Marcus
Georges-Hunt scored 15 points to lead four in double figures and the
Yellow Jackets defeated Appalachian State 70-57 at McCamish Pavilion. It
was the first game in nine days for Tech, which on December 6 was upset
at home by USC-Upstate, but improved to 7-2 overall.
Appalachian
State (3-4) had gotten to within 36-29 a minute and a half into the
second half on buckets by Chris Burgess (team-high 15 points) and Tommy
Spagnolo. It was still just a 45-36 deficit for the Mountaineers after
Burgess assisted on Griffin Kinney’s lay up at the 14:05 mark, but Tech
embarked on a 15-4 run that included Robert Sampson’s alley-oop dunk off
a pass from Josh Heath and it was a 60-40 game with 10 1/2 minutes to
go in the game.
Sampson did a little bit of everything off the bench, finishing with 10 points, eight rebounds and three assists.
“It
doesn’t matter if I come off the bench, I take pride in rebounding,
take pride in scoring, take part in defense,” said Sampson, an East
Carolina transfer.
“I
think he’s starting to get comfortable,” Tech coach Brian Gregory said
of Sampson. “Some of the stuff he does, as much as his stats were good,
he gets a lot of stuff done that isn’t on the stat sheet. He’s valuable.
Very, very valuable for us.”
At
one point in the early stages of the first half, Appalachian State led
11-6 after an 9-2 run that ended with Spagnolo’s drive and easy lay-in
at the 16:18 mark. After a timeout, Tech went to its bench, and led by
Sampson, who had a follow-dunk and assisted on Demarco Cox’s lay up in
transition, went on an 11-0 run that gave the hosts a 17-11 lead with
just under 10 minutes to play in the opening half.
“Didn’t get off to a great start, went to our bench, and those guys really played well,” Gregory said.
The
visitors from Boone, North Carolina, who had gone more than six minutes
without a point during Tech’s run, pulled even at 17-17 - Burgess
capped the quick 6-0 spurt with a pull-up jumper that he banked in from
the foul line - but Tech, namely Georges-Hunt, controlled the final
eight minutes of the half.
Georges-Hunt
scored 11 of his 15 points over the final six and a half minutes and
Tech went into the locker room on a 19-8 run and held a 36-25 cushion at
the break.
“Really
just being assertive, being aggressive, stay on the attack,”
Georges-Hunt said of the final stretch of the opening half. “Going into
this game, we were hungry (and) the hard work that we had in practice it
paid off.”
“Marcus
the last 12 minutes of the first half was tremendous,” said Gregory.
“That was big that he kind of took over (the) game during that stretch,
because you need that.”
Cox
scored 13 points and Tadric Jackson chipped in with 12 off the bench
for Tech. For Appalachian State, Dustin Clarke added 13 points, though
just four came the second half. It was the fifth overall meeting between
the schools (Tech leads the series 5-0), and the first match up since
December, 1998.
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