The Maryland Terrapins pounded Georgia Tech's inside game through and through last night as the Jackets stumbled to a beaten and bruised loss of 74-63.
Glen Rice Jr led all Yellow Jackets in scoring with 16 points and 12 rebounds as his feisty-ness style of play continued. Iman Shumpert, who was coming off his recent triple-double performance had 12 points himself. However, with good performances by a Yellow Jacket typically comes a truly solid performance by an opponent. Terrapin Forward Jordan Williams, who just recently had a 13-game double-double streak stopped, picked right back up and recorded 21 points and 15 rebounds as he was free to move about as he pleased under the rim.
"We had no answers for [Jordan Williams]," Georgia Tech head coach Paul Hewitt said.
With Williams dominating the inside game there was no need for Maryland to look elsewhere. Last night's victory was the first Maryland played a game without making a three-point shot since 1999. 72 of the Terrapins 74 points were in the paint or from the free throw line. Speaking of free-throws, Maryland took 32 trips to the free throw line while Tech appeared on the stripe only 14 times. The Terps made 24 free-throws. Easy money. Easy points.
Adding to the Jackets struggles were the vacancies left by Brian Oliver, who had scored 28 points against Virginia Tech on Tuesday night, because of flu symptoms and Nate Hicks who is out due to an appendectomy performed on Thursday. Hick is expected to miss at least two weeks.
All observations flowing through this game on TV, box score, and twitter all say the same thing: Maryland was clearly the best in this matchup and it finally flowed through in the second half. Georgia Tech was dominated on the court in every aspect. While coaching wasn't the issue, physicality and strength surely were.
Maryland increases its record to 14-7 (4-3 ACC) and Georgia Tech falls to 10-10 overall (3-4 ACC). The next game for the Jackets is against the Hurricanes in Miami on February 3rd at 7pm.