Georgia Tech point guard Jarrett Jack, who had been brilliant throughout Sunday’s game, cradled the ball in his left hand and sidearmed it toward the Yellow Jackets’ fans in the stands.
In the front row of those stands, Dawnette Hewitt, the wife of Tech coach Paul Hewitt, removed her glasses and wiped away tears of joy.
Hewitt himself, his face as glowing as a kid’s on Christmas morning, walked across the court toward her, stopped at the scorer’s table and waved. To his right, through the curtains, Tech guard B.J. Elder limped up to teammate Luke Schenscher on his sprained right ankle, looked up at the 7-foot-1-inch center and said, “You played pretty well today.”
Schenscher and the Yellow Jackets played more than pretty well in the NCAA St. Louis regional final, where they beat back a hostile crowd and repeated Kansas thrusts to escape with a 79-71 overtime victory. That sent them winging into the Final Four. Georgia Tech (27-9) will meet Oklahoma State (31-3) on Saturday.
“He’s our best student of basketball history, and he loves the Georgia Tech point guard tradition,” Hewitt said of Jack. “People have asked me all year long how he compares to the Mark Prices, the Stephon Marburys, the Travis Bests, the Kenny Andersons (all former Tech point guards), and I would tell them you can’t compare until he takes a team to the Final Four or on a run in the tournament.
“Now I think he can stand next to those guys as one of the best point guards in Georgia Tech history. He led the way today.”
Said Kansas coach Bill Self: “Obviously we let [Jack] get his confidence, and he is good. He’s really good, and he’s fast, and he’s strong. You’re always disappointed that anyone can go for 29 on you. But he was that good today.”
Jack was that good, and his 29 points were just a small measure of his contributions. He also handed out six assists and made four steals and grabbed nine rebounds. He continually broke down the Kansas defense, which keyed Tech’s offense, and thoroughly outperformed Jayhawks point guard Aaron Miles. He shut out Miles through the last eight minutes of regulation and all five of the OT and finally, in the last 46.8 seconds, made the four free throws that clinched it.
It was a willful effort in a game that slowly built speed and then roared toward its conclusion with countless performers taking star turns. Jayhawks forward Wayne Simien was the threat Tech had to neutralize, and it did that with double teams, triple teams and with either Schenscher or Clarence Moore denying him the ball.
That strategy held Simien without a field goal in the first half and without a point through the game’s last 15 minutes. Both Schenscher (15 points) and Moore (14 points) found time to score as well.
That left the Jayhawks with both their point guard and their leading scorer shut down, but they were rescued by junior guard Keith Langford (15 points) and freshman guard J.R. Giddens (15), who combined to score all 16 of their team’s points in the last eight minutes of regulation.
Giddens hit a three-pointer from the right wing to tie it 66-66 with just 16.2 seconds remaining. Georgia Tech immediately called a timeout, and then Yellow Jackets guard Marvin Lewis, without a point all day, drove hard to the basket, was whacked and missed the shot.
“I put it in his hands, but I also put it in the ref’s hands,” Hewitt later said with a smile. “I thought I saw some hit on the wrist, but we didn’t get the whistle.”
That sent the game roaring into overtime, where it was tied at 68, then again at 71 with just under two minutes left. Jack penetrated down the left baseline, looked right and found Will Bynum with a perfect pass at the top of the arc. Bynum, open, calmly rose and buried a three-pointer at 1:53 that put a knife in the Jayhawks’ hearts. “Definitely the shot of the game,” Jack said.
“Will Bynum has a lot of courage,” Hewitt said. “No question he should be in there at the end of the game.”
Three missed field goals and a turnover. That is what the Jayhawks did as the game rushed to its end. Meanwhile, Tech made 5 of 6 free throws. And Jack, appropriately enough, dribbled out the final seconds and made his mighty heave.
“I just took it on myself to get in the lane, create opportunities for myself as well as everybody else on kickouts,” he said. “I just really got it going, and then, you know, I just kept attacking until it was over.”
