AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > January
January 2008
Luck of Irish: They get Tenuta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s interesting that Jon Tenuta is headed to Notre Dame. Being an assistant coach there is like being a coordinator at a lot of other places, prestige-wise. And being a Notre Dame assistant should be a good steppingstone to a head coaching job, assuming that Charlie Weis and his staff can turn things around in South Bend.
Weis saw Tenuta’s work firsthand in the 2007 season opener, when the Yellow Jackets routed the Irish 33-3. It’s a shame that Tech and Notre Dame don’t play this season or next; it would be a lot of fun to watch Paul Johnson coach against a defense with Tenuta on the staff.
I will be curious to see how much of an impact Tenuta has on what Notre Dame does defensively. Does he just coach his position and have little effect on the Irish’s style of play, or do his concepts start showing up on the field?
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Tuminello pursuing pro football
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I was over at Georgia Tech on Tuesday reporting a story about the widespread success the Yellow Jackets are having in women’s sports these days and got a reminder that football season never really ends. A huge group of players was walking back from Rose Bowl Field and a twice-a-week run.
Later, I saw Kevin Tuminello, who has graduated and played his final game at Tech but hasn’t left. Kevin is working out with Eric Ciano to boost his “measurables” and put him in the best position possible to impress pro scouts. Unlike in baseball, which has an extensive minor league system, and basketball, where there are opportunities in Europe, football players don’t have many options if they don’t make it at the top level, the NFL. Kevin is hoping to catch on with an NFL team, but if he doesn’t he said he might wind up in the new All American Football League, scheduled to begin play in April in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Tennessee and Texas. Tech alumni Dennis Davis and Darius Williams are listed on the Alabama roster, Nick Rogers on the Arkansas roster and Kenton Johnson on the Michigan roster.
Tuminello has met one of the requirements for playing in the AAFL; he has his degree. Teammates consistently called him one of the brightest Yellow Jackets players. I’m pretty sure he’ll do fine in whatever career he winds up in, whether it’s football or something else.
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Timeout, timeout, timeout for Miller time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
All over the map …
Two games in a row Tech’s had timeouts to burn at the end of regulation and the opponent has not.
I asked coach Paul Hewitt the other day if he was making a conscious effort to conserve, he said he was not. In short, he just said that players are playing better, and he’s had less reason to call them. Hmmmmm.
Freshman point guard Moe Miller’s left ankle, which he injured with 6:51 left in regulation of the Yellow Jackets’ 92-82 overtime win Sunday at Virginia, was diagnosed Monday morning as a “grade two sprain.”
His status for Tech’s Saturday game against Maryland is uncertain. Yet the likelihood of Miller playing is far greater than it would have been had he suffered a “high ankle” sprain, in which increased inflammation tends to sideline athletes longer, sometimes for weeks.
Some of this detail was taken out of stories posted earlier, and I don’t know why, so here it is again. Folks love details. And money.
But I don’t have any dough.
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Early signs on Moe Miller & Stones’ show rocks again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ok, maybe not first things first, but Moe Miller’s sprained ankle did not after the game appear to be as bad as it looked when he wrenched it. He was walking, maybe not exactly comfortably, with ice on it. Trainer said it’s not clear yet whether it’s a dreaded high-ankle sprain.
Good time to have an off week (no weekday game). Tech next plays Maryland Saturday, at home, before three straight on the road.
Quickly …
The new nickname for Matt Causey could be “Stones.” Figure it out.
D’Andre Bell played a team-high 34 mins. at N.C. State Wednesday, and 32 Sunday night. He had some turnover issues at times, but getting his long body in front of Sean Singletary so much was capital C critical. Singletary was the best player to take the floor, maybe one of the three best players in the ACC. He hit 5 of 19 shots. He didn’t leave the floor as the best player Sunday.
Tech had just two turnovers in the second half and overtime combined. That’s huge.
Defense was solid inside the arc the whole game. Better on the perimeter in the second half, but frankly, Virginia was just unconscious with the long ball in the first half. Then, the Cavs got tired and Tech didn’t.
The rotation grew to 10 players, as Lance Storrs pitched in (and hit a 3). Interesting, and just as Hewitt predicted a few days ago.
