Jackets have rough start to second half which leads to 77-63 loss to Clemson

Slow starts to games have hurt Georgia Tech over the past month, but on Saturday it was a slow start to the second half that told the story of the game as Clemson turned a 35-33 halftime lead into as much as a 16-point advantage at one point to pull away and eventually earn an 77-63 road win in ACC play at McCamish Pavilion.

Georgia Tech (11-9, 2-5 ACC) was held scoreless over the first 4:16 of the second half, and Clemson used a 16-4 run to build a 51-37 lead. The Jackets never got back any closer than eight of the lead from that point on as they lost their fourth out of their last five and fifth out of their last seven.

“The first half I thought we played well…did a lot of good things on both sides of the ball. We went down seven I think it was at one point, but we got the game back and they hit a 3 at the end of the half. We go into halftime down two, but we were never the same team after that,” said Georgia Tech head coach Damon Stoudamire after the loss on Saturday. “Disappointed with that from the standpoint of I think we played hard enough to win I thought, but our attention to detail wasn’t great.”

“For me, I get disappointed at all those little things,” added Stoudamire. “You can’t come in and try to beat a team like Clemson when you don’t move the ball and you let your offense bleed into your defense, and I thought that’s what we did this afternoon.”

Clemson (17-4, 7-1 ACC) had a balanced scoring day with four players in double figures led by 13 apiece from Jake Wahlin and Nick Davidson. Wahlin added eight rebounds as well.

Also in double figures for the Tigers were Dillon Hunter and Ace Buckner with 12 points apiece, and RJ Godfrey added nine.

“I’ll give them (Clemson) credit because coming off a loss and Brad (Brownell) is a really good coach. He does a good job and has his team prepared,” said Stoudamire. “Like I told my guys leading up to the game — it’s a game of the margins especially when you’re playing against them. So the things they care about and the things that are instilled in them on a consistent basis, they’re going to do and it’s law. They did those things, and we just weren’t able to sustain the same level for the course of 40 minutes.”

Georgia Tech’s top scorer was Kowacie Reeves Jr. with 19 points. Lamar Washington was the only other Jacket in double figures with 10.

Jaeden Mustaf and Chas Kelley III each added eight points, and Baye Ndongo had the top rebounding total in the game with 10.

The game got off to a competitive start with the teams trading leads a couple times before a Mustaf 3-pointer put Tech ahead 10-9 at the first media timeout.

The teams continued to battle back and forth for control with the score tied 14-14 at the next timeout with 12:15 left in the first half and Tech leading narrowly 23-21 at the under 8 media timeout with 7:34 before halftime.

Clemson put together a 12-0 run to take a 30-23 lead at the final media timeout of the first half with 3:55 left before the break punctuated by an Ace Buckner 3-ball.

Georgia Tech fought back with a 10-2 run thanks to five points each by Kelley and Reeves to take a brief 33-32 lead, but a 3-pointer at the buzzer from Clemson’s Dillon Hunter gave the visitors a 35-33 lead at the half. Reeves finished with 12 points in the first half to lead all scorers.

Tech’s offense was held scoreless over the first 4-plus minutes of the second half to help Clemson build a 40-33 lead at the first media timeout of the half with 15:52 remaining in the game. The run was extended to 16-4 by a 3-ball from Clemson’s Davidson to put the Tigers up 51-37 with 12:51 remaining.

“I just didn’t think we were locked in. We started off the half with three contested shots, two turnovers so at 15:52 we only had three field goal attempts,” said Stoudamire. “We were still in good shape (at that point) because we were playing good defense at that point, but then the game just kind of got away from us. And I think it’s hard for kids to understand at times too…when it’s not your day, that doesn’t mean you can’t impact winning. It’s hard when you’re talking about that to young kids because regardless of what era we’re in, they’re not seasoned enough to understand so you have to think for them still. So we had a little bit of that going on, which is fine. But that’s where we’ve got to get better, and it’s games like this that make it hard because whatever you don’t do, Clemson’s going to capitalize on it.”

Georgia Tech got a 3-pointer from Kam Craft with 1:59 remaining to cut Clemson’s lead to 71-63, but the Tigers responded with six straight points, including a step-back 3 from Jestin Porter to put the game away once and for all.

Mo Sylla returned to the Georgia Tech lineup from a lower leg injury for his first action since the Jackets’ loss at Miami on Jan. 10. He went down with an injury in the first half and was helped to the locker room but returned shortly after and checked back in the game.

Georgia Tech will hit the road for a Tuesday ACC matchup at Virginia Tech at 8 p.m.

“We’ve just got to keep plugging away an got to keep fighting because we haven’t shown that we can do the right thing on a consistent basis,” said Stoudamire. “We do it at times, but we don’t do it consistently enough. And until we figure that part out, we’ll be consistently inconsistent.”

“We’ve just got to continue to keep harping on it, keep practicing it and try to instill it each and every day,” added Stoudamire. “Keep playing situations. Keep doing the different things. But at the end of the day I take a lot of pride in the small things. That’s how I made it to where I’ve gotten, and we’ve just got to be better collectively at retaining the information. It’s an us thing, and when I say it’s an us thing, it’s a me thing. We’ve got to keep doing it, but there becomes a point in your season where you’ve got to take a stand, and I thought this was a game after we lost to Pitt, come back and get one on the road, this was a game to me where I looked at it like ‘okay, if we can get this game, this will be one where we really start trending, another one under our belt,’ and we just didn’t do it.”

Clemson has a few days off before its next action as the Tigers host Pittsburgh next Saturday at noon.