Mellow Jackets

Mellow Jackets

Georgia Tech swarmed Oklahoma State star James Anderson and proved that winning in March doesn't have to be pretty.


By LEW FREEDMAN
Basketball Times Online

    MILWAUKEE – For those who think that the purchase of a ticket to any NCAA basketball session entitles them to an instant classic this was proof that is not so.
   The mess of a contest that propelled Georgia Tech to a 64-59 victory in a first-round NCAA match-up over Oklahoma State Friday night was an instant wipe-the-tape clean game. These two teams should not be allowed to schedule a rematch before 2025.
   And if pro scouts only saw James Anderson, the Big 12 player of the year this one night, they would probably tell him to stay in school at OK State rather than enter the NBA draft.
   This was a wacko game in many ways. After beating Kansas, the 22-11 Cowboys feared nobody, but the 23-12 Yellow Jackets of the Atlantic Coast Conference, are a team of bruisers that out-sized them and with Anderson bottled up most of the time never looked comfortable on offense.
  “I thought our guys did an outstanding defensive job,” said Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt.

  They did. Oklahoma State shot 50 percent from the floor and it was a misleading positive statistic. Anderson, a 6-foot-6 junior guard who has been talked about as a No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, came into the Midwest Region game averaging 22.6 ppg. He scored 11 points and shot 3-of-12 from the field and 0-6 on three-point attempts.  Throughout the night, he was surrounded every time his teammates managed to find him with a pass or he dribbled inside the arc. Tech guard Iman Shumpert was Anderson’s shadow, but the Yellow Jackets were superb on double teams, too.
  “We knew Anderson was their top guy,” said Tech forward Gani Lowal, who scored 14 points. “Iman was there on every catch he got.”
   Georgia Tech has a line-up of big dudes and the 32-17 rebounding margin (led by 6-10 freshman Derrick Favors with nine) told that story. The unreal statistic for a team that made 64.5 percent of its foul shots this season was hitting 24-of-25 from the free-throw line. The foul line WAS Georgia Tech’s perimeter on a night of horrible outside shooting.

  Most of the time Tech’s range was five feet. And that’s with Glen Rice Jr. on the team. The son of one of the greatest three-point shooters of all time should be able to nail long-distance jumpers with his eyes closed. He did make a four-point play on one of his two threes.
  Over the game’s last eight-plus minutes, Tech did not make a field goal, yet won an NCAA tournament game. The Yellow Jackets scored their final 13 points from the line. It was uncanny.
  “We shot great tonight,” Lawal said. “This is the best we shot all year at the best time of the year.”
   It may have been the worst night of the year for Anderson, who seemed likely to seize the NCAA showcase for a Tony-winning performance. That would not have been a surprise for “one of the top five players in the country,” as Hewitt called him.
   Even in the closing minutes, when Anderson tried to shoulder up in the clutch, Georgia Tech’s relentless collapsing defense shut him down in the lane and forced a turnover when a bucket might have rescued the Cowboys.

  “It was just the play we ran,” Anderson said. “I tried to get to the basket to get fouled.”

  Like everything else Anderson tried Friday night, this try was a failure. The one trick that Oklahoma State head coach Travis Ford tried that did aid his club considerably was the insertion of 6-7 back-up forward Marshall Moses, whose assortment of low-post moves was a counter to Tech’s big men. Although Moses scored14 points on 6-for-6 shooting, he could not lead his squad to the promised land.
  When Moses ran out of commandments, the Cowboys ran out of options.
  “It was a great season for our team,” Anderson said. “We had a lot of goals we wanted to accomplish and we made most of them.”
  Winning a game in the NCAA tournament was not one of those that appeared in the done-that column. It is Georgia Tech that earned the right to play again.

Lew Freedman is a Chicago-based contributor to Basketball Times Online and the author of 45 books.

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