If you can find the play-by-play somewhere, look at the last 15 minutes or so of this game. Causey was in on almost every play, scoring, assisting, or stealing. May have grabbed a rebound, too. When he gets in the zone, he’s in a world by himself. Hewitt said, “I’m to the point now where I just let him go.” Hewitt also likened him on two occasions, once in the post-game news conference and once in the hallway outside the lockerroom, to another former small college transfer — Shaun Fein. Fein hit almost that exactly long 3-point bomb in a win at Virginia seven years ago, in the old arena.
Speaking of arenas, Virginia’s is the nicest in the ACC. Top-notch all the way. Great, great place.
Former Tech assistant Dean Keener was at the game, and celebrating with the Jackets afterward outside the locker room. He’s the head coach now at nearby James Madison.
Tech’s got to rebound better. Last in the ACC in overall rebounds, defensive rebounding and offensive rebounding. If they weren’t a good shooting team, and if they weren’t taking care of the ball so much better of late, we wouldn’t be talking about all this. Add rebounding to the equation, and look out!
Jackets doing a lot better job recently working the ball inside. Sometimes it goes in the basket, sometimes it comes back out, but there’s a plan either way.
“You throw the ball inside, the cumulative affect is it opens up the 3,” Hewitt said. “I think early in the year we were just coming down jacking up 3s; there was not much rhyme or reason to our offense. Now, we can do that more because Lawal is becoming a presence down there. We try to go inside to out. As a matter of fact, I think some of the improvement in our play is just better play execution instead of breaking off the play and putting up a 3.”
Gani Lawal is becoming a stud in the paint. And he may be learning to pass out once in a while. He had his fifth and sixth assists of the season in this game. And believe me, his free throw problems are not from lack of work both by himself and under the eye of coaches.
This was the second road game in a row (and the first two this season), chaplain Derrick Moore made the trip. Hewitt said that’s normal, that he starts traveling when his football obligations end. Maybe that’s the real deal. Whether it is or not, I bet it continues, and ditto Hewitt’s decision to have the team eat dinner at the team hotel the night before the past two road games, er, wins. No more going out, huh?
Causey so gets under the skin of opposing fans. I wonder if opposing players loathe him, too? Watch teams start game-planning around him. They have to, don’t they?
Stones. I’m telling you.
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Critical GT info right here
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So I was wondering, as Georgia Tech Sunday will try to get to .500 in the ACC, when was the last time the Yellow Jackets won back-to-back conference games away?
Not as far back as you might think, but obviously beyond the past two seasons as Tech was 1-8 in road games last season and 0-10 in 2005-‘06.
Tech won consecutive road games at Clemson, Florida State and Miami on Feb. 8, 20, and 26 in 2005. One season earlier, Tech won at Clemson and Duke just three days apart.
Although Tech wasted a late lead at Virginia last season, Paul Hewitt’s teams are 9-3 against the Wahoos. Tech lost in its last two trips there, and won the three visits before that.
By the way, the Jackets, with back-to-back ACC wins including last Saturday’s home game against VT, last won three straight ACC games last season. Clemson, N.C. State at home, Florida State on the road.
…
Lady Jackets had a rough one last night. They were starting to get some attention, respect. Think that had anything to do with how they played?
…
I haven’t had as much to do with football recruiting this year as last, but with six additions since Paul Johnson was hired, it looks like it didn’t take long for the re-configured staff to get up to speed.
One thing hasn’t changed. Giff Smith said this would not be a Georgia-centric recruiting class, and boy is that the truth. Just four of 17 from in-state so far.
Interesting how in the early days of the coaching changeover, as some kids who had verbally committed to Tech chose instead to commit to other schools, some fans were screaming of crimes committed by other schools, and even pooping on those kids, or equating them with deserters.
Not so much noise now that three of the six newcomers (Jaybo Shaw, Marcus Wright and Lee Butler) have broken verbal commitments to other schools to pledge Tech. Hmmmm?!
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Jackets digging deeper; controversy rages
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
You better have some time if you’re going to read this.
Some might think it strange (not to mention premature) to say, but the mens basketball teams looks like it can do some damage.
