Senior guard Tadric Jackson attacked the basket and finished strong at the rim to lift Georgia Tech to a 52-51 buzzer-beating win over Northwestern on Tuesday night.
Trailing by one on the final possession with 7.8 seconds left, Jackson found a hole in the Northwestern defense and attacked the rack, giving the Yellow Jackets (4-1) a win for the ACC in the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
Jackson finished with 10 points for Georgia Tech, as they won despite struggling mightily at times on the offensive end. Senior center Ben Lammers battled foul trouble to pace the Yellow Jackets with 13 points in the win.
For a Georgia Tech team that doesn’t have a particularly strong non-conference schedule, this win is important for them, especially since it came with suspended sophomore guard Josh Okogie.
The loss drops Northwestern to a sluggish 4-3 start on the season as the Wildcats have yet to win against a quality opponent. That’s problematic for Northwestern since they don’t have many more quality non-conference games. All of the sudden, games against Oklahoma and even Valparaiso become a lot more important for the Wildcats and they’ll also need to play well in Big Ten conference play in order to make it back to the NCAA tournament.
The Wildcats were led by Bryant McIntosh as he scored a team-high 18 points.
🚨@TadricJ1 FTW for @GTMBB! 🚨 #TogetherWeSwarm #MustSeeACC pic.twitter.com/GOPsWnymcP
— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) November 29, 2017
Tadric Jackson at the buzzer! Georgia Tech knocks off Northwestern. pic.twitter.com/2hjp4QCtZ7
— Caleb Johnson (@ATLjohnson18) November 29, 2017
(H/t: ACC Digital Network and Caleb Johnson)