Duke looks to shake off its road woes against Georgia Tech on Saturday afternoon. The Ramblin' Wreck are off to a 1-9 start in ACC play with a curious win over Miami being the lone bright spot. Unlike the last team that Duke played that was 1-X in ACC play, this record appears to be earned. Now two seasons removed from an improbably ACC Tournament victory, Josh Pastner has struggled to sustain success in Atlanta. The Yellow Jackets have one of the worst high-major offenses in the nation and the defense leaves little to write home about. On the bright side, this is a young team. I guess that's good news for GT fans if you want to look forward to the 2024-25 season.

The headliners on this team are a trio of sophomore wings. The leading scorer is 6'4" G Miles Kelly. The Georgia native is the only reliable shooting threat on the team. That is not saying much as GT ranks 297th in the nation in 3P% and takes very few. They aren't much better inside the arc, scoring just 47.4% of their 2-point attempts, good for 281st in the nation. Backing up Kelly are a pair of 6'6" wings, Dallan 'Deebo' Coleman and Jalon Moore. Coleman was a highly rated recruit coming out of high school and provides a little more offensive offensive threat away from the rim than Moore, who is a better rebounder and athlete. Moore will most likely be matched up on Kyle Filipowski in this one when GT plays man defense. The sophomores are backed up by 6'7" SR Javon Franklin, a former Auburn and South Alabama product that can run and jump with the best of them and looks to score around the rim exclusively. He leads the team in dunks with 20 on the season.

Most of the rest of the GT roster consists of guards. The starting PG is 6'1" JR Deivon Smith, a true pass-first type of guard. If I were only hitting 44.4% of my FT attempts and shooting 23.7% from 3, I would look to pass the ball as well. The reserve PG is 6'3" SR Kyle Sturdivant. Like Smith, he has struggled with his shooting this year but can be relied upon to get the ball moving. Former Gardner-Webb standout Lance Terry, a 6'2" G, is more of a scoring-oriented type with the caveat that hardly anyone on the team shoots the ball well.

Up front, the big man is 6'11" SR Rodney Howard. He's a big man at more than 240 lbs and does a little bit of this and that without standing out much. He averages close to 5 pts/5 rebs in 20 minutes per game. Howard is just about the only player with size, so it will be interesting to see if they play him more against Duke's big front line. It could be that Ryan Young is in the game whenever Howard is and then we see more of Dereck Lively II the rest of the time. Or perhaps Coach Scheyer will elect to have Filipowski and Mitchell be the frontcourt for stretches.

On defense, Pastner likes to mix things up and throws out a lot of junk schemes - A 2-3 or 1-3-1 zone, man, forcing sidelines, etc. - for a few possessions to keep the opposition out of synch. That worked well when he had high-level ACC players like Jose Alvarado, Moses Wright, and Michael Devoe. Now? Not so much. The roster lacks the kind of talent the team needs to consistently compete in a mediocre ACC. One area where this team really struggles is on the boards, so expect Duke to gobble up a lot of GT misses. Duke needs positive vibes on the road before a crucial week at home against Wake Forest and UNC. Given the lump in the throat after Monday night's loss, I will be interested in seeing how Duke responds.