Man, this reminds me of a guy I used to hang with frequently back in the late ’80s when I spend too much time in long-dead Buckhead dives like the ACME Bar & Grill and the Orchestra Pit. We’d battle on sports-related points. He’d always say, ‘Don’t jump to conclusions; they don’t set a schedule so you can figure it out before it’s played out.” He was a knucklehead. But he was right, even if more often than not you can case a team by the midway point of its season.
Maybe trying to peg Georgia Tech previously, at least this incarnation of hoopsters, was a mistake, huh?
After a 77-74 win at N.C. State Wednesday night in which Matt Causey again rose from the near-dead (for 18 points after scoring 30 in the win Saturday over Virginia Tech), it’s clear the Jackets are tending to details much better than in their first 15 games. I’m including the 83-82 loss to North Carolina in this thought.
I told some other writers here that Causey this season has had a dislocated knee cap, a sprained ankle, a dislocated shoulder and a dislocated jaw, and they looked at me as if their jaws were going to drop out of place. He’s a freak with, as teammate D’Andre Bell said, “A lot of [plural — I’ll let you guess whats].”
Yes, it looks like the point guards are playing better, chiefly Causey, but players and coach Paul Hewitt are right in my opinion when they say a big part of that reason is because other players are helping them play better. They’re moving better without the ball, much better.
And the Jackets are playing better defense.
In recent games, they’ve done quite a number on three of the seven top scoring players in the ACC, holding Miami’s Jack McClinton, UNC’s Wayne Ellington and VT’s A.D. Vasallo to a combined 18-plus points below their combined averages.
Wednesday was a different challenge, as N.C. State freshman center J.J. Hickson entered the game as the league’s most accurate shooter.
Tech held him to 6 of 14. Gani Lawal did most of the dirty work behind Hickson, his fellow McDonalds All-American from last spring, and blocked five shots. I think four were Hickson’s.
Instead of double-teaming him with another post player, as the Jackets did a week earlier with UNC center Tyler Hansbrough (who nonetheless scored 27) Tech frequently sagged a guard inside much of the time to limit passing lanes to Hickson by fronting him, and to help try to dig the ball out of his hands.
They didn’t shut Hickson down. He finished with 16 points. But the defensive game plan made a difference.
“It was a team effort. Gani did a nice job contesting his shots,” coach Paul Hewitt said. “He could have gotten off another four or five shots [if the Jackets didn’t work. We did big-to-big double against Hansbrough. That was a little bit different than what we’ve done [with high-scoring bigs] in the past.”
It hasn’t always been pretty, but Tech’s playing with a new-found moxie.
There’s a lot to point out, and the first point here is huge.
Anthony Morrow’s four strip-the-cords free throws in the final 19 seconds were extra large. He’s making 85 percent.
But there was much more.
Although N.C. State went to the line eight more times, and made 21 of 28, Tech made 15 of 20, but MOST IMPORTANTLY made its last eight free throws in the final 2:01. Eight of the Jackets’ final 10 points came from the line, Zack Peacock making two, D’Andre Bell two and Morrow four. That was gigantic.
Tech did a good job (and N.C. State did a horrible job defending this) getting the ball into Morrow’s hands late. Again, he’s making 85 percent. Plus, he leads the Jackets in minutes played (528, or 29.3 per game), but has turned the ball over just 18 times, or once every 29 minutes — once per game despite playing more than everybody else.
The offense is operating much more efficiently of late. Tech made 14 of 24 shots in the first half, 15 of 25 in the second, 29 of 49 overall (59.2 percent). That’s tough to beat.
Snicker if you want, but be warned that snickering recently has been a foolish play. Tech is in play for the NCAA tournament, but with plenty of work to do. The Jackets’ strength of schedule (No. 7 in the nation AFTER last night’s game) has plenty to do with Tech’s 9-9 record. If they can win seven of their final 12, and win two games in the ACC tournament, they’re going to probably be on the bottom of the NCAA tournament bubble. That would make them 18-15, a push. If they go 8-4, and win one game, they’ll be 18-14. They’d be viable. They go 8-4 and win two, and they’re in at 19-14. Why?
