ATHENS, Ga. — A gritty fourth quarter lifted Virginia Tech to a 70-61 win at Georgia in the SEC/ACC Challenge on Wednesday.
“Just really thrilled to get a win on the road in the SEC/ACC Challenge,” Tech head coach Megan Duffy told Tech Sideline after the win. “I thought Georgia did a great job of making it tough on us with the 1-2-2 zone, but just overall we were able to really turn it up that last five minutes of the game, go on a run. … Really proud to get a win and get out of here.”
Though the Hokies (7-2) trailed the Bulldogs (5-5) by seven, 53-46, entering the final period, they turned it on, outscoring the home side 24-8 down the stretch for their first road victory under Duffy.
After allowing Georgia to shoot 51 percent through the first three quarters, Tech’s defense held UGA to an 18 percent (3-of-17) clip in the final 10 minutes. At the same time, it moved the ball well against the 1-2-2 zone and knocked down open looks while getting to the foul line to put the game away.
“I think our communication was really big,” Tech guard Lani White said. “We’ve been really working on that the past couple weeks. Rose [Micheaux] was a huge part, she had to guard a lot of guards, kudos to her, but we just had stop after stop.”
“I felt like we had some good shots throughout the game and it just didn’t go in,” Duffy said. “We were rushed at times, and that’s what we’ve been talking about with our team of putting 40 minutes together. I’m not saying we had a good 40 minutes altogether, but we did enough when it was pretty close and we could’ve fallen apart. We actually turned it up and put our foot on the gas and made a great run.”
It was a group effort — four Hokies finished in double figures — but White was huge in crunch time. She knocked down the second of her three 3-pointers on the night to open the final period. A few possessions later, she followed a Matilda Ekh miss and grabbed the offensive rebound, converted a layup and got fouled. Her free throw cut Tech’s deficit to 53-52.
Georgia threw a soft punch back before White helped the Hokies lay down the hammer. She assisted two Carys Baker buckets — a trey and an elbow jumper — that put them within striking distance once again, and after Carleigh Wenzel’s skip pass found White wide open on the wing, she drained the triple, giving Tech a lead it didn’t relinquish.
“It was great,” White said. “Basketball is a game of chances and I took that shot and I knew that was kind of that momentum for our team. My teammates told me to keep shooting because that corner was wide open, and I took it and it fell, and I think my energy kind of rubbed off on everybody else and we just went on a run.”
The junior from Irvine, Calif., finished with a season-high 14 points, three rebounds and three assists as part of a group effort for the Hokies. She was 3-of-4 from deep while Baker was 2-of-6 and Ekh was 4-of-9. Though Tech shot just 9-of-25 from long range for the game, it made four of its seven in the fourth.
Ekh provided the dagger with 3:05 left. The Bulldogs called timeout after White’s three swung the momentum, but the Hokies forced a miss, got out in transition and hit Ekh streaking down the wing, and she knocked down an open trey, resulting in Georgia head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson to call another timeout — her second of four in a three-minute span.
“I just think our ball movement was really good, especially the pace that we had,” White said. “We were working on that all week, kind of just the faster we can move the ball, the [more] the zone has to shift around. Penetrating draws them in; kicking it out, that kind of gave me, Matilda … the chance to shoot that three.”
Baker and Ekh each joined White with 14 points (and combined for nine rebounds) while Rose Micheaux added 13 points and nine boards. Tech suffered a slight scare when she went down after a loose ball with 6:35 remaining and came up limping on her ankle, but after missing a few minutes, she returned to play and had some clutch defensive stops down low against Georgia forward Fatima Diakhate.
Samyha Suffren, Mackenzie Nelson and Wenzel had some important moments too. Suffren was able to penetrate the zone in the first half and collapse the defense, opening things up. She finished with eight points, four rebounds, an assist, a block and a steal. Meanwhile, Nelson had two points, three rebounds, four assists and two steals — one of which led to a transition bucket.
Wenzel turned it over six times and didn’t have her best game, but she made some valuable plays, chipping in five points, five rebounds and five assists. She had some key passes, like the aforementioned skip to White, that helped Tech get into gear.
“We’ve always talked about the strength in numbers and I thought this was a great example of that,” Duffy said. “Carleigh struggled a little bit tonight, Rose went out with the ankle for a few minutes and it was a little bit of next man up, and I thought just the type of shots Lani shot in that stretch was great. We moved the ball, we shared it, there was not like desperation, ‘I’ve got to get something off,’ it was just solid and confident, and that’s only going to make our team better.”
Outside of the fourth quarter, it was a back-and-forth game. The Bulldogs led 33-30 at the break after shooting 50 percent from the floor (15-of-30) while the Hokies were just 39 percent (12-of-31). They were hit-or-miss against Georgia’s zone.
UGA bested Tech in the third quarter despite the Hokies shooting 64 percent (7-of-11). Rather, it was six turnovers — after five miscues in the second period — and some missed defensive assignments that let Georgia widen the margin. A triple from De’Mauri Flournoy as the horn sounded to end the quarter gave the Bulldogs a seven-point lead, their largest of the game.
Then the tables turned for good, courtesy of White & Co. They opened the fourth with a 6-0 run and pulled away for good with a 10-0 stretch, closed out by two White free throws with 1:17 left that iced things.
Tech is back on the road again on Sunday afternoon at No. 8 Duke to open ACC play. The Blue Devils (8-1) have a tall task on Thursday night at No. 3 South Carolina in the SEC/ACC Challenge.
“The goal now is to take moments like this and move forward with it,” Duffy said. “We’ve got an ACC game coming up so it’s not like it gets easier, but it’s a good character win for our team on the road.”
Box Score: Virginia Tech 70, Georgia 61
Thoughts from #Hokies' 70-61 road win at Georgia: pic.twitter.com/DqG09hbpsd
— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) December 5, 2024