Jackets top Tennessee

Well, revenge a year later was sweet. Yet my day wasn't. Here is good old Greenville SC, the GT game was blacked out. Instead we had NC ST / UVA. So someone over at the Hive says - Bailey's Sports Bar will have the game on. So I head over with a buddy from church (another GT grad). We get to Bailey's and guess what - no game!! We ended up shooting pool and watching other games and catching to score on the tickers. So I didn't even get to listen on the radio - but the company was better.

So with all that - those of you who SAW the game or HEARD the game are in better shape to comment. Here is my take based on the stats:

1. Stat #1 - the score - GT 77 Tenn 62. The most telling stat of all and probably the most important one of all. I predicted 70-62 so I picked this one fairly well.

2. 30% - Tenn's shooting %. Either a nice defensive effort or Tenn just missed a lot of shots. 5-23 from 3pt range.

3. 19-9. Tenn's margin in offensive rebounding. Again not very strong. We did protect the defensive boards, evening up total rebounds at 36 apiece.

4. 20 - the total of GT's turnovers. We have to protect the ball better.

Individual performances

This was Marvin Lewis's game. Ended with 24 points on 8-11 shooting and 5-6 from 3pt range. My only question - why didn't he shoot more shots? When the guy is hot, GET HIM THE BALL!!! BJ also had a decent outing with 20 points on 8-14 shooting. The only negative I will mention is that this is the 3rd game in a row where Isma'il has FAILED to make a free throw. I think he has missed about 11 in a row now.

Bottom line is that this is a strong road win, it will help our RPI, will help show people that the ACC is superior and should give us momentum going into the UNC game. Time to kick some major tail this week.