Dec. 2, 2011
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech’s basketball team plays its first true road game Saturday when it travels to New Orleans to face unbeaten Tulane at 2 p.m. Eastern time at Fogelman Arena. The game will be the first of two appearances Tech has on the CBS Sports Network (formerly CBS College Sports), and fans can hear the game in Atlanta on 790 AM and 106.7 FM.
Complete game notes
Jackets Look for More of the Same
Tech (4-3) is coming off a 76-60 loss to undefeated Northwestern (6-0) Tuesday night in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge at Philips Arena. Tulane (8-0) remained unbeaten Wednesday night with a 78-53 victory over Southern University. The Green Wave are 6-0 at home this season.
Saturday’s game represents the team’s first game on an opponent’s home floor this season. Tech plays its next three games on the road, visiting Georgia and Savannah State next week after the game at Tulane. The Yellow Jackets played an early season tournament, the Charleston Classic, away from home, going 1-2.
The game is the first meeting between the two teams since the 2002-03 season, when the Green Wave downed the Yellow Jackets, 80-66, in New Orleans.
Tech has tried to hang its hat on solid defense early in the season. The Yellow Jackets rank fourth in the ACC in field goal percentage defense (38.2 pct.) and fifth in scoring defense (59.4 ppg), and have limited five of their seven opponents under 40 percent from the field. Northwestern was the first team to shoot 50 percent against the Jackets this season, and the first team to score 70 or more points.
Offensively, Tech is averaging 67.1 points a game, seventh in the ACC, and hitting 46.8 percent of its field goal tries (5th). Three players, Glen Rice, Jr., Mfon Udofia and Kammeon Holsey, average in double figures for the season.
Tech Has Long History With Tulane
Saturday’s game will be the 68th meeting between Georgia Tech and Tulane, a series that began in 1909 and continued when both teams were members of the Southeastern Conference. Tech leads the all-time series, 35-32.
Tech has played only five other teams outside the Atlantic Coast Conference more times than it has met Tulane. All are current members of the SEC – Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee, Vanderbilt – to which the Yellow Jackets belonged from 1932-64.
Saturday’s game is the first of a two-game series scheduled between the two teams. The Green Wave will visit Tech in Atlanta next season.
Tulane won both games in the last home-and-away contract, capturing a 79-69 victory at Alexander Memorial Coliseum on Dec. 23, 2001, and an 80-66 win on Jan. 2, 2003 at Fogelman Arena. That 2002-03 team included the nucleus of the Jackets’ 2004 Final Four team, plus freshman forward Chris Bosh, now in his 9th NBA season.
The Yellow Jackets are 9-20 all-time in games played at Tulane, 8-19 in Fogelman Arena, which opened in 1933.
