’s a very good defender, he’s an excellent rebounder and he can make shots. He’s the type of guy we like to have around here, those long, athletic guys who can guard the one, two or three. He’s not quite as explosive as Isma’il Muhammad, but he can do some of the things that Isma’il did for us defensively and on the boards. And D’Andre is a very competent shooter.”
[On Paco Diaw] “He passes the ball great. He had eight assists the other night (against Vanderbilt). He sparked us offensively off the bench against Tennessee State. He was the guy that really got our ball movement going. He plays with a great deal of energy.”
[On Zam Fredrick] “I thought Zam managed the (Vanderbilt) game very well. I thought he did a nice job picking his spots when to go. I still think there are times when he should be thinking pass a little more than shot. But this is still a new process for him having come out as one of the leading high school scorers in the state of South Carolina. He showed a lot of maturity. He’s learning that the more he moves the ball, the better for the team and the better for him. He’s not a 34-percent shooter. He’s a much better shooter than that.”
Series vs. Boston College
Georgia Tech will meet Boston College twice this season as the Eagles make their debut in the Atlantic Coast Conference. BC’s visit to Alexander Memorial Coliseum will be the first-ever meeting between the two teams in Atlanta.
Tech has won four of five meetings with Boston College, the first of which occurred in 1948.
Four of the five previous meetings between the two teams occurred on neutral floors, including one outside the United States, a 65-62 overtime win for the Yellow Jackets in the 1986 Suntory Ball in Tokyo, Japan. The teams also played in the Boston Garden in 1980.
The last two games between the two teams occurred in NCAA Tournament competition, both of them won by Tech. The Yellow Jackets downed the Eagles, 103-89, in the 1996 Southeast Regional second round in Orlando, and eliminated the Eagles two seasons ago, 57-54 in the second round in Milwaukee.
