Five Good Minutes: Georgia Tech Basketball Preview With From The Rumble Seat

We are big fans of the boys over at From The Rumble Seat. So much so that we decided to exchange Q&A in advance of today's ACC pillow fight between 1-7 Georgia Tech and 2-6 Boston College. Below are our questions and their answers.

Be sure to stop by From The Rumble Seat and check out our answers to their questions on BC hoops.

BC Interruption: Georgia Tech has played every game this season away from Alexander Memorial Coliseum as the school undergoes a $45 million renovation. Only Georgia Tech and Miami have averaged lower per-game attendance than BC in the ACC this season. Has the fact that GT hasn't played on campus all season taken the wind out of the sails of the Yellow Jacket faithful?

From The Rumble Seat: This is the mulligan season. Gregory lost Iman Shumpert to the NBA, Brian Oliver to transfer, and Maurice Miller to graduation. Gregory doesn't have a true home court and it's almost impossible to get a college atmosphere in the NBA-style Phillips Arena. Tech fans are optimistic that Gregory will create some momentum in the program. I'm not sure if we're convinced he is the longterm solution but we like the attitude and enthusiasm he is bringing to the job. I think most Tech fans feel Gregory is coaching like it's his last Division I job and that underdog, scrappy attitude warrants some positive feedback.

BCI: After knocking off N.C. State on the road back on January 11, Georgia Tech has now lost six straight in ACC play. What did the Yellow Jackets do right against Wolfpack, and what hasn't gone so well since?

FTRS: Tech is just not very deep in talent or experience. We lost around 50% of the meaningful guard minutes from last season and around 50% of our scoring. Gregory inherited a fairly bare cupboard. I think the big factor for Gregory's major wins this season (@ Athens and @ Raleigh) were just sustaining offensive momentum. Tech can score in spurts but has a real streaky turnover bug. If Tech can sustain scoring runs and avoid sloppy turnovers, Tech can make huge runs. The second half against Clemson is a good example where Tech was down double digits going in to the locker room, cleaned up their offensive game, and only to lost by two.

BCI: Far too early to pass judgment on Brian Gregory, but what do you like about his performance so far? Where can he improve?

FTRS: I think Tech fans want to see how Gregory handles NBA defections. He's shown he can recruit some 5 star studs and that he is a fairly decent ingame coach keeping most of the losing efforts fairly close (minus the UVA debacle). We want to see how good of a recruiter he is in the long term. Hewitt would put a ton of time in to recruiting a one and done, make the NCAA's as a 9 seed, lose the talent to the Draft, and drop three or so sub-500 seasons in line until he recruited another star talent. He wasn't focused on a sustained program but rather a shooting star approach. Hewitt considered the Carmelo Anthony model as the future of college hoops when Tech fans just wanted to see the same team together for four years growing and maturing and then making a run (i.e. 2004).

BCI: Georgia Tech is 1-7. Virginia Tech is 1-6. BC and Wake Forest are 2-6. It's going to be an epic race to the bottom for the ACC Tournament's 12th and final seed. How does the bottom four play out? Who ya got for the ACC Tournament's seeds 9-12?

FTRS: Let's look at remaining schedule ACC winning percentage: #1 GT 33.9%, #2 BC 40.7%, #3 Wake 45.0%, and #4 VT 53.0%. So VT will be the 12 seed. They've got 5 teams left on their schedule with winning ACC records. Wake has 4, BC has 3, and GT has 1. GT will get the not so excellent 9 seed while VT gets the terrible 12 seed in the 2012 ACC Tournament.

BCI: Last one. Prediction time. Who ya got? What's the final score?

FTRS: GT has not been very good in ACC play but I predicted BC to be the beginning of a 3 game win streak and I'm sticking to my guns. Tech wins the Best of the Worst Award with a 72-65 slap fight victory! Go Jackets!