NIT 2017 scores: Georgia Tech, TCU advance to title game

The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets will be competing for the NIT championship game, thanks to a strong showing against Cal State-Bakersfield Tuesday night. Joining them in the title tilt will be TCU Horned Frogs, who came back from a slight halftime deficit to dominate UCF Golden Knights.

TCU followed the lead of Vladimir Brodziansky as it earned a 68-53 win over the Golden Knights in the NIT semifinals, hosted at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The Horned Frogs trailed, 31-29, as they headed into halftime. Whatever coach Jamie Dixon said to his team in the locker room must have worked, because TCU came out in the second half like a different team, outscoring UCF, 39-22, through the second stanza to earn their trip to the championship.

Brodziansky, a junior forward from Slovakia, had 18 points and nine rebounds to lead TCU to the win. Teammate Kenrich Williams, a junior guard, put up 14 points, snagged 14 rebounds, and had seven assists.

Leading the Golden Knights was Matt Williams, a senior guard who scored 15 points. Sophomore guard B.J. Taylor added 10 points in the loss.

The Yellow Jackets, led by guard Josh Okogie, picked up a convincing 76-61 victory over the Roadrunners in the NIT semifinals. Okogie, a freshman from Snellville, Ga., put up 22 points to lead all scorers.

Junior center Ben Lammers added 15 for the Yellow Jackets, while senior forward Quinton Stephens scored 13. Junior guard Tadric Jackson came off the bench to add 12 in the winning effort.

Senior guard Dedrick Basile scored 18 to lead the Roadrunners, while senior forward Jaylin Airington scored 12 in the losing effort.

Georgia Tech strolled out to a 36-26 lead in the first half of the game, and didn’t seem to slow up as they came out of the locker room, putting up 40 more while holding CSU-Bakersfield to 35.

Georgia Tech was a sixth seed coming into the NIT, while CSU-Bakersfield was ranked as an eighth seed. Both TCU and UCF are No. 4 seeds.