Tech jumped to No. 64 in the projected RPI last night. Very importantly, the Jackets are 5-5 in road/neutral games, with wins at Tennessee Tech, Georgia State, and N.C. State and neutral wins over Notre Dame (No. 47 in the RPI) and UNC Charlotte (No. 79). That’s not earth-shaking, but not small potatoes. Lord knows the Jackets are going to have more chances on the road, where they’ll play four of their next five. Overall, they still have road games at Virginia, Wake Forest, UConn, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Duke and Boston College. Win three of those seven, and they’ll have a huge jump if they take care of business at home (Maryland, Miami, Virginia, Wake and Clemson). Look at some of their losses: No. 2 North Carolina, No. 3 Kansas, No. 12 Vanderbilt, No. 25 Indiana. They were very respectable in all but the Vandy game. Working against Tech: The Jackets are 0-2 against teams currently ranked 101-200 (Georgia, at 117, and UNC-Greensboro 120). Tech is 1-5 against teams currently in the top 50 (Notre Dame 47). Chances await to improve.
Moving on …
Tech turned the ball over just three times in the second half.
Gani Lawal is becoming quite a shot blocker, which may help lead to more press defense with him as the safety. Hewitt would prefer to play more press.
Rip Bell if you want, and at risk of being a fool. He played a team-high 34 minutes, scored 13. Yes, he had four turnovers, three in the first half. But he’s attacking the basket more, and he helps Tech’s perimeter defense. No Tech player is more mindful of details. I just don’t think he needs to play PG, which he didn’t Wednesday, unless there is an emergency.
Hotel Hewitt has shortened his rotation to nine players, with a very brief appearance by Lance Storrs against Va. Tech the only exception in the past five games. I think this helps chemistry, rhythm, role understanding. Starters played more than the first five minutes Wednesday before a substitution (Causey, Clinch).
N.C. State could have used a timeout late, but didn’t have any. Coach Sidney Lowe and the Wolfpack burned a few in the first half, and carried just two to the second half. Hewitt used only one in the first half, with 17 seconds left to set up a final play that did not work (and why not? Had he not used it, he could not have carried it to the second half). He had all he needed down the stretch, which as some well know, is a luxury he doesn’t always afford himself. He was uncommonly patient as N.C. State made a run or two in the second half, trusting that his guys would hold on, or until a pending TV timeout. Much improvement in this area.
Finally, my favorite …
I have to admit that I was, for lack of another word, disappointed in Matt Causey early in the season. I heard last season while he was sitting out after his transfer about his spunky nature, and that he could shoot. There wasn’t much evidence early. He was slow, a grab-and-clutch defender, and could hardly move left or right. He was a straight-line player with a good eye. His knee cap and ankle have healed somewhat, and he’s clearly a pretty good player. Not a defensive straightjacket, but easy to underestimate. He forces some bad plays by opponents. Annoys.
And he battles his butt off. I made the comment here last week that Tech could use more players built like him. Some commented sarcastically that, sure, the Jackets could use more 5-11, slow, white guys who can’t jump. It’s not white, or black, folks. It’s gray. This cat rolls in the gray. He has intangibles. He’s built the right way inside.
I asked teammates about him tonight. Nobody said it better than Morrow.
“That’s my home boy right there. He’s just one of those rowdy guys, scrappy,” Morrow said. “I knew he was crazy when he and Javaris [Crittenton] would get into it last year in practice. They’d go back and forth, and get into little scuffles. It was all out of competition. That’s when I knew he was a very competitive kid, and he was going to be able to go at anybody in the ACC.”
Nobody doe more with less athleticism than those two, Morrow and Causey. Every team needs players built like them.
Matt
P.S. Sorry about the controversy headline; just wanted to build in an extra reason to keep you reading.
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Hoops program continues rise
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I tuned in to WREK on Sunday, not sure what to expect. What I heard was what sounded like one of the best and most gutsy performances in recent Georgia Tech history.
One season after winning an NCAA tournament game for the first time in school history, the Tech women’s basketball team almost won a road game against the No. 4 team in the nation. In case you weren’t listening — and didn’t see the result in our Monday paper, or the story in today’s paper — Tech took Maryland to double overtime. By the time it was over, four Jackets players had fouled out, including three starters, but the Jackets never let up.
Tech is ranked No. 23 this week, its first ranking since 1993. On Thursday night, the Jackets play host to No. 10 Duke.
