Miles Kelly scored a game-high 22 points and added 12 rebounds to help lead Georgia Tech to a 67-59 upset win over visiting No. 21 Mississippi State on Tuesday in Atlanta.
Kyle Sturdivant added 12 points for Georgia Tech (3-2). Naithan George also had 11 points for the Yellow Jackets in the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge.
Mississippi State (6-1) was paced by Josh Hubbard, who had 17 points. Dashawn Davis scored 12 points for the Bulldogs, who struggled to find a rhythm on offense, connecting on just 20 of their 65 shots from the field (30.8 percent) and just seven of their 30 3-point tries (23.3 percent).
D.J. Jeffries added 10 points for the Bulldogs, while Jimmy Bell Jr. grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds.
The Yellow Jackets never trailed as first-year head coach Damon Stoudamire posted the first power-conference win of his Georgia Tech tenure.
A Hubbard basket knotted the score at 13 with 11:03 remaining in the first half, the last time Mississippi State was level. Georgia Tech followed with an 11-2 run that was punctuated with a Kelly 3-pointer, one of his four in the game.
Georgia Tech led by as many as 16 in the second half before a late Mississippi State run cut the deficit to eight on a pair of free throws from Davis with 2:44 remaining.
Mississippi State missed its next four shots as the Yellow Jackets pulled away at the foul line.
The double-double for Kelly, a junior, was the first of his career. It was his third game this season scoring at least 20 points.
Georgia Tech held a 39-26 lead at halftime, largely due to the Yellow Jackets’ defense holding Mississippi State to 10-of-33 shooting (30.3 percent) from the field and 2-of-10 success from 3-point range. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech hit half of its 28 field-goal attempts, and Kelly had 14 first-half points.
Tuesday was the first of two straight home games against ranked teams for Georgia Tech, who face No.7 Duke on Saturday. The Bulldogs host Southern University on Sunday.
–Field Level Media
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