Maddox's burst, second half defense enough for Virginia Tech win

By Sam Alves

Staff Writer

February 23, 2022

There weren’t many style points Wednesday night, but on the scoreboard where it counted, Virginia Tech had just enough to beat Georgia Tech 62-58 in Atlanta.

Twenty-five points off the bench, highlighted by a personal 10-2 run from reserve guard Darius Maddox in the second half, propelled the Hokies (17-11, 9-8 Atlantic Coast) to a 13-point lead with just 5:02 remaining before withstanding a late run from the Yellow Jackets (11-17, 4-13 ACC) for the win.

What made Maddox so effective against the Yellow Jackets?

“For me, it’s just being aggressive,” Maddox said.“...In the locker room, coach was just pressing us about being aggressive and hitting shots, because we weren’t really connecting too well. Me just being out there and trying to be myself.”

Maddox scored 12 points in 13 minutes off the bench, tied with starters Keve Aluma and Nahiem Alleyne for the team-high.

“Aggressive” was the word Maddox and Alleyne repeated to describe the key to Tech’s turnaround, defensively especially, in the second half. Sounds simple enough, but evidently head coach Mike Young needed a mid-game pep talk to get the message home.

“We came to somebody, I don’t know who it was or what it was at halftime,” Young said. “Let’s just say my mom wouldn’t be real proud of the message I sent to my team. I thought we were soft. I thought we were looking for easy, and that is unacceptable here in late February with four league games remaining to play, including tonight.”

Georgia Tech led by as many as eight in the first half as it was guided by senior Jordan Usher’s 11 points. He punctuated the half with a mean reverse slam slipping between Aluma and forward David N’Guessan. Otherwise, it wasn’t an impressive offensive performance from anyone on the floor.

The Hokies struggled from long range in the first half, shooting 3-for-14 (21%). Like Saturday’s loss to North Carolina, many of the looks were open and in rhythm, but they didn’t fall. From the floor, they made 10-of-30 shots.

Virginia Tech did make all seven free throws in the first half, though, and scored the last four points to head into the break down just four, 34-30.

In the second half, the Hokies allowed just 24 points, had six of their eight steals and held Usher scoreless.

“[In the] second half, we picked it up on defense,” Alleyne said. “...I thought we deflected it more, talked more. Just little things like that helped us.

Other little things that added up in the end: seven points from freshman Sean Pedulla and six more from N’Guessan, both outsourcing their starting counterparts.

On one sequence in the second half, Pedulla grabbed two loose offensive boards on the same possession paused by a media timeout. Out of the break, he drove from the corner for a nifty reverse layup to give the Hokies a one-point lead early in the half.

“I’m losing hair every day, and it’s because of freshmen,” Young said. “[Pedulla] makes a bad play, but that son of a gun comes back and makes two or three really good plays. So proud of all of them. Good team win, and again, those are the best.”