I’ll have a story online on Wednesday and in the paper on Thursday, and then I’ll cover the game. I will be curious to see how many people show at Alexander Memorial Coliseum for a game between two Top 25 teams, one of them a Tech team looking to score a signature victory.
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Jackets could use more built like Causey
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Scattershooting hither and yon …
It’s a pleasure to write about people like Matt Causey, as I did in today’s paper, even when they’re a tad peculiar. Matt’s very smart, the kind of guy who’ll look at you with a strange gaze that seems to indicate either he’s nuts or he thinks the question you just asked came from outer space. He mind appears to race.
But any time a guy, or gal, overcomes, it’s a pleasure to write about. With his height, which is dad said is 5-11, not 6-feet as listed in several places, and his knee problems and injuries in general, he’s overcome.
The guy grinds at a remarkable pace, though, and it figures to serve him well.
“He’s a high-energy kid,” said his father, David Causey. “I have to hand it to my wife. He was a full-time job for her to keep up with, and people around town told me that. I think he approaches life with that same attitude, all-out 100 percent. He lives it like he plays it; he lives it hard. For that reason, I think he’s going to be successful in life.”
On other matters …
Mouhammad Faye, as many know, has landed at SMU with former UNC coach Matt Doherty. He has to sit out a season. Had he transferred to Lee University, he’d have been able to play right away with former Tech teammate Paco Diaw. Faye went up to Tennessee to meet with folks at Lee, but opted for SMU in the end.
Had everything worked out at Tech, Faye would’ve been playing a lot this season, I think. But Paul Hewitt never worked him into the rotation in the first semester out of fear that Mouhammed’s academics weren’t going to work out, and he’d be left with a hole in the rotation in the second half. Mouhammed did not fancy schoolwork.
On to football …
I’m going to write a recruiting story next week, about how the staff has gone about the process through the coaching change. I don’t do much with football this time of year, but I think it will be kind of interesting to learn about how much change there has been in the way Tech targets recruits now versus before, and how coaches ended some relationships with prospects based on how they do not fit Paul Johnson’s profile. Ditto the opposite, and how Tech has brought on board some kids who were not on — or at least way off of — the Jackets’ radar before.
No, Thomasville DT Brandon Thompson is not in play any more for Tech.
If St. Augustine DB Rashaad Reid visits another school, Tech will pull his scholarship offer. With some of the kids who’ve already committed, the Jackets apparently are more patient as they’ve looked into other possibilities. I think Reid is close to wearing out that privilege.
Back to basketball …
We’re going to write something next week about the womens team. Dunno the nature of the story yet, but it’ll be a story about blending returning talent with talented newcomers to very positive effect.
If the mens team doesn’t play well Saturday against Virginia Tech, I’ll be a surprised. If they play downright poorly, coach Paul Hewitt will have more explaining than usual to do. The Jackets were very good Wednesday night against UNC, and a fifth home loss - after going 16-1 at home last season — would leave burn marks.
Just when you thought Tech = flat-lining
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No room in my room for griping about North Carolina getting 26 free throws last night. Maybe a little room to fuss about Tech taking just 10.
The Jackets were physical, and needed to play that way. Overall, I thought the officials let ‘em play. Tech entered with an average of 22.7 fouls committed per game, ranking 319 out of 328 in the nation. That is to say they commit more fouls on average than all but nine teams. So, no real shock there. They were called for 18 last night even though they were very physical. UNC was called for 14, but far fewer that created shooting opportunities.
Peacock said he was fouled on his next to last shot. I didn’t see it that way, at least not definitively, but the two calls I thought Tech definitely got pickled on were with with 1:57 left, when Clinch’s 3-pointer air-balled, and after Morrow’s last shot.
Peacock was reaching out to grab the Clinch miss before it landed out of bounds, but UNC’s Marcus Ginyard bumped him out. That looked clear to me. No call.
And after Morrow’s shot in the final 30 seconds, Peacock — he was in the middle of everything last night — and Green went up for the rebound. Foul called against Peacock. I was a long way away, but that looked like a dual possession to me, or a play that officials should’ve let play out another second or so to see if the ball ended up in the hands of either/or.
