Through 20 minutes of play, Georgia Tech is playing much better than the debacle on Monday night, albeit against an opponent maybe not as good as Kennesaw State. The Jackets are up 49-19 at the half.
Tech jumped out to a 23-9 lead after an 11-0 run, and never trailed.
The most interesting thing so far to me is how the Jackets have handled a much bigger lineup. The Great Danes have 5 players that are 6'7 or bigger, and have two that are 6'10". Paul Hewitt has tried to keep Tech's two big men, Daniel Miller and Kammeon Holsey, in the game as much as possible, and even worked Nate Hicks into the game.
Tech was led by Iman Shumpert, who had 14 points and 6 rebounds. 11 players have already played.
Because of the loss of Favors and Lawal last season, Hewitt has said that he has to run a quicker offense that pushes the ball in the open court and hits shots in the half-court. The idea is a good one, except when the team is shooting 31.9% from the field for the season. Tonight was much better, as the Jackets made 54.1% of the baskets in the first half, and shot 36.4% from three, a vast improvement over the first few games.
Take it with a grain of salt, because this isn't ACC play yet, but the Jackets have shown much better ball movement and are playing a lot scrappier than they did on Monday, and don't look like a half-bad team.
Want proof? A Georgia Tech team played an entire half, and only turned the ball over 2 times. Oh, and they scored 22 points off of turnovers.