Clemson Clubs Tech
Tigers Take Down Punchless Yellow Jackets At McCamish,65-42
Imagine a schoolyard fight between 2 very differently skilled opponents. One is older, taller, stronger and more experienced than the other. After a short while, the bigger, savvier fighter simply holds his opponent at arm’s length , palm to his forehead, leaving him to flail away furiously, but ineffectively, until the battle is done.
This image roughly depicts the feel of the basketball game between Clemson and Georgia Tech Wednesday night at McCamish Pavilion. Clemson came into the game sporting a 2 game win streak but alao with an 0-4 record in ACC road games. The Tigers beat Tech at Clemson January 12. Georgia Tech, on the other hand, was trying to halt a 3 game slide.
Clemson coach Brad Brownell noted that his team’s experience serves them well in the “unforgiving “ACC.
Clemson coach Brad Brownell said “the ACC is unforgiving.”
That heavy experience (4 seniors in the starting 5) was a new factor working against the Jackets . The more familiar problems for Tech–too many turnovers, weak rebounding and poor shooting–were also on display on Wedsnesday and the combination again proved again to be insurmountable.
Tech trailed “only” 33-24 at the half. The quotes speak to the outsized effect a 9 point deficit means to this group of Yellow Jacket basketballers. Their offensive prowess has been so limited that the ability to make up 9 points is greatly compromised. Tech came into this year planning to depend heavily on outside shooting. Good shooting has been missing most of the season, resulting in Pastner’s new plan to work the offense through the two post players, James Banks and Abdouleye Gueye. In recent weeks, those two have been somewhat reliable–somewhat–in their post work, but the outside shooting has continued to struggle.
A frustrated Josh Pastner spoke to that point. He noted that their emphasis is to go inside for points and that tbe outside shooting is so erratuc that opponents are now packing inside defensively. This tendency then worsens the rebounding issue–and obviously, consistent 30% shooting produces a lot of rebounds.
On this night, Clemson won the boards 39-24, which helped explain how they took 12 more shots on goal than did Tech. And if you factor in far better shooting for the Tigers (49% vs 30% for Tech), that big disparity in number of shots taken is even more important.
The Yellow Jackets’ highly-touted defense again played well–for a while. When Clemson extended its 9 point lead early in the 2nd half, Tech responded with a mini-run of 6 points. The experienced Tigers weathered that threat, then went in a surge themselves to take that lead back up to 14. From that point on, Tech showed something not yet seen in this challenging season-a noticeable drop off in their intensity. Jose Akvarado called it “low energy” and noted that both offense and defense were affected for Tech. Pressed for details, he spoke to the frustration he feels, saying “We are in practice everyday, but when the lights come in, it isn’t going in.”
Tech point guard Jose Alvarado said “We’ve got to look in the mirror and keep fighting.”
His teammate James Banks challenged any notion that Tech players backed off on effort. ” I don’t think anybody’s taking a game off in the ACC”, he said. He pointed out that he had missed some shots he thought normally would go in. He did not mention his huge production defensively, where he was credited with 7 blocks and 2 steals in his 31 minutes.
James Banks had 7 blocks and 2 steals for Tech.
Banks also led Tech’s scoring with 13 points. Brandon Alston was the only other Tech player in double figures with 11.
Josh Pastner again voiced his frustration with the struggling offense. ” I don’t have answers for our offensive struggles. It’s on me because I’m the head coach.” He then entertained possible causes–too much practice, leading to fatigue? Going to a smallish lineup briefly? He agreed that possibly there’s a mental component to it by now. He pointed out that Alvarado’s struggles affect the whole team. He hit only 1 of 10 in this game, after going 0 for 10 against Florida State 4 days earlier. As Pastner put it,” It sucks the life out of you when you go so long without scoring.” He noted that both Alvarado and fellow guard Michael Devoe are hesitant to take open shots. And as the boxscore shows, Pastner tried some fresh faces off the bench. No help there, because remarkably, 5 of the 6 reserve Tech players who logged 67 minutes in total scored no points at all.
Tech travels to South Bend on Sunday to take on Notre Dame. The Irish are the last team the Yellow Jackets beat, 17 days ago, not coincidentally the last time they scored more than 60 points. When asked what his team needed to do to defeat the Irish again, Pastner said simply”We gotta score!”
Patrick Conarro