Georgia Tech Out-Muscles Boston College

Tech moves to 4-3 on the road and 3-3 in ACC play.

Going on the road to face a team that just took down the defending national champion, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (8-8, 3-3 ACC) did not back down from the challenge. In fact not only did they not back down, they established themselves as the more physically imposing team as their play in the paint earned them a 71-52 victory over the Boston College Eagles (9-7, 3-2 ACC) in Chestnut Hill, MA.

Recently, Georgia Tech head coach Josh Pastner has gone on record frequently in saying that college basketball has turned into a "guard's game". While that might be the case, the Yellow Jackets' big men were the ones who looked stellar tonight. Junior forward Moses Wright's 18 points and 10 rebounds were good for his 6th double-double of the year, with senior center James Banks III chipping in with 13 points, 5 rebounds and 4 blocks.

Whether it was Wright, Banks III, or anyone else down low in the paint, more often than not the Yellow Jackets experienced success. Tech scored 42 points in the paint as opposed to BC's 18, tied for their second most all season (48 vs. Nebraska, 42 vs. Hawai'i), and out-rebounded the Eagles 40-34. Not was Tech out-leveraging Boston College on the block, they were also continuing to spread the ball around, assisting 18 of their 27 made baskets.

To be fair to Boston College, they were missing key pieces in their rotation. Starters Derryck Thornton and Nik Popovic both missed this game, with Thornton missing his second straight game due to an ankle injury and Popovic missing his seventh with a back issue. Thornton and Popovic are BC's 1st and 3rd leading scorers respectively.

Out of the gates, both teams had trouble figuring out each other's zone defense. In the first 13 minutes of the game, the Jackets were just 6-16 from the field while the Eagles were 4-18. Tech did not start to separate themselves from Boston College until the closing minutes of the half. Banks III scored GT's final 8 first half points, and helped get their shooting percentage to dead even (13-26) while holding BC to under 30.% (8-27 - 29.6%).

If there's any criticism you could give the Jackets in the first half, it was their outside scoring, going 0-4 from beyond the arc. However that was almost remedied out of halftime, with Tech shooting 4-8 on three pointers in the final 20 minutes. Other than that, it was still business as usual down low, finishing the game over 50% from the field (27-53) while continuing to keep the Eagles in check (17-57).

Next up, Tech will be back home all next week starting with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Wednesday. Tip is scheduled for 8:30pm EST and can be viewed on the ACC Network.

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