Technical Tidbits 3/10

Dabo Swinney went to great lengths to condemn the term "Clemsoning" during the football season, but last night the basketball Tigers proved that the legendary phrase still stands true in South Carolina by blowing an 18-point lead with under 10 minutes to go versus Georgia Tech. Yes, you read that correctly. Not only did Brian Gregory's team score 18 points in less than 10 minutes, but they did so while simultaneously overcoming a tremendous deficit versus a talented team. In doing so, the Jackets improve to 19-13 overall on the season and advance to the next round of the ACC Tournament, where they'll face off with the No. 2 seed Virginia Cavaliers tonight. The win over Clemson is a first for Gregory during his tenure on The Flats; never before had his team advanced past the second day of the ACC Tournament. This year, however, they get the opportunity to play for a 20th win and potential NCAA berth somewhere down the road. That is worth a pat on the back of some sort for the embattled coach.

Georgia Tech's baseball team is now the only team in the entire NCAA which remains undefeated; the Jackets now own a perfect 12-0 record following an impressive win on the road at Auburn on Tuesday night. The Tech pitching staff was phenomenal yet again, allowing just a single run to an Auburn team which has put up consistent offense all season long. The most encouraging part of the win, however, is undoubtedly the fact that the Jackets proved once again that they can win on the road just as easily as they can at Russ Chandler Stadium. That attribute will be a tremendous asset for this team as we transition to ACC play and will be tested once again tomorrow night when Tech makes the trip down to Tallahassee to take on Florida State. The 'Noles are a consensus top-15 team and would certainly love to hand Tech loss number one on the season. We'll see soon if the young team is disciplined enough to hang with that type of competition.

I hate to conclude such an otherwise positive morning with an article about football, but ESPN's State of the Program series has finally landed on Georgia Tech and yields some interesting insight into what's going on within Paul Johnson's team. One thing that we never really talk about is how oddly static Georgia Tech's recruiting trends have been under coach Johnson. The team saw no tremendous boost to recruiting after an impressive 11-win season in 2014 but similarly saw no sizable dropoff following a 2015 season which I still maintain was rained out. That, for the most part, has been the story of Paul Johnson's tenure as far as recruiting goes. It has never been good enough to warrant lauding the ninth-year head coach as an ace recruiter but has also never been atrocious enough to call him worthy of coaching the Kansas Jayhawks. Whether that trend will continue remains to be seen, but commitment number one of 2017 being a punter kind of proves both points: he's a punter, but the best punter in the whole nation. What is there to make of that?

Are you happy that Clemsoning has finally crept back into national relevance?