UVa (11-5, 3-3 ACC) at Georgia Tech (8-9, 3-4)

8 p.m., ACCN

After jumping off to a 3-0 start to league play, the Cavaliers have tumbled recently. Losses in Chestnut Hill and Tallahassee sandwiching an OT loss at home to Syracuse has landed UVa squarely in the conversation for being on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

In order to break the team’s first three-game ACC losing streak since 2017, Virginia will have to go bring a win back home tomorrow night. And despite GT not coming into the season with great expectations, Josh Pastner’s crew can still be tough to contend with.

And given the way the Wahoos have played over the last week and a half, there’s no reason to take anything for granted when they face the Jackets in McCamish Pavilion.

Georgia Tech is currently No. 84 according to KenPom and comes into this matchup after losing by four at home to Notre Dame on Wednesday night. The Jackets, who nearly upset Duke a week earlier, went into that one after blasting BC 71-52 in aforementioned Chestnut Hill. It’s easy to see that they, much like the league as a whole, have been up and down thus far in 2020.

This would appear to be a game where two teams that rely on their defenses have to hope their (bad) offense can find a way to score more than the other team’s (bad) offense.

Unsurprisingly, GT is one of the teams in the ACC that tends to be tough on the defensive end of the floor but inconsistent on offense. While the Jackets rank 191st nationally in offensive efficiency (one of the three lowest rankings in the conference), they are solid on D, where they currently rank 27th in adjusted efficiency.

That contrast is evident in other ways as you drill deeper into their numbers. They turn it over at at alarming rate (ranking 326th out of 358 teams in turnover percentage. And the only category where they’re in the top 100 is in two-point percentage, which is 94th. Conversely, Georgia Tech boasts the league’s fifth-best defense in terms of adjusted efficiency and is top 50 nationally in effective FG percentage (33rd), two-point defense (38th), and block percentage (45th).

As rough as UVa has been this year shooting the 3, where the Cavaliers rank 348th, the Jackets aren’t far behind (322). Much of their scoring, like Virginia’s, comes inside around the rim. And the two offenses each are turning it over via steals at a similar rate, as UVa ranks 334th and GT 317th.

While GT plays at a faster pace than UVa, not much else jumps out. But here’s a stat you don’t see every day: The Jackets have given up 1,155 points this year and scored…1,155 points.

Georgia Tech’s top scorer is a former UVa recruiting target, guard Michael Devoe. The Florida native is putting up 16.5 points per game and is one of two players, along with the team’s second-leading scorer Moses Wright, that has started every game. A 6-foot-5 lefty, Devoe is shooting a team-high 41.3 percent from 3-point territory while also dishing out a team-high 2.9 assists per game. He had 22 points in the loss to Notre Dame on Wednesday despite only scoring nine in the win over BC.

Devoe is joined at guard by Jose Alvardo, a 6-foot junior who feels like he’s been in Atlanta for a decade. So far this year, he’s averaging 10.4 points per game, which is tied for third-best on the team with big man James Banks. Alvardo had 18 points in the loss to Duke before dishing out eight assists in the blowout of the Eagles.

Wright, a 6-foot-9 junior, and Banks, the 6-foot-10 senior, man the middle for Pastner’s team. At 13.8 points per game, Wright’s shooting a team-high 55.1 percent from the floor and has blocked 21 shots on the year. But Banks, who is also shooting better than 50 percent, has a team-high 50 blocks on the year, second-best in the league. Wright had 16 points against the Irish and 18 against Boston College to go with his 10 boards, his second-straight double-double. Banks, meanwhile, 14 points and 15 rebounds against the Blue Devils.

The other starter is Jordan Usher, a 6-foot-7 junior who has made just two of his 19 3-point attempts this season but is averaging 8.8 points per game.