Georgia Tech Basketball: Jackets beat Houston 81-62 in first round of NIT!

Well that was fun! The Jackets came out tonight and sure looked like a team that wanted to find itself in Madison Square Garden in two weeks, picking up the largest postseason win in program history. Only two Tech players shot below 50% (Jacobs 4-9, Heath 0-2) and coach Brian Gregory was able to let everyone see the court. In the final minute of the game, Travis Jorgenson kicked the ball to the corner, where Corey Heyward drained a three, just his second basket of the season. Needless to say, McCamish erupted and that play seems to sum up the whole night for the Jackets.

Adam Smith led the Jackets with 20 points, shooting 6-12 (3-6 on threes). After the game Houston coach Kelvin Sampson had some pretty high praise for Smith saying, "the only guy I've seen make shots like that is Steph Curry." The Jacket's senior leader Marcus Georges-Hunt finished with 19 points (7-13) and Charles Mitchell added 12 (6-12).

Tech got huge contributions from the bench as Ben Lammers scored nine, his second highest total of the season, and all in the second half. Tadric Jackson also scored six on back to back second half threes and added a pair of assists on cross court outlet passes. As a team, Tech shot 52.5% from the field and 50% from behind the arc.

The Jackets did a great job limiting the Cougars leading scorer, Rob Gray Jr. to just 9 points on 2-9 shooting. Devonta Pollard was one of the lone bright spots for Houston, scoring 21 points. As a team, Houston shot just 43% and was 2-13 on threes.

Tech also dominated the boards, out rebounding the Cougars 39-25. Although no one player posted massive rebounding numbers, everyone pitched in. Charles Mitchell had seven, James White had six, and Lammers and Jacobs both had five.

The win tonight put the Jackets over the 20 win mark for the first time since the 2009-2010 season and just the fifth time in the last twenty years. On top of that, there's no saying how many more wins this team can rack up in the next couple weeks if they continue to play like they did tonight!

Since tonight was officially the final home game for the seniors, I'll say it one more time. Thank you Nick. Thank you Charles. Thank you James. Thank you Adam. And most of all, thank you Marcus.

Tech now heads to Columbia to take on South Carolina on Monday night at either 7 or 9 pm. The Gamecocks started the season 15-0 and were ranked as high as #19, but struggled in SEC play before finding themselves on the NCAA bubble and ending up with a one seed in the NIT. Tuesday night, South Carolina beat High Point 88-66 in their first round matchup.