Associated Press
February 11, 2011
ATLANTA (AP) -- Bouncing back from a 20-point loss to North Carolina, Florida State got 16 points from Chris Singleton, 15 from Michael Snaer and used an early 14-0 run to beat struggling Georgia Tech 72-63 Thursday night.
The Seminoles (17-7, 7-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) desperately needed a win to beef up their NCAA resume, especially after the 89-69 rout by North Carolina and an ugly 62-44 loss at Clemson the week before that.
They came to the right place.
For the second straight game, Georgia Tech (10-13, 3-7) had a devastating scoreless stretch in the early going. Last weekend, Clemson put together a 22-0 run on the way to a 65-56 victory. This time, the Yellow Jackets went nearly 7 minutes without scoring, a dreadful display that included 11 straight missed shots and five turnovers.
Iman Shumpert led Georgia Tech with 25 points, and Glen Rice Jr. had 24.
Georgia Tech has lost four in a row and five out of six, putting more heat on embattled coach Paul Hewitt. In addition to poor results on the court, the administration can't be too thrilled about playing one ACC game after another in a half-filled arena.
Florida State turned in a sloppy performance, turning it over 17 times and letting Georgia Tech hang around despite shooting just 30 percent (23-of-77). But the Seminoles were never seriously threatened by a team with few offensive weapons beyond Shumpert and Rice.
The rest of the Yellow Jackets roster produced only 14 points. None of the other three starters scored at all.
Singleton also had 10 rebounds, while Snaer finished off the Yellow Jackets with a couple of nifty drives in the closing minutes. Okaro White added 12 points for Florida State.
Trailing 17-2, Georgia Tech finally broke the 14-point run with Mfon Udofia's third-try lay-in, following two straight offensive rebounds. The Yellow Jackets finished 7-of-36 in the first half, not even cracking 20 percent from the field. But at least they had plenty of chances to pad their rebounding stats in the opening half, actually grabbing more at the offensive end (15) than they did on the defensive side (11).
Florida State led 30-18 at the break, and Georgia Tech never got closer than seven the rest of the way.
In the second half, the Yellow Jackets tried to fire up a sparse crowd with Shumpert lobbing to high-flying Jason Morris for an alley-oop dunk. Only one problem: he missed. So did Shumpert a few minutes later, soaring toward the rim after grabbing an offensive rebound, only to have the ball ricochet high off the rim.
The only thing worth cheering about was Shumpert passing 1,000 points in his career. gg
