UGA wins a shocker, but should we really be so shocked?
Tech's Paul Hewitt was brought low in Athens yet again. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
ATHENS – There’s a good team in there somewhere. Maybe it’ll show itself Saturday when Duke comes to Atlanta. It needs to show up soon. We’re into January now, and Georgia Tech still acts as if it’s just another collegiate aggregation. It could, and should, be much more.
“This team still has a pretty high ceiling,” Paul Hewitt said Tuesday night. He said this moments after his tall and talented team had run face-first into a closing door.
The Jackets came to Stegeman Coliseum to play a game not many folks watched — another Tech team was busy elsewhere — and for that Hewitt can be grateful. Tech fans, as we know, have seen it all before. But here, for late tuners-in, is a recap:
Once again the Jackets allowed a lesser opponent to dictate tempo. Once again Tech seemed determined to match every basket with a turnover. Once again it lost.
Yes, yes. We must credit Georgia at the same time we castigate Tech. The Bulldogs have one player (Trey Thompkins) who would make the Jackets’ 10-man rotation. Mark Fox is doing brilliant things with this undermanned team. And Hewitt … well, he’s not looking so brilliant.
Three days ago Georgia lost to Missouri by 28 points. On Tuesday it beat Tech and was the better team throughout. You kept waiting, as is always the case with the Jackets, for talent to have its way, but talent, as is often the case with these Jackets, meant little without direction.
Tech’s best play was an offensive rebound — it had 19 of those and 18 second-chance points. It didn’t make a trey until the game’s 33rd minute. Its famous freshman Derrick Favors finished with more turnovers (five) and fouls (four) than baskets (three). I hate to keep harping on coaching — really I do — but if you’re ranked 20th in the land and you can’t handle the team picked to finish last in the SEC East, what does that say about the man at the top?
It wasn’t as if the Stegasaurus took on the charged ambience of Cameron Indoor Stadium. The place was barely half-full. But Tech allowed Georgia to become the aggressor early, managing but 12 points in the first 11 minutes. You can’t do that on the road. You have to hit the other guy harder sooner. Tech did nothing but counterpunch.
The Jackets finished with 66 points. With their size and speed, they should be playing games in the 80s. But they don’t know how to press the issue without throwing the ball away. (They finished with 20 turnovers against 23 baskets and eight assists.) They’re young on the perimeter, sure. But they act even younger.
In the end it came down to Georgia making the assertive plays and the Jackets being unable to guard Ricky McPhee, who’s listed as 6-foot-1. When in doubt, the Bulldogs put the ball on the floor and made something happen in the lane. Thompkins drove for a huge hoop at the shot-clock horn, and McPhee, of all people, shook free down the lane for an underhand banker to clinch it.
Tech, by way of contrast, did its stand-around thing. When it got the ball low to Gani Lawal, it was OK. (He had 21 of the Jackets’ 66 points.) When it couldn’t, it was at sea. And that, sad to say, is the impression Tech has left after 14 games. It has won 11 times, but when put to the test by Florida State and now Georgia it failed. FSU is a decent-enough team. Georgia still has miles to go before it can lay claim to decency.
But say this for the Bulldogs: They know who they are and how they have to play, and they keep doing it. “We have limitations,” Fox said, “but we know what they are.” Contrast this with Tech, which has assets almost everywhere but doesn’t seem to know where to turn.
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451 comments Add your comment
Denver Dog
January 5th, 2010
9:52 pm
Empty seats abound at the Orange Bowl
BG
January 5th, 2010
9:53 pm
UGA beats tech again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
phil
January 5th, 2010
9:54 pm
Not sure Tech has complimentary talent. Lawal and Favors will have a tough time sharing the block. Erratic perimeter play means that ball distribution and three point shooting will be very erratic. All that talent may be, at time, a curse.
Go Dogs, Go Thompkins, Yippee McPhiee. For one night, it feels good!
Ozzy
January 5th, 2010
9:54 pm
Enter your comments here
Caddyshak
January 5th, 2010
9:54 pm
Mark you are a self righteous idiot! How do you keep your job at this rag writing 9th grade comments?
Floundering Fox Hounds Batman!
January 5th, 2010
9:55 pm
hey Terrence does this mean you will be voting for Sarah Palin in 2012? The *Peoples* choice?
Only Paul Hewitt
January 5th, 2010
9:55 pm
Paul Hewitt could recruit Michael Shumacher to drive a Ferrari, and somehow he’d manage to lose a race to Miss Daisy driving a Yugo.
