Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia Tech Pulls Away From Eastern Kentucky 85-71 as Tylis Jordan Scores 27

Georgia Tech trailed at halftime for the first time this season, then took the game over in the second half and beat Eastern Kentucky 85-71 in Atlanta on Tuesday night. Tylis Jordan scored a game-high 27 points for the Yellow Jackets, who stayed perfect under first-year head coach Scott Cross. Victor Valdes and Colby Garland added 17 points apiece, and Georgia Tech (3-0) won the rebounding battle 50-30, a margin that told the story once the shots started falling after the break.

A slow start in Atlanta

Eastern Kentucky (2-1) came in unbeaten and was playing its first game of the season against a Division I opponent, and the Colonels looked comfortable early. They scored nine straight points in the first half and built a 19-9 lead on a Justin McCarter layup with 11:16 left in the half. Georgia Tech answered with a 9-0 run of its own, started by a Jordan 3-pointer and a pair of Jordan free throws, to pull within one. The Colonels pushed back. McCarter's layup made it 35-31 with 4:11 left in the half, and Austin Ball hit his second 3-pointer of the half to give Eastern Kentucky a 42-37 lead. Valdes made two free throws and Jordan closed the half with a layup, cutting the deficit to 42-41 at the break. Jordan and McCarter each had 14 points in the first half. Damone King and McCarter finished with 20 points apiece for the Colonels, Josh Lowe added 11, and Shadrak Lasu grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds in the loss.

Second-half runs settle it

Georgia Tech scored the first seven points of the second half and went ahead 48-42 on a Jordan layup. King answered with back-to-back jumpers to pull the Colonels within two, but Garland hit two jumpers in a 7-0 spurt that pushed the lead to 58-49. Eastern Kentucky made one more push behind 3-pointers from Jackson Holt and McCarter, slicing the margin to three with 11:24 remaining. The Yellow Jackets settled the game from there. Another 7-0 run pushed the margin to nine, and Jordan completed a three-point play to give Georgia Tech its first double-digit lead with 7:01 left. Kam Craft's layup started a game-ending 7-0 run that closed out the third straight win to open the Cross era. On3's Jackets Online noted the Jackets had not trailed in a game or at a half all season before Tuesday, which made the second-half response the clearest test of the young season so far.

For Eastern Kentucky, the loss was the first of the season after a 2-0 start, and it came against the strongest opponent on its early schedule. The Colonels led by as many as 10 points and shot well enough in the first half to hold the lead at the break, but they could not match Georgia Tech on the boards after halftime, when the 50-30 rebounding gap turned into second chances and separation on the scoreboard. Georgia Tech, meanwhile, leaves its home stand at 3-0 with its freshman-led backcourt producing in a new way: Jordan followed his 14-point first half with 13 more after the break, and the Jackets scored 44 points in the second half to turn a one-point deficit into a 14-point win.