Georgia Tech began the 2025 year the same way it ended 2024, by pummeling another conference opponent and remaining undefeated.
The Yellow Jackets overcame a slow start and ran away from visiting Syracuse 85-68 at McCamish Pavilion on Thursday night in front of 2,076 people. Tech is now 15-0 and remains one of only seven unbeaten teams in the country.
“I’m proud of our team for really staying locked in and understanding what they’re fighting for right now because there’s a lot of things going on with our season — started ACC play and you’re fighting to do well there, you got a streak going right now that you’re fighting to keep that thing alive,” Tech coach Nell Fortner said. “You’re playing at home, you wanna protect your home court. So a lot for these kids to really absorb and understand what they’re working for. Was it perfect tonight? No. There’s so much that I know we have to get better at.”
Tech, 3-0 in ACC play for the first time since the 2010-11 squad started 4-0, continued it longest win streak and best start in program history by outscoring Syracuse by 22 points over the final 18 minutes of the first half. It never opened the door for a comeback in the second half.
Dani Carnegie scored a career-high 28 points and made six of her eight 3-point attempts. The freshman also had seven rebounds and four assists.
Zoe Smith had 16 points to go with 12 boards, Tonie Morgan scored 15 to complement six assists, and Kara Dunn, who went 10-of-12 from the line, chipped in 14 while pulling down eight boards. Morgan now is nine points from reaching 1,000 for her career.
The Jackets made 20 of 23 free throws, the second-best mark in program history in a game in which the Jackets shot at least 20 free throws.
“It’s a good thing to be a part of, but we try to stay focused,” Morgan said of her team’s continued undefeated start. “That’s hard for teams to do, especially when you’re undefeated, but we gotta stay focused. And a showing like that is not gotta get us where we wanna be. We really gotta improve from tonight.”
Tech got off to a rough start on offense in the first quarter. The Jackets fell behind 10-1 less than two minutes into the period and missed 14 of their first 17 shots. But forcing five Syracuse turnovers, going 5-of-6 from the line and getting a slick layup from Morgan splitting the left side of the Orange defense equated to a 16-16 score after 10 minutes.
The nine-point deficit for Tech in the first quarter was its largest of the season.
Morgan’s bucket was part of a 10-0 run for Tech that bled into the second quarter and was capped by Smith’s putback, making the score 24-16. A Smith jumper with 2:36 left in the half put the Jackets up 13, a margin they matched twice more to end the half, including the 44-31 score at halftime.
Tech, since trailing 10-1 at the 18:05 mark, ended the half outscoring the Orange 43-21. The Jackets, in a bit of a break from the norm, made only two 3′s in the first half.
“I thought we definitely could have came out better, definitely with higher energy, because they went on a run to start the game. That’s something we can improve on in the future,” Morgan said. “It showed us that we can (come back), but it also showed us that we don’t need to have that happen. That’s a great team, but we’re gonna play even better teams, and we’re not gonna need to be down like that in the beginning of the game.”
Syracuse never got any closer than 11 in the third quarter. The Jackets made seven free throws in the period and got seven points from Carnegie, three of which came on a long 3 from the left wing with 44 seconds to go in the quarter, putting Tech up 65-49.
Tech led by 14 going into the final frame and then scored the first 14 points of the final stanza to open an insurmountable 79-51 lead.
Georgia Woolley led Syracuse (6-7, 0-2 ACC) with 20 points.
The Jackets now have a week off before hosting Virginia Tech (10-3, 1-1 ACC) on Jan. 9.
“We gotta get better,” Fortner added. “It’s just the constant thing of always getting better because we got so much more ahead of us and better teams ahead of us. Constantly, like every game. You wanna keep getting better. You don’t wanna go backward. And not that we went backward tonight, we just got undisciplined tonight, so we just got to make sure we stay locked-in.”
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