30-24 Dawgs - WE RUN THIS STATE
January 5th, 2010
9:55 pm
31 total yards for an unprepared Coach Paul Johnson’s offense in the first half! LMAO!
First 30-24, then 73-66, now this!
WE RUN THIS STATE!
kydawg
January 5th, 2010
9:56 pm
Maybe this will help in recruiting some in-state talent. I do think Fox will at least make UGA more competitive. Coach ‘em up, baby!!!
Suwaneedawg
January 5th, 2010
9:56 pm
We own the state in football. We own the state in basketball. We will own the state when baseball starts. It is like the circle of life. You can’t stop it.
Dawg Bites
January 5th, 2010
9:56 pm
73-66!!!!
73-66!!!!
73-66!!!!
73-66!!!!
73-66!!!!
73-66!!!!
73-66!!!!
73-66!!!!
‘nuf said! nahhhh! here’s more…
30-24!!!!
30-24!!!!
30-24!!!!
30-24!!!!
8 out of 9!!!!!
jellybeandawg
January 5th, 2010
9:56 pm
Yea Iowas D is looking fierce.
Denver Dog
January 5th, 2010
9:57 pm
Watching this game, I though that Tech would have alot more team speed than they have shown. Norm Parker is the DC and doing a great job.
DAWGS RULE!!!
January 5th, 2010
9:57 pm
UGA is Tech’s DADDY!
30-24 and 73-66!!!!!
Paul's Johnson
January 5th, 2010
9:58 pm
No excuse for this one. I’ve been one of the last to jump off the Hewitt bandwagon, but tonight was just about it for me. If we can’t beat this motley crew of mutts, what will happen in the ACC? This is the ONLY serious game that Mutley U. even acknowledges in round ball before they take their long winter’s hibernation before Spring Football begins.
DogGoneGaDawg
January 5th, 2010
9:58 pm
Mark you should have never admitted that you are a Tech suck-up. You should have told us something we didn’t already know like how to milk a duck. Now everything you say about GT or UGA is tainted. Now you say you are wondering when the greatness of Tech will show up because it did not tonight against the pathetic Georgia team. Pathetic or not the Dawgs, once again deals Tech a defeat. We continue to dominate you (and this means you Bradley) in the revenue and the non-revenue sports. Men or women.
bad brad
January 5th, 2010
9:58 pm
GO DAWGS!!!
tgc198
January 5th, 2010
9:58 pm
Don’t forget gymnastics, golf, tennis, soccer..
In fact, I don’t think they are better in any sports
Floundering Fox Hounds Batman!
January 5th, 2010
9:59 pm
Stormin Normin Parker for UGA DC !
Saint Simons
January 5th, 2010
9:59 pm
My Jackets SUCK! The Bulldogs OWN us! In EVERYTHING!
The Stinger
January 5th, 2010
10:00 pm
Well, I can’t believe it. Our Jackets take the fall in Athens again. What gives? Hewitt is such a great coach. And now, at half time, our Jackets only have 30 yards on offense and no points on offense. How can PJ keep being the coach of the year if he can’t win bowl games?
Mark Fox
January 5th, 2010
10:00 pm
Paul Hewitt sure knows how to waste talent! I whipped him with a team of walk-ons!
Terrence Moore
January 5th, 2010
10:01 pm
Kool and the Gang is the greatest contributor to American music in the last century.
They are truly without peer.
scott
January 5th, 2010
10:01 pm
Terrance, that was very funny. Also, Mark, you are wrong about that ten man rotation thing. Thompkins would be one of Tech’s best players by far, and Leslie and Price are talented players who you are underselling.
Floundering Fox Hounds Batman!
January 5th, 2010
10:01 pm
Sanford Stadium will never be the same!!!
Right On Time
January 5th, 2010
10:03 pm
I almost forgot…
if yech is the best the acc has to offer in football AND the most talented basketball team in the acc…
would that make UGA the champs in both sports? Just wondering…
cherokee
January 5th, 2010
10:03 pm
Mark, It kills you for UGA to beat Tech doesn’t it? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Stegman Coliseum, Athens, GA
January 5th, 2010
10:03 pm
Just a fun fact for all you readers. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have not beaten the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens since 1963. And that my friends is a FACT!!!!
Only Paul Hewitt
January 5th, 2010
10:04 pm
Paul Hewitt could recruit Kool and the Gang to compete in a ‘git down’ and they would be soundly throttled by a team of Lawrence Welk orchestra members.
Floundering Fox Hounds Batman!
