Georgia Tech finally got some time off over the weekend, a welcome respite from what has been a challenging stretch the past few weeks.
The Yellow Jackets not only have lost four of their past five games ahead of a 9 p.m. tilt Tuesday at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, but have been treading water with available players. Guard Kowacie Reeves (foot) and forward Luke O’Brien (toe) continue to be sidelined, freshman guard Jaeden Mustaf hurt an ankle Jan. 14 against Clemson and is expected to miss a couple of weeks, and guard Lance Terry has been in and out of the lineup, first with a hand injury and then with illness.
Second-year coach Damon Stoudamire played only seven players Wednesday in a win over Virginia Tech at McCamish Pavilion. Five of those players logged at least 31 minutes in Tech’s first victory Jan. 4.
“We still don’t got a lot of bodies, but it did help us to, you know, kind of recover a bit and get our feet up underneath us for this next stretch,” Stoudamire said Monday after the weekend off. “I feel like we can win with the six or seven guys that we have. I really do. I just think that we just have to lock in mentally. We can’t lose focus. To me it’s not physical, it’s mental. Right now it’s mental. Everything we do is mental.”
Stoudamire said Monday that Terry is expected to play Tuesday. Mustaf and O’Brien are still are wearing protective boots, but Stoudamire said Reeves recently shed his protective boot and has begun working on regaining strength.
As for Notre Dame (9-10, 3-5 ACC), coach Micah Shrewsberry’s team has won only twice since visiting Atlanta on New Year’s Eve — its loss that day started a four-game losing streak. But the Fighting Irish have won two of their past three games and may be finding their groove after the return of leading scorer Markus Burton, who came back from injury Jan. 8.
Burton is averaging 19.9 points per game for the season and 21.4 over the past five games since being reactivated. The 6-foot, 190-pound sophomore guard has scored 17 points per game in three meetings with the Jackets, all wins.
He did not play against Tech in the first meeting between the two squads Dec. 31.
“(Burton’s) able to create shots for himself and gives them something they didn’t have on the perimeter,” Stoudamire said. “Definitely a different type team with him, and we gotta be prepared. I think the biggest thing for us is we have to treat him like the star he is, but we still gotta do a good job on the perimeter shooting (defense).”
Tuesday’s matchup marks the January finale for Tech and precedes what looks to be a harrowing February for the Jackets. Tech starts the year’s second month with games against No. 21 Louisville (15-5, 8-1 ACC) and Clemson (17-4, 9-1 ACC), respectively, and faces Stanford (14-6, 6-3 ACC) and Pittsburgh (13-6, 4-4 ACC) before reaching March.
Tech sits one game up in the standings of 16th-place Virginia — Tech visits Virginia on Feb. 8. The bottom three out of 18 teams in the league standings at the end of the regular season will not qualify for the ACC’s postseason tournament.
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