Previewing Georgia Tech

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Georgia Tech Offense 06-07

Four Factors	Percent	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	54.9	23
Turnover Rate	22.4	205
Off Reb Rate	41.9	6
FTM/FGA	24.3	195

This is a hard team to figure. Georgia Tech maintains an excellent efficiency margin--one that suggests the Jackets are the third-best team in the ACC and among the nation's top 20--but the results aren't there. They've got some good resume wins (Purdue, Memphis, Georgia, Duke, Florida State, Clemson) but they've also lost to the ACC's worst two teams in underwhelming fashion--Miami and Wake Forest scored at will on them.

Their offense does most of its damage inside the arc--they don't take many threes and they rank 13th nationally in 2FG%. They can overwhelm teams on the offensive glass (the Jackets grabbed almost 60% of their misses against Clemson).

Starters:

Javaris Crittenton (6-5, 198) -- Leads the team in field goal attempts and scoring in conference play, perhaps part of the reason why his assist rate isn't quite as high in league games.

Anthony Morrow (6-5, 210) -- After hitting 42.9% of his threes last season, he's hitting 39.4% in 2007. He's your standard one-dimensional three-point shooter guy: he won't rebound or dish the ball much, won't get to the free throw line. But he is the Jackets' most productive scorer on a per-minute basis in conference play (20.1 pts/40 min).

Thaddeus Young (6-8, 217) -- Proving himself to be a versatile, efficient scoring threat (he's shooting) 54% on twos, 38.8% on threes). Needs to work on the defensive rebounding, though.

Jeremis Smith (6-8, 236) -- Turning the ball over a lot in conference play (28.0 TO%) and hasn't been contributing much offense (5 FGA/G). Shooting 40.5% from the line (15-37) in ACC games and his rebounding percentages are way down as well.

Ra'Sean Dickey (6-10, 250) -- Dickey can be summed up by two statistical categories: field goal percentage and turnover percentage. He's been an efficient scorer his entire career...and he's also been frustratingly turnover-prone his entire career.

       eFG%   TO%
2005   62.1   22.9
2006   59.9   25.6
2007   58.8   30.5

In ACC play this season, he's hitting 65.4% of his shots and turning the ball over 32% of the time (3 TOs per game, 4.6 per 40 minutes). For whatever reason, he's never been able to improve in this area--and as you can see he's actually gotten worse from season to season.

Bench:

Alade Aminu (6-10, 225), Zach Peacock (6-8, 235), Mario West (6-5, 210), D'Andre Bell (6-5, 210) are the reserves. Peacock and West should get about 20 minutes apiece, but neither is likely to do much scoring. Alade Aminu scored 10 points in 12 minutes against Clemson--his first appearance in a conference game this season. Mouhammad Faye (6-10, 208) is expected to miss the game because of illness.

Not lacking for height, are they?

Georgia Tech Defense 06-07

Four Factors	Percent	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	48.7	117
Turnover Rate	23.9	59
Off Reb Rate	32.8	139
FTA/FGA	40.8	245

The overall numbers are solid, but in conference play the Jackets rank 10th in defensive efficiency. Conference foes have shot well against them, and their defensive rebounding hasn't been great.

Predict-O-Meter says Tech 82-73.