January 5th, 2010
10:04 pm
Saw kool and the gang at Clemson’s littlejohn years ago. I felt like I was the only whitey there…
4 jacks
January 5th, 2010
10:05 pm
If coach Hewitt cared at all about GT, he would take a lesser payout, however that takes character in a person, and cph has shown non is his regards to GT and what Cremins had built here in the basketball program. Maybe we could get that idiot Braine to pony up some cash. They are both of the same cut…LOSERS!!! I hate it but congrats Dogs, looks like you might have a coach that can elevate your program. Our program is shot as long as cph is so called coaching.
reebok
January 5th, 2010
10:05 pm
hewitt has got to go.
JeJe
January 5th, 2010
10:05 pm
FIRE MIKE WOODSON
Imadawg24
January 5th, 2010
10:05 pm
UGA Beats tech in basketball tonight, RUDY is on tv on CMT so tech loses to Notre Dame in football and if IOwa can hold on tech will be 0 and 3 in one night. Ain’t that a pip?? HOOTY-HOO!!
Floundering Fox Hounds Batman!
January 5th, 2010
10:06 pm
its a Celebration Yahoooooooooo!!!!
Garrett
January 5th, 2010
10:06 pm
Mark! Good lord!! How much are you going to ride the Tech’s bandwagon!!!!!! I guess it doesn’t stop with football! you are like Mark May! You just can’t say anything good about Georgia! An inferior opponent to Tech??? Come on! We are not that bad and Trey Thompkins not making the starting line-up for Tech? The 10-man rotation? And Stegman not being full? I texted my buddy who is in the red coat band and he said it was pretty full and the student section was totally full. I know this kills you where you can’t lay the hammer on everything bad Georgia is and has done but give us some credit. This article was more like a tearful written one on why Tech lost and how they shouldn’t have than how Georgia just out manned, out played, and was the better team. You should have been watching “your team” play the Orange Bowl since you love Coach PJ. I will leave you with this. We not only “Run this State,” “We OWN it now” with wins in football and men’s and women’s bball! Go Dawgs!
GT STILL IS A 4TH RATE HIGH SCHOOL TEAM
January 5th, 2010
10:07 pm
EVEN IN BASKETBALL. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA EAT IT JELLOW JOCKITCH. HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA FOREVER AND EVER.
Son of a Bush
January 5th, 2010
10:07 pm
Tech, where the fans jump off of the wagon after each loss. They need new fans. Fire Bill!
csradawg
January 5th, 2010
10:07 pm
Mark, I believe you are underselling Thompkins. He was the second leading scorer on the US’s World Team that won the gold medal this past summer. To say he would not be a starter on Tech’s team would put you on the same level as Hewitt when it comes to coaching.
Brunswick-Tech
January 5th, 2010
10:07 pm
FIRE HEWITT
Floundering Fox Hounds Batman!
January 5th, 2010
10:07 pm
1963 yahooooooooo!!!
Imadawg24
January 5th, 2010
10:08 pm
DAWGS beat tech in basketball tonight, Notre Dame will beat tech in football tonight because RUDY is on TV on CMT and if Iowa can hold on tech will go 0 and 3 in one night!! Ain’t that a pip?? HOOTY-HOO!!!
GT STILL IS A 4TH RATE HIGH SCHOOL TEAM
January 5th, 2010
10:08 pm
TOLD YOU SO. HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAAHHA FOREVER AND EVER.
GTBuzz85
January 5th, 2010
10:09 pm
I have supported Hewitt all along but am done now. Can’t stand to even watch this team play. Tech Administration: My son who is a Junior and loves Tech sports will not pay his fee this semester because he won’t waste his time going to the games!!!
Bride of Chucky Knapp
January 5th, 2010
10:09 pm
The Stegman Curse is the building’s way of saving itself, kind of like how a plant emits toxins to deter insects.
Da' Da' Da' Da'
January 5th, 2010
10:09 pm
Da’Rick Da’cant Da’catch Da’ball !!!!
George O'Leary
January 5th, 2010
10:11 pm
Check my resume,I can coach basketball too,Paul Hewitt is the Mark Richt of basketball
jeas3
January 5th, 2010
10:11 pm
Paul Hewitt has done nothing with the amount of talent that he has recruited. I don’t understand how he keeps recruiting so well with his track record. We should never have run Cremins off – at least he can still beat Carolina!
what a joke
January 5th, 2010
10:13 pm
Fire Hewitt!!!
I have no interest in this team until he is gone.
Dawgdad
January 5th, 2010
10:13 pm
underDOGS and Hawkeyes Rule. Great day to be a Dawg.