3/6/03 - Beeswaxed

There were two ramblin’ wrecks in University Hall on Wednesday night. It was the nickname of one team and the current state of the other. Georgia Tech, which entered the game 0-10 on the road this season, sent Virginia to its seventh-straight loss with 90-73 decision before a frequently booing U-Hall crowd of 7,086. Jarrett Jack led Georgia Tech (13-13, 6-9 ACC) with 21 points and seven assists while Marvin Lewis added 19 and Chris Bosh finished 13. Travis Watson, making his first start in four games, had 24 points and 15 rebounds to pace Virginia (14-14, 5-10 ACC), which is now in a three-way tie for sixth in the ACC standings. Devin Smith added 18 for the Cavaliers. “Our guys are a little beat up and discouraged from losing. We’ve got to keep swinging. That’s all we can do,” said UVa coach Pete Gillen. “Confidence is down and that’s certainly hurting us.” For a few fleeting moments Wednesday, it appeared that the Cavaliers were in the process of shaking their doldrums. They took a 12-6 lead on a basket by Smith with 16:27 left in the first half and even led 18-11 on a Watson follow with 13:10 left before intermission. “We felt that we had to be aggressive. I felt that in the first part of the game they were physical, strong and got after us. When you get knocked around, you have to go right back at people and I thought we did a good job of that,” said Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt, whose teams have now won three straight at U-Hall and whose program have won five of the last six meetings here. The Yellow Jackets did exactly what their coach said the rest of the half as they erased the deficit and gained a 43-35 advantage by halftime. Fueling the Jackets surge was their attacking defense, which forced eight UVa turnovers that gave them a 12-2 advantage in the points-off-turnovers category. “The turnovers really hurt us in the first half. We were playing decently but then the pressure got to us. Our point guard situation is certainly a big problem,” Gillen said. The second half didn’t get any better for the Cavaliers, only worse. With more boos audible from the crowd, Georgia Tech slowly pushed away the Cavaliers in relatively easy fashion. The Yellow Jackets, who shot 62.1 percent in the second half, converted six straight layups to begin the final 20 minutes as Virginia’s defense apparently reflected the mood of its players. “We lost concentration. We got discouraged and they carved us up a little bit,” Gillen said. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Lewis then gave Georgia Tech a 69-51 lead with 12:30 remaining. Georgia Tech would push the lead to as many as 21 the rest of the way while Virginia would get no closer than 13. During the timeouts in the final 10 minutes, the U-Hall patrons were either filing out of the building or booing. There was almost little to no cheering except when senior reserve center Jason Rogers entered the game with 1:42 left. “I didn’t hear the booing. The fans want to win. We’re frustrated. I didn’t hear it honestly. They’re paying money and they want to see us win,” said Gillen, who acknowledged that he couldn’t remember a losing streak such as this in his 18 seasons as a collegiate head coach. Though they did not acknowledge hearing the boos, either, the players admitted the losing streak is taking its toll. “We’re down but we have to come back and work hard. It gets old. Losing is old now. Nobody likes it,” Smith said. Added Derrick Byars: “Right now, we’re at a point of confusion.”