Elite Eight Preview – St. Louis Region
by Zach Ewing
(3) Georgia Tech vs. (4) Kansas
This Elite Eight game pits two teams that had relatively easy roads to the Regional Final. Georgia Tech, with No. 2 seed Gonzaga eliminated in the second round, beat No. 14 Northern Iowa, No. 6 Boston College and No. 10 Nevada en route to the game. Meanwhile Kansas took out No. 13 Illinois-Chicago, No. 12 Pacific and No. 9 Alabama-Birmingham while playing two games in Kansas City and then one in St. Louis, both very close locales.
It might be said that the Jayhawks were given almost a free ride to this round. But the Jayhawks have certainly played like they should have won their first three games. KU has won by an average of 22 points a game in the tournament, and Pacific was the only team that has given the Jayhawks any trouble at all. Georgia Tech, in contrast, has won by an average of only 4.3 points per game and has struggled in all three games against lower-seeded teams.
This is also a matchup of two teams that were both ranked in the nation’s top five at one point (No. 1 for Kansas), fell off the radar a bit and now have peaked at the right time. Kansas started the season 3-0 under new coach Bill Self, but suffered losses to Stanford, Nevada and Richmond before Big 12 play began. The Jayhawks really hit a lull midway through the confernce season with double-digit losses against Oklahoma State, Nebraska and Texas all within five games. But KU rebounded to reach the Big 12 Tournament semifinals and now is a win away from doing the same on the national level.
Georgia Tech started its season by winning the Preseason NIT with impressive victories over Texas Tech and Connecticut. The Yellow Jackets were lost in the ACC crowd a little bit, though, finishing tied with Wake Forest behind Duke and North Carolina State. But now Tech has re-emerged behind coach Paul Hewitt and is one win away from the Final Four. In Georgia Tech’s win over Nevada, its leading scorer and starting guard B.J. Elder went down with an ankle injury after landing on a Nevada player’s foot early in the game. The Yellow Jackets, behind Marvin Lewis’ 23 points, were able to come back from an eight-point second-half deficit and take control of the game from the Wolf Pack. This was a nice testament to the claim that there’s more to GT than just Elder, but it’s hard to believe Lewis can carry his team against Kansas without some help from a banged-up Elder, whose status for Sunday’s game is questionable.
KU has all of its parts in working order, most importantly Wayne Simien. Simien has been increasingly dominant in the past few weeks, following up a 31-point, 11-rebound performance in the Big 12 Tournament against Missouri with 30 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists in the Jayhawks’ 100-74 thrashing of UAB on Friday night. He got to the free-throw line against the Blazers an astounding 20 times, and made 18 of those shots while going 6-of-8 from the floor. Senior forward Jeff Graves also had a good game inside, with 13 points and 8 rebounds.
It will be vital for Georgia Tech to get good play out of seven-foot center Luke Schenscher to combat the duo of Simien and Graves, not to mention freshman David Padgett off the bench. Schenscher had 7 points and 9 rebounds against Nevada, but will have to step it up on both ends of the court against KU. Forward Isma’il Muhammad shot only 3-of-11 against the Wolf Pack and will also be sorely needed Sunday. On the perimeter, Elder, Lewis and Jarrett Jack are the trio that make Georgia Tech go. A healthy, or at least playable, Elder could be the key to a Yellow Jacket victory. But without Elder’s 16 points per game, Kansas can key defensively on Lewis, meaning either Jack or Will Bynum will have to come up with a big game. Kansas counters with one of the nation’s best point guards, Aaron Miles. Miles had 13 points and 10 assists against UAB, and averages nearly 8 assists per game. Early in the season, Keith Langford was doing most of the perimeter scoring for the Jayhawks, but freshman J.R. Giddens has been unstoppable of late. He is averaging 16 points per game in the tournament and is shooting 19-of-28 for the tourney.
Georgia Tech’s only advantage in this one comes with the depth of their perimeter scoring (Elder is the leading scorer, but Jack, Lewis and Bynum all average double-figure points) and the possibility of Kansas being weary or banged up. All five Jayhawk starters have nagging injuries of some sort, but that didn’t stop them against UAB and the Yellow Jackets have injury problems of their own. Don’t be fooled by the seeds; this would be an upset if Georgia Tech comes out on top.
