Florida State will be out to improve its standing in the middle of the ACC pack, while Georgia Tech will look to climb from the conference basement when the teams meet Saturday at Atlanta.
Despite an 83-73 home loss to Miami on Tuesday, Florida State (14-14, 7-8 ACC) is in the midst of one of the conference’s best turnarounds, winning six of its last eight games.
The Seminoles dropped six of their first seven conference games but are now in play for a first-round bye in the ACC tournament in Charlotte during the second week of March.
Florida State holds the tiebreaker with a fellow 7-8 conference team in Virginia Tech, while sitting a game behind Cal and SMU.
Florida State was crushed in the rebounding battle 42-23 against Miami. First-year Seminoles coach Luke Loucks will make rebounding an emphasis the rest of the way.
“You definitely can’t beat top-30, top-40 teams in the country if that’s the rebounding margin. It’s impossible,” Loucks said. “It was like varsity against the JV around that rim. That’s the bad news. The good news is really simple. … We’ve built and formed into a really good basketball team. We can still win a lot of games down the stretch.”
Robert McCray V leads the Seminoles with 15.5 points and 5.9 assists per game, while Chauncey Wiggins adds 12.5 points.
Georgia Tech (11-17, 2-13), which has lost nine straight games, has not finished last in the conference since 2009.
Because the bottom three teams in the standings do not qualify for the ACC tournament, coach Damon Stoudamire will implore his team to stay focused on the task at hand.
“With kids, it’s easy for them to look two, three weeks down the road,” Stoudamire said. “My job is to keep them focused on winning the day. The biggest thing I talk to them about is playing with a sense of pride. Not having an agenda. Not letting selfishness creep in.”
Kowacie Reeves Jr.’s 14.7-point clip paces the Yellow Jackets, followed by Baye Ndongo (12.7) and Lamar Washington (10.2).