Instead, Green makes a free throw that proves to be the game winner.
And that was that.
Tech got major production from paint players, and that’s not just because Lawal, Smith, Peacock were jacked up and attentive. That was largely because the perimeter players did a much better than usual job of getting the ball inside when teammates were in scoring position, or in positions where they could create their own scoring opps.
Causey had some serious moments. Moe Miller even more.
Tech has 14 games left. I think the Jackets can go 9-5 if two things happen with consistency: Those two PGs continue to play as they did last night, and have for the most part over the past five games or so (despite notable lapses by each in some of those games), and if the Jackets keep not just their passion up, but their attention to detail remains high.
Just 12 turnovers last night, against a super-athletic team like that? If Tech had been similarly protective of the ball all season, the Jackets would be about 11-5 now. A couple open-court turnovers hurt. I remember one cross-court pass by Peacock that was terrible in the second half; it was picked off and dunked.
But overall, there was a great deal to be encouraged by last night. Like Hewitt said, though, it’s for naught if the Jackets don’t play with the same verve Saturday against Virginia Tech. The Jackets have zero room for complacency.
P.S. Hansbrough is a monster, and I love watching him play. But I’d hate to play against him not only because he plays so hard, but because he gets so many calls. He earns most, but not all. No way. I’d say up to one-third of his free throws come on plays where he initiates contact beyond what should be an allowable threshold. Still, for Tech to only be called for 18 fouls last night given how hard the Jackets complained, tough to complain overall on that front. My two cents.
Clough on football playoff: OK, if …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
University of Georgia President Michael Adams’ proposal for an eight-team football playoff got shot down on Monday at the NCAA convention. A lot of college presidents don’t want to go down that road, and the Division I board of directors decided to not even form a discussion group on the subject.
Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough, though, is pretty much in agreement with the president of his sister institution. Both say adding a playoff should mean eliminating the 12th game of the regular season.
Here’s Clough’s take: “I am OK with a well designed playoff, but am opposed to this if we stay with 12 games. Personally I was opposed to the expansion and voted that way when I was on the NCAA Board of Directors, but surprisingly other conferences supported it. And this from a group that continues to threaten to reduce the baseball season. With 12 games and conference playoffs it will be hard to have a playoff and not extend the season well into January. When will it stop? We already have games being played into the second week. Pretty soon we are going to find ourselves with a season paralleling the pros, and this is not good, both for the student athletes and collegiate football. It does not pass the smell test.”
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Without one-and-dones, Tech would be … ???
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some folks have suggested to me (not that I can do anything about it) that Paul Hewitt should stop recruiting one-and-done players because when they leave, the program ends up in a lurch.
I see their point, but it sure is a fuzzy one.
Hewitt has had three one-and-done players by my math (admittedly I’ve only paid close attention the last two years): Chris Bosh (Tech went to the title game the year after he left), Javaris Crittenton and Thaddeus Young.
Bosh’s depature didn’t pin Tech, but the Jackets definitely are in a lurch right now, and the departures of Crittenton and Young have a lot to do with it. So does the loss of Mario West (also to the NBA), Ra’Sean Dickey’s academic ineligibility/knee injury (although not a lot), the inability of Mouhammed Faye to make it work at Tech. And there is STILL a trickle-down affect from Austin Jackson deciding two years ago to play pro baseball instead of PG at Tech.
Hewitt has been asked about this over and over. My favorite answer was when somebody bugged him about it at the ACC preseason meetings. “I’ll stop when Duke and North Carolina and Wake Forest and everybody else in the league stops, because if I don’t recruit players like that, they’ll all end up playing against me,” or something like that.
Bottom line, very few people pegged Crittenton to leave for the NBA after just one season. Young? Yeah, not much of a surprise there, and he came closer to staying that Crit. It’s a funny world.
Moe Miller was supposed to back up Crit this year, and take over next. Then again, the plan before that was for Crit to back up Jackson last year, and take over this or next. Plans don’t always work out, though.
But if not for the arrival of Crittenton and Young, even for one season, Tech might be staring at its third straight season without making the NCAA tournament.
That’d be even worse that what is happening now, wouldn’t it?
