AUGUSTA, GA. – I just left the Peach Jam after the first semifinal to catch an earlier flight home and see my family before my daughter goes to sleep tonight.

All-Ohio, which features 6-foot-7 ½ manchild Jared Sullinger (Ohio State), knocked off Tobias Harris and the Albany City Rocks. The best part of the game was watching the All-Ohio coach polish off a bag off Skittles on the sidelines while wearing his hat backwards. No wonder why AAU coaches don't get taken seriously.

In the second semifinal, it was Team Final – with Michael Gilchrist and Rakeem Christmas – against Team Florida and FSU commit Okaro White.

SHUMPERT HUMBLED BY FRESHMAN SEASON

Georgia Tech's Iman Shumpert had it all figured out.

Well, at least that's what he thought.

Shumpert was a high school star in Illinois who was going to come in and get the Yellow Jackets back to the NCAA tournament a year ago.

"I thought I had all the answers," Shumpert said. "Last season definitely humbled me because I didn't adapt to the college game."

In all fairness, Shumpert had a lot on his shoulders as a freshman last season. Veteran guard DeAndre Bell missed the entire season, and Maurice Miller was in and out of the lineup with various injuries.

The Yellow Jackets were thin and heavily reliant on their freshman point guard.

But now Shumpert has a year under his belt and the 6-foot-4 ½ sophomore has one of the elite frontcourt duos in the entire country with the return of junior Gani Lawal and the arrival of Scout.com’s top-ranked player, big man Derrick Favors.

"Teams are going to have to pick their poison," Shumpert said.

As much as the Lawal-Favors duo up front could make the Yellow Jackets an ACC contender again, it's Shumpert who is the key to the team’s success.

A year ago, he never quite bought into everything. Coach Paul Hewitt and his staff altered a free-throw routine that had an abundance of wasted motion.

"I changed it, but I wasn't happy about it," Shumpert said. "Coach Hewitt and I battled about stupid stuff."

Shumpert said those days are over now.

RANDOM NOTES: Jamie Dixon took a 30-plus hour trek from New Zealand to Augusta to get a day at the Peach Jam. Dixon went from New Zealand to Sydney, to Los Angeles, Charlotte and Augusta. He got in around 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning and was at the first game. ... Seattle big man Josh Smith said he's still not in game shape after being out for much of the past month following having his tonsils removed. Smith, who said that UCLA and Washington are among his leaders, has gone from 300 to 270 pounds in the past month. "I still need to get my rhythm back," said Smith, whose Seattle Rotary team went 0-5 in the Peach Jam. While rumors surfaced that Smith was close to committing, he said it won't happen "that quick."