It wasn’t pretty, but Josh Pastner said it likely wouldn’t be for the Georgia Tech men’s basketball this season.
Behind 18 points and five rebounds from freshman Josh Okogie, and a career-high in points (15) and blocks (5) from junior center Ben Lammers, the Yellow Jackets defeated Tennessee Tech 70-55 on Friday at McCamish Pavilion to hand Pastner his first win as coach.
Georgia Tech (1-0) pulled away from the Golden Eagles with an 18-6 run to open the second half that included six points from Okogie and eight more from Lammers. They were two of four players, along with freshman Justin Moore and redshirt sophomore Abdoulaye Gueye, who were making their first career starts.
The Golden Eagles, members of the Ohio Valley Conference, pulled within eight with 4:45 left, but Gueye hit a jumper and Okogie followed with an open 3-pointer from the corner to end the rally. Okogie hit 7-of-9 shots in 21 minutes.
In addition to Okogie, Pastner made sure that Tech’s other two freshmen, Justin Moore and Christian Matthews, got playing time. Moore finished with six points in 33 minutes, while Matthews added five in 12 minutes. Pastner played all three at times.
Tech will go for win No. 2 when it hosts Southern at 7:30 p.m. on Monday.
Pastner has listed several keys for his team’s success this season. Here are five observations about the team’s performance on Friday based upon those keys:
Limiting turnovers. The Jackets were without senior and presumed starting point guard Josh Heath, who will miss the first four games because of a violation of team rules. Moore started in his place.
The Jackets were shaky with the ball in the first half, committing 11 turnovers that Tennessee Tech turned into 11 points in the first half.
The Jackets had just four more turnovers in the second half.
Creating turnovers. Georgia Tech did partially offset its 11 first-half turnovers by forcing Tennessee Tech into eight, which the Yellow Jackets turned into eight points.
Georgia Tech forced six more turnovers in the second half
Assists on made baskets. There was no better example of Pastner's belief that the open man is the go-to man than Stephens' 3-pointer with less than three minutes remaining.
The ball was passed from side to side and in and out with at least six times before Moore found Stephens open on the wing with less than 10 seconds remaining on the shot clock.
Georgia Tech finished with 17 assists and 28 field goals. Moore, Gueye and Stephens led the Jackets with four assists each.
Tennessee Tech coach Steve Payne said they weren’t sure what Georgia Tech was going to do on offense. They watched some film of Memphis but weren’t sure what to expect from the talent Pastner was working with at Georgia Tech.
Rebounding. Things didn't start well for the Yellow Jackets, who gave up 12 offensive rebounds in the first half that Tennessee Tech turned into seven points.
Georgia Tech made adjustments at halftime and the Tennessee Tech grabbed just nine more offensive rebounds in the second half. It outrebounded Georgia Tech 37-34.
Defending the 3-pointer. Tennessee Tech missed 21-of-26 3-pointers in the game.
“We don’t usually shoot the ball that poorly but I think a lot of that had to do with their length,” Payne said.
Georgia Tech not only defended the 3, it defended most everything well by using an aggressive press that befuddled the Golden Eagles for almost five minutes in the first half during which the Yellow Jackets turned a 5-4 deficit into a 15-5 lead.
Georgia Tech continued to experiment with different defenses, including zone and man-to-man that resulted in Tennessee Tech shooting 33.3 percent in the game.
“We acted like we’d never seen a zone before,” Payne said.
The Golden Eagles’ poor shooting – or the Yellow Jackets’ good defense — took some of the sting out of Georgia Tech missing 8-of-11 3-pointers. Georgia Tech’s poor shooting wasn’t a surprise after it missed all 14 3-pointers in the exhibition win over Shorter.
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