Tech, Swiss cheese similar in some ways
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hey, sorry to be away so long. Combination of the holidays a little, a tremendous amount of time spent with my ill mother, and a new laptop which took more than a week to equip with the proper log-on to get back here. Long story, huh?
Tech is not good at basketball. Tech could and should be better at basketball.
On the one hand, I can’t explain the problem(s) definitively. But if you’re willing to read a little philosophy, here it is: average chemistry, below-average point guard play, fuzzy understanding of roles (that may be changing from time to time, possibly explaining poor understanding), too few players willing to step into a void of leadership, and the fact that the leaders the Jackets have (Jeremis Smith and Anthony Morrow), are not typical of those more commonly cast into the role.
That last one is a big-minded concept mostly for another day. This is catching up on a general level.
Don’t misunderstand. I think very highly of Jeremis and Anthony. They’re both going to be very successful. But they’re not Mario West, even if more talented. And that doesn’t mean they’ll land in the NBA, like Mario, because this is not that simple.
There are missing ingredients beyond the ability to shoot, pass, etc. This team lacks sufficient connectivity. Their chemistry problems do not have anything to do with the way they get along. There are many players of similar personality, perhaps not enough of a mix. Who’s grumpy? Who gets bleeping hacked when they lose? Mario was that man last year. Jeremis is into it, works his tail off, and all that, but I don’t think he has Mario’s ability to make teammates feel guilty for not matching.
Mario had that ability in part because of his unique path. He walked on, and busted his #%^ to get where he was. That earned a different kind of respect.
This team misses Mario. And Javaris. And Thad Young wouldn’t hurt, either.
But the Jackets should still be better than 7-8 by about, oh, three or four wins.
Bet they give North Carolina Hades Wednesday, though. Seriously.
Matt
Kelly excited by new role
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I spoke this morning with Charles Kelly, who is shifting from special teams coach to cornerbacks coach at Georgia Tech. “I’m excited about getting back to [the position] where I spent a lot of my career,” said Kelly, who walked on as a defensive back at Auburn and coached the position at Jacksonville State and Nicholls State and as a graduate assistant at Auburn.
I thought Kelly was a great fit in the special teams role, where you want a guy with his emotions-on-his-sleeve-and-face-and-every-inch-of-his-body personality. But I think he’ll be successful with the corners, too.
Kelly will be recruiting part of southwest Georgia, including Muscogee County (the Columbus area). As he did in the past, he’ll recruit the Florida Panhandle and south Alabama, probably everything south of Birmingham. Plus, he’ll get into Louisiana to go after specifically targeted players.
The past few weeks have been a challenge, with Kelly and Giff Smith and Brian Jean-Mary working on a staff where they knew their colleagues would soon be leaving.
“It’s a business, and you’ve got to move on, but it doesn’t make it any easier for the feeling you’ve got for the people you work with,” Kelly said.
So, while I am happy for the guys who are staying, I will end with a thought for Joe D’Alessandris, John Bond, Buddy Geis, Jeep Hunter, Curtis Modkins and Jon Tenuta. Good luck to all of them, and may they find good jobs quickly.
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A staff that knows Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Paul Johnson’s new coaching staff won’t need to wear name tags. Most of them have worked with Johnson before and/or known him for a long time.
They also know the Peach State, and that might show up in recruiting in the years to come. In addition to Johnson, who coached two stints at Georgia Southern, and the three holdovers from Chan Gailey’s staff — Brian Jean-Mary, Charles Kelly and Giff Smith, there’s Brian Bohannon, who played at Georgia, and Jeff Monken, who worked with Johnson five seasons at Georgia Southern, and Mike Sewak, who was the coach at Georgia Southern after Johnson left and was an assistant while Johnson was there.
These guys know Georgia.
Johnson fully intends to take advantage of that local knowledge. Everyone on the staff will have in-state recruiting responsibilities, he said. Tech will recruit quarterbacks nationally and continue to look elsewhere for standouts at other positions but will have a close-to-home focus, he said.
It will be interesting to see how that meshes with the availability of academically qualified talent.
Do you think Tech needs more in-state emphasis than it has had (remember, last year’s class was more than half Georgians), less or about the same? Or is the key measure the quality of the local recruits and not the quantity?
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