One step forward, one step back, one step forward, one step back… That sounds like it’s going to be story of the Yellow Jacket’s season. Coming off the win at North Carolina, the Jacket’s won a hard fought game against Clemson 66-64 on Tuesday. After that win the Jacket’s had a chance to assert themselves as ACC contenders on Sunday at Florida State. They failed.

Up 1 and at the line with 24seconds left, typically reliable Zachary Peacock misses the front end of a one and one. Then the Jackets foul one of Florida State’s best foul shooters Soloman Alabi. He makes both of his. Georgia Tech still has a chance to win the game, but following a Paul Hewitt timeout nothing resembling a play I could see is called.  The Jackets foul Nole’s Jordan Demercy. He makes one and the Jackets have 3 seconds for a miracle. Not a single a Jacket touches the ball on the inbounds and Georgia Tech goes down 68-66.

It was a comical array of errors in the final 30 seconds for Georgia Tech, and keeps them from gaining any real footing on the season. Sitting at 14-5 and 3-3 in the ACC, the Jackets are very much in NCAA limbo. They have nice wins over Duke and Clemson, but were swept by Florida State and lost at Georgia. If today was selection Sunday they are probably in, but the Jacket’s seem unable to distance themselves from the ACC pack.

Next up is an extremely critical game with Wake Forest on Thursday night. The Jacket’s can under no circumstances afford to lose that game. Following that one is a breather with Kentucky State Saturday, then Georgia Tech will go on the road to Duke February 4th. A 3-5 ACC start would have Georgia Tech in a heap of trouble.

On the bright side, the Jackets may have found a true 3 pt threat. Freshman Brian Oliver hit 6 3 ptrs and scored 20 in the loss. It is not time to panic, but if the Jackets lose to Wake Forest it will be. This immensely talented team just can’t seem to keep any momentum going, and I don’t see it changing over the course of the year. Georgia Tech fans have to hope Paul Hewitt and the Jacket’s can get to that magic 8-8 ACC mark which should be enough to get them to the big dance.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 12:15 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.