The genesis was a halfcourt shot. Dr. Joel Sokol, an engineering and math graduate of Rutgers who took his PhD at M.I.T., had come to work at Georgia Tech and begun to follow the Yellow Jackets. Even with the gifted freshman Chris Bosh, Tech finished the regular season 14-14 and missed the NCAA tournament.
“Some people said we’d have gotten in if we’d won one more game,” Sokol said Monday. “We played Tennessee in one of those holiday tournaments and lost on a halfcourt shot.”
On Dec. 15, 2002, Tech led Tennessee 69-67 at Philips Arena with 0.