Know Your Opponent: Georgia Tech

By Bobby Hundley

Georgia Tech (RamblinWreck.com)
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Rankings: GT - No. 108 KenPom, NR AP; UNC - No. 9 KenPom, No. 15 AP
Records: GT - 10-8, 3-2 ACC; UNC - 15-4, 4-2 ACC
Carolina Series History (Last Meeting): UNC leads 66-24 (GT 75, UNC 63, Dec. 31, 2016, McCamish Pavilion)

There won't be many more difficult turnarounds than the one facing Georgia Tech this week. After an 8 p.m. home loss to No. 2 Virginia on Thursday, the Yellow Jackets meet Carolina less than 30 hours later at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Thursday's loss snapped a four-game winning streak for Josh Pastner's club, which split a home-and-home with Notre Dame and also has a home win over Miami as its best results of the season. The Jackets also have arguably the worst loss of the year for an ACC team, a 64-63 home setback against Grambling State.

Tech has whittled its lineup down to seven players, three of whom almost never leave the floor - Jose Alvarado, Ben Lammers and Josh Okogie have played 570 of a possible 600 minutes in five league games. While Lammers and Okogie are familiar names to ACC fans, freshman point guard Jose Alvarado has flown under the radar despite starting every game this season for the Jackets. He's only a 34-percent 3-point shooter so far, but he leads the team in both foul shooting and steal percentage.

Lammers, the 2017 ACC Defensive Player of the Year, benefited more than anyone from the arrival of Pastner on the Flats, and he has continued to be a force on the defensive end thanks to an elite block rate and an improved defensive rebounding percentage. He has struggled offensively, however, making just 33 percent of his 2s and 50 percent of his free throws in league play. Abdoulaye Gueye, the 6-9 junior from Senegal, joins Lammers in the starting frontcourt and is no slouch defensively in his own right.

But it's Okogie who makes the Ramblin' Wreck's engine run, as evidenced by his 26-point effort in last year's stunning 75-63 upset of Carolina in Atlanta. The 6-4 sophomore missed the first eight games of the season due to injury and suspension, but he has picked up where he left off in 2017. Okogie is one of the best in the ACC at getting to the line, where he has made better than 80 percent of his attempts through 10 games. He's also an improved outside shooter, making almost 44 percent after converting just 37 percent as a freshman.

Grad transfer Brandon Alston is Tech's fifth starter, but freshman Curtis Haywood II may eventually be the team's best shooting option. Haywood missed six games in December with a shin injury before returning against Yale on Jan. 6. He's made almost 46 percent of his 3s for the year and was one of the few offensive bright spots in Thursday's loss to Virginia, knocking down 3 of 4 from deep. Senior Tadric Jackson is the only other Yellow Jacket to see significant minutes off the bench.

In ACC games, GT is second in the league in defense and 14th in offense, so no one is making shots in games involving the Yellow Jackets. It's especially brutal on the perimeter, where Tech is shooting 29.4 percent and its opponents are converting an even more paltry 28.6 percent. Virginia's 1.07 PPP performance was easily the best offensive effort against the Jackets by a conference foe.

A run to the NIT title game in Pastner's first year was a step in the right direction for a program that hasn't finished with a winning ACC record since 2004. And a 3-1 start to league play in 2018 was encouraging in the face of a daunting late January schedule that features road games at UNC and FSU as well as home dates with Clemson and Syracuse. Ultimately, this Tech team will go only as far as stalwarts Lammers and Okogie can take it.

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