Georgia Tech deals No. 4 Virginia second straight stunning loss

Less than a year after Virginia held them to an ACC record low 28 points in a humiliating 57-28 defeat, Georgia Tech exacted some revenge on the fourth-ranked Cavaliers with a stunning 68-64 upset at Hank McCamish Pavilion.

The win was huge not only for Georgia Tech’s 2015-16 campaign, but for the future of head coach Brian Gregory. Gregory, who had lost each of his last three games against Virginia by at least 19 points, is still saddled with one of the hottest seats in the country thanks to his failure to guide the Yellow Jackets to more than 16 wins in any of his first four seasons in Atlanta. Saturday’s victory improved Tech to 11-5 on the season, and was the biggest evidence yet that the program is making progress.

The bigger story, of course, is what’s wrong with Virginia. The two-time defending regular season ACC champions, who had gone a combined 32-4 in conference play over the past two seasons, suddenly find themselves at 1-2 in league play. More discouraging than the record is who the losses have come to and the fashion in which they have played out.

On Monday, Virginia allowed in-state rival Virginia Tech to shoot just under 60 percent from the field and score 44 points in the second half to pull off a stunning 70-68 upset. The story was eerily similar on Saturday with Georgia Tech, another team picked to finish near the bottom of the league standings, hitting 8 of 15 shots from beyond the arc, outrebounding UVA by 12, and handing the Hoos their second head-scratching loss of the week.

Justin Anderson’s departure for the NBA was always going to leave Virginia short a key playmaker on offense, but shockingly it’s been Virginia’s inability to defend or rebound which has it tasting back-to-back defeats for the first time in more than two years. With seven games still to play against teams currently ranked in the Associated Press Top 25, the pressure is on Tony Bennett to find a solution soother rather than later.