This write up will be difficult due to Georgia Tech not announcing who is playing or not with the teams own COVID situation. This should only be an advantage for us and we will have to see who is playing and who isn’t. I’ll breakdown some team stats and guys to look out for below.
Georgia Tech looks to be a team that is struggling offensively like we are. Georgia Tech is scoring .99 points per possession, which is only .01 worse the Louisville’s currently. Georgia Tech is shooting 48% from two and 37% from three. They show to be similar on the glass to us with a rebound differential of 3.2. Georgia Tech is currently leading the ACC in turnovers per game with 14.4. What stands out to me is Georgia Tech shooting 37% from three and could be a key for them to try to take control of the game. Louisville playing in the pac line lends to teams needing to shoot out of this defense. Two players to look out for with this are Michael Devoe and Dallan Coleman. We will talk about Devoe more in a bit, but Devoe is shooting 45% from 3 and Coleman is shooting 55% from 3. What makes me feel better about these numbers is that have only averaged 17.7 three point shot attempts per game, which is ranked 317th in the nation currently. I could see Georgia Tech looking to shoot more from three tonight, but maybe they will stick to what they normally do. Georgia Tech does turnover the ball 14.4 times a game, which could be an upside for us going into tonight trying to score in transition. Georgia Tech plays a similar pace to us, so this should only help things out for us offensively.
I don’t have much for Georgia Tech defensively. I haven’t watched them play much, but this is what I do know. They are allowing teams to shoot 47.8% from two and 31.8% from three. Evan Miya is ranking their defense as one of their strengths with a score of 9.2, which ranks middle of the road defensively in the ACC. This is a longer team and has guards that are a bit longer, so this may create some trouble for Jerrod West. Jerrod tends to not struggle defensively luckily against some of these bigger guards.
The two key guys that we need to look out for are Michael Devoe and Jordan Usher. Devoe is someone who we are familiar with last year. Devoe is averaging 21 points per game, 5 rebounds, and 3 assist a game. I feel confident that we can contain him getting into the lane tonight, but I worry about him shooting the ball from three due to him shooting 45% from three this year. Louisville needs to make sure they close out on Devoe tonight. Jordan Usher is one of their key contributors as well. Usher is averaging 14 points per game with 7 rebounds. Usher is a bigger guard who is listed as 6’7, so we’ll see if he can use his size against us.
I want to continue to see Louisville scheme their half court offense like they did Wednesday night when they were running offensive sets consistently to get guys to cut to the basket. This seemed to really help Sam, so hopefully we continue to see him do this. Louisville did announce that Faulkner will be out, which is a bummer since he is starting to find his groove offensively. I want to see Mack use Ellis off the bench as the 2 guard due to this because this seems to be where he thrives. Mack has continued to clear things up defensively with the pac line, so this should force Georgia Tech to shoot more away from the basket. We will see if we continue to improve like we have been. We should look well since Georgia Tech may allow us to play in transition especially since they are having their own trouble with COVID.
Tonight should be a good way to get our guys to be more consistent. Georgia Tech is having their own COVID issues, so we will see if it is some of their key contributors. I tend to think we will win regardless of their COVID issues and will win by more than one possession. I’ll make the final score 70-63 Louisville. Let’s hope we can enjoy this one tonight.
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stats via Teamrankings.com, ESPN.com, Foxsports.com, and evanmiya.com
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