Georgia Tech Basketball: Jackets fall to Miami despite strong second half

The Georgia Tech basketball team couldn’t string together a second straight win on Saturday afternoon as the Jackets dropped their game in Miami 80-65.

Jose Alvarado had another strong performance on Saturday afternoon but a rough first has was too much too overcome in the Jackets 80-65 loss.

The Jackets entered Tuesday night looking for their second straight win after defeating Pittsburgh on Wednesday night. It was the Jackets first win in almost a calendar month and they looked to carry that momentum into Coral Gables on Saturday. Unfortunately for them, that was not the case.

In the first half, the Jackets never could really get their feet underneath them and it was evident on the scoreboard. The Jackets fell quickly into a 7-0 hole to start the game on Saturday and the Hurricanes would never look back. The Hurricanes would dominate the first half of the game and take a 39-23 lead into halftime while shooting at a 50% clip. At the break, Alvarado had 13 of the Jackets 23 points while as a team the Jackets shot just over 30%.

More from Yellow Jacked Up

In the second half, the Jackets offense would wake up and they put together a pretty good second half that saw a much more defined team effort than the first half. The Jackets in the second half put up 42-points but were unable to stop the Hurricanes from scoring 41 points of their own. Michael Devoe and Moses Wright lead the Jackets in their second half effort scoring 11 and 17 points respectively. Devoe ended Saturday’s game with 11 points and 3 assists while Wright finished with 19 points and 5 rebounds.

The Hurricanes shot 46.6% for the game and 36% from beyond the arch. Ultimately, in the box score, the game came down to two things. The first is the fact that the Yellow Jackets found themselves in some trouble by sending the Hurricanes to the line for 19 free throw attempts on Saturday. The Hurricanes converted on 17 of those. The Yellow Jackets went to the line for 12 attempts, making 8. A nine-point swing in free throws is quite a game-changer. The second deciding factor was three-pointers. Both teams shot above 30% from beyond the arch, but the Hurricanes made 9-of-25 attempts while the Jackets made just 7-of-21. In the boxscore, those two more made shots were the difference as both teams attempted 58 shots for the game.

That being said, it does come down to more than just three-point attempts and free throws. Overall, the Jackets played a rather sloppy game, with 16 turnovers and 18 personal fouls. The Hurricanes were a little safer with the ball, with just 11 turnovers but did commit a relatively similar 16 personal fouls.

Ultimately, it’s been the same mistakes that plagued the Jackets all year that kept them from having a better chance to pick up a second-straight victory on Saturday. With the loss, the Jackets record dropped to 12-16 on the season and 4-11 in conference. Next, the Jackets will be off until Wednesday when they travel to Charlottesville to take on a top-3 ranked Virginia Cavaliers team.