72-57 win over Virginia Tech
Our #9-seed Georgia Tech women’s basketball fueled by a 17-0 run in the fourth quarter defeated the #8-seed Virginia Tech Hokies 72-57 in the second round of the ACC Tournament. The Jackets will move on to face #1-seed NC State scheduled to tip off at 1:30 p.m on March 7 in the ACC Tournament quarterfinal.
Tech’s 22nd win of the season marks the first time since 2016-2017 when their 22nd win came in the WNIT semifinal game vs. Washington State. It’s the earliest Georgia Tech has reached 22 wins since 2011-2012 came in their regular season finale against Clemson.
Tonie led Tech with 19 points on 9-20 shooting. Tech as a team was impactful on the offensive boards, taking in 15 offensive rebounds to enable 11 second chance points.
The newly crowned First Team All-ACC player Kara Dunn also finished with a great game after a slow start with 16 points and nine rebounds, one rebound away from her fourth career double-double. ACC Sixth Man of the Year Dani Carnegie had nearly an identical game, finishing with 15 points and nine rebounds, one rebound from what could’ve been her first collegiate double-double.
The win is a lovely bit of redemption for Tech as the Hokies initially beat Georgia Tech in game 16 of the season in double overtime, Tech’s first loss after going undefeated up until that point.
Most crucially, the Jackets end a four game losing streak, the beginning of which came against NC State on Feburary 20 where the Wolfpack similarly to Tech today went on a massive 2nd half run that essentially put the game away well before the final buzzer.
According to Bart Torvik’s game score, Georgia Tech put up a 98, their best since posting a perfect 100 against Boston College. Their final two games againt California and Stanford were graded at 66 and 77 respectively, two of Tech’s worst performances all season.
There is no better time than right now for Tech to potentially be figuring out their game. Yes, playing NC State isn’t a favorable matchup, but it’s important to remember this could’ve been a far worse draw. NC State’s upset win over Notre Dame gave them the tiebreaker in the final ACC standings, putting the Wolfpack ahead of the Irish as the #1 seed. Personally, I’d prefer playing NC State in a heartbeat over Notre Dame.
That said, it will take a complete game from the Jackets tomorrow to advance to the ACC semifinal. The performance from Tonie Morgan today was exactly what we needed. Getting contributions from Carnegie and Dunn like we saw today will be necessary in every game going forward since every game is win or go home. It wasn’t even a great Carnegie game as she only shot 5-16. While the end result didn’t necessitate any further buckets from her, just a couple more buckets from a similar shooting line against NC State could make a huge difference.