Notre Dame vs Georgia Tech: 2019 ACC Tournament game preview, TV schedule
By Cody Gerena
In a first-round ACC Tournament matchup, the last-seeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish will face the tenth-seeded Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Who goes home and who gets to play one more game?
TV Schedule: Tuesday, March 12, 2:00 pm on ESPN
Arena: Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina
It’s a shame that there’s no draft in college basketball because if so the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 13-18 (3-15) may have gotten themselves a nice recruit, no but seriously this season for Notre Dame has been BAD, like worst season in 20 years BAD, but now it comes down to the end, the ACC Tournament, where everyone gets a clean slate and you are supposed to forget about all of your failures in order to make greatness.
Their opponent for the first round of their crusade to the top, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 14-17 (6-12). The good thing about this matchup for the Fighting Irish is that one of their three wins (69-59) is against the Yellow Jackets, the bad news is that Georgia Tech is coming off of a two-game winning streak, something Notre Dame has failed to do in their conference schedule.
There’s even some more good news for Notre Dame fans, their loss earlier this season to Georgia Tech was only by two points away (63-61). In addition, they are also a two-point favorite, so they have that going for them, but there is also some remarkably bad news, like Notre Dame being on a seven-game losing streak, tied for their longest of the past 12 years. This streak started after the Georgia Tech win, but the worst part about the streak is that they lost to Pitt (56-53), who was on a 13-game losing streak to close out their season. Yes, they lost to Pitt, the 0-18 ACC team from the prior season.
Related Story. Latest ACC Bracketology. light
It’s a shame to see how far down this season went for the Fighting Irish since the conference schedule started. This was a team that beat Purdue 88-80 on a neutral court and came close to beating Oklahoma as well. So where did this all go wrong? One answer is with the season-ending injury to senior starter Rex Pflueger, who got injured around the time they were 3-2 against Power 6 teams. He was one of the two starters from last year who returned.
https://twitter.com/rexpflueger/status/1081654392405798914
Have no fear Notre Dame fans, as he’ll come back next year.
While the Fighting Irish were losing to teams from #4 Virginia to Pitt during this recent skid, Georgia Tech has earned some pretty good momentum before the season ended. To begin, the Yellow Jackets have three wins in their past five games, matching Notre Dames’s entire season. They even beat Pitt(WOW), but the best part of this five-game 3-2 stretch was an away win at NCAA Tournament at-large hopeful NC State in a nice 63-61 victory.
Before we get into the key players and prediction, we should get to know the second-round team that these two will fight for, and that team is the seven-seed Louisville Cardinals. So good luck with that as the Cardinals has beaten both teams by a combined 40 points in their two total matchups.
The top player for the Fighting Irish will be junior forward John Mooney, who is averaging a double-double in points and rebounds leading the team in both stats with 14.1 points and 11.2 rebounds per game. He also shoots over .37 from the arc, so that’s nice to have. They also have senior guard Temple Gibbs, the only starter from last year who is still playing this season. He’s averaging 13.4 points per game and 3.4 assists per game.
On the Yellow Jacket side, they have sophomore guard Jose Alvarado, who leads the team in points, assists, and steals with 12.8, 3,3, and 1.8. Georgia Tech also has junior forward James Banks III at their disposal, he leads the team in rebounds and blocks with 7.7 and 2.5. He also gets 10.5 points per game.
Next. 2019 ACC Tournament preview. dark
In the end, Notre Dame gets the edge even though Georgia Tech has been the hotter team recently. I’m choosing them because I can’t fathom the Fighting Irish being put out of their misery in the first round, I expect them to at least fight a bit. Anyways, whoever wins this game will have a tough challenge to keep their season alive, but anything can happen, it is March after all.