Georgia Tech Basketball: Scouting Northern Illinois Ahead of Tonight's Matchup

How does Georgia Tech matchup with Northern Illinois tonight?

Georgia Tech Basketball is looking for its first 3-0 start since 2015-2016 and the opponent in Atlanta tonight will be Northern Illinois. The Huskies and the Yellow Jackets have never met before and Georgia Tech is going to be a heavy favorite tonight. 

On Caesar's Sportsbook, Georgia Tech is a 13-point tonight with a 136-point total. 

So what should the Yellow Jackets be looking for when they face Northern Illinois tonight? 

Can Miles Kelly continue his great start to the season? / Georgia Tech Athletics

Northern Illinois is not off to a particularly good start to the season so far. The Huskies are 1-2, with a win against Purdue Northwest on Monday and losses to Northwestern and Illinois-Springfield. The Sagarin ratings have Northern Illinois at No.298 and Ken Pom has the Huskies at 291. For comparison, Georgia Tech is 117 in Ken Pom ratings and 85 in the Sagarin ratings. 

The strength of this team is its guards. Northern Illinois has three guys averaging double digits: Keshawn Williams (18.7), David Coit (17.0), and Zarique Nutter (13.5) are all dangerous scorers and they are going to challenge the Georgia Tech defense. When talking about the upcoming matchup with the Huskies, Georgia Tech head coach Josh Pastner complimented all three players and how difficult they will be to guard on Thursday night:

"They have really good guard play. They have three guards... and not everyone is going to know their names but zero, two, and 11 are their starting one's, two's, and three's, they can play, they can fill it up. Number 11, he was a big-time scorer in his previous spot and he can really shoot the ball. Zero can get downhill and score all over the floor and two is a really good player and play all over the floor. They have really good frontcourt players and they play a lot of guys too, good guys coming off the bench, so it is a good team, and like I said, they run good actions, they are well coached and we will have to play really well to have a chance to win."

Deebo Coleman will be a key for Georgia Tech tonight on offense / Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports

The key to stopping Northern Illinois is going to be stopping these three from scoring at will. The Yellow Jackets' defense has been outstanding at limiting opponents from the three-point line, with opponents shooting just 6-36 from three-point range, which is fourth nationally. 

Two players for Georgia Tech to keep an eye on tonight will be Miles Kelly, who hit the game-winning shot against Georgia State on Saturday, and Deebo Coleman. Both players are off to good starts this season and Miles Kelly reached double figures for the fifth time in his career on Saturday and in his fourth straight game dating back to last season’s regular-season finale against Boston College. He has averaged 15 points over his last four games.

Coleman led the Yellow Jackets in scoring for the second time in his career with his 16 points against the Panthers. Coleman scored 19 to pace Tech in its win over Lamar in the third game of last season. Pastner discussed Coleman and his improvement this season:

"Deebo was just a freshman last year and it is hard to win games having a really young group in this league but he has made a big jump and has improved and everyone can see that, he is just not a standstill three point shooter anymore and part of our program has been getting guys better and he is one of the guys that has shown he is getting better and his body looks different too."

I think that Georgia Tech will win this game comfortably. The Yellow Jackets are playing sharp defense so far and they have guys that can limit what the Northern Illinois guards can do. The game is at home and I think Georgia Tech is heading for a 3-0 start. 

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