AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > February > 15 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USJackets look gassed at Clemson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gonna be brief here because it’s late, and I gotta drive back tonight. I’ll probably get home around 3:30, and that blows.
Nobody bit on my question after a horrible 82-67 loss at Clemson about the possibility of the Jackets suffering some sort of carryover from the final six-plus minutes last Saturday at UConn, but I’m sticking to my theory.
And in roundabout ways, Zack Peacock and Matt Causey confirmed it.
Coach Paul Hewitt said when asked, “I don’t think so. Three straight on the road is tough, against three quality opponents. Maybe a little worn down. I just give [Clemson] credit for coming off the game they came off of (double-overtime loss at North Carolina) having the energy they had.”
Yet Tech had one more day to come off its loss at UConn, and couldn’t summon the toughness to circumvent Clemson’s defensive game plan, which was to keep the ball out of the point guards’ hands.
When I asked Causey and Peacock the question, they said: “We need to come out with more energy. It starts in practice. Coach has been yelling at us all week that we weren’t giving the energy and effort, and it showed tonight. He was right.” — Causey
And Peacock: “It was just a lack of us wanting to play. I wouldn’t say it’s a carryover. “I got to agree with what Matt said [about the Jackets’ energy level in recent practices carrying over]. I guess we didn’t believe it, and it showed.”
But doesn’t this read like there was a carryover into practice this week, and, by extrapolation, into this game?
Two players notes:
Gani Lawal may lose more ground to Peacock. Lawal left Thursday’s game at Clemson with three fouls and no points with 8:55 left. He finished with six points and four rebounds (and four fouls) in just 13 minutes. Over the past three games, he has scored a total of 15 points (including two on one of six shooting in a loss at UConn) with nine rebounds.
Peacock may take a few too many 3-point shots, but he’s become one of the Jackets’ most dependable players. After scoring a team-high 12 points on four of five shooting at Clemson, he’s averaged 13.4 points over the previous five games with double figures in each. He’s also grabbed 26 rebounds, an average of 5.2, and made 25 of 51 shots. That includes four of 12 3-pointers. He’s averaging exactly 25 minutes per game over that stretch.
Gotta go.
I’m bushed, got a nasty drive, and a big day tomorrow.
Matt
Comments
By yellowblood
February 15, 2008 7:37 AM | Link to this
I know Tickle Piles are fun but this team seemed exhausted. Paul should make sure there’s no players participating for at least 2 night before a game.
By RAMBLE ON!
February 15, 2008 8:16 AM | Link to this
No bubble this year, we’ll save it for next. This brand of basketball (Hewitts) is ugly, boring, terrible, and very painful to watch.
By scooter11
February 15, 2008 9:25 AM | Link to this
Clemson IS more interesting than Clemens.
By tubbyz
February 15, 2008 9:52 AM | Link to this
Gassed is right!!!and the man at the pump needs to be fired.
This team has no court prescence, it has no idea how to play the game.
In a few words, why pay a coach when there is no coaching?
TECH swallow your pride and admit your mistake.
Marvin Milquetoast never has and never will be able to lead young men of the calibre it takes to compete in the ACC.
By fred
February 15, 2008 10:04 AM | Link to this
All I know is that certain coaches in the ACC have good programs, others—-Hewitt included—-do not.
Tech will never be a factor in this conference with cph’s coaching philosophy/approach—-he’s weak,inconsistent and WAY IN OVER HIS HEAD!!!
By DanRad
February 15, 2008 10:37 AM | Link to this
Ok guys. Chill out. CPH is doing a fine job. We beat the 3 teams we are trying to beat to stay out of the cellar in VA., Wake, and NC ST. What do you want. We are in the middle of the pack and the AJC itself said a week ago we were a force. We will win again. We have Miami at home Sunday and it will be a barnburner. We have a high School all american from Norcross and he is playing great. He is getting 3-4 per game and a couple rebounds. He is dominating. Did you guys know Causey averaged ovr 20 per game at N Ga. Maybe we just need to schedule better.
By Wrecker1
February 15, 2008 10:51 AM | Link to this
Some of this lack of effort may be Hewitt’s fault and some of it just seems to be the kind of kid TECH recruits. Even in Cremins best years there were plenty of games TECH didn’t show up to play. The same has been true in football and baseball for the past 25-30 years. I don’t know what it is but TECH more than any team/program/school just doesn’t show up to play way too often. I have to give Ugag (and others) credit, rarely do they look like they’re just going through the motions. Curry, Ross, O’Leary, Cremins, Morris, and Hall have all had teams that you just think why did I pay money and waste 3 hours to see this. I love TECH and support the programs but this just seems to be an on going problem.
By GT80
February 15, 2008 10:57 AM | Link to this
When Causey and Peacock are our top players we are in trouble. This team is not good enough to warrant an NC2A bid, even if we do run through the rest of the season with only 2 more losses. Our two best players are our freshmen and they are not potential NBA lottery pick freshmen.
You have to have talent to win and I hate to say this but we just don’t have enough talent right now. And that is partially the blame of Hewitt, but guys that we thought were top players haven’t panned out.
Like Clinch, what has happened to him? He can’t seem to make a shot anymore, or he keeps taking these wild off-balance 3’s.
We’ll play out the string, probably go 8-8 in the conference and go to the NIT. Gotta hope Miller and Gawal grow up and Peacock stops thinking he’s the star.
By RAMBLE ON!
February 15, 2008 11:55 AM | Link to this
Only Bill Lewis is a worse hire than Paul Hewitt.
Paul’s spends more time watching C-Span than watching game tapes. He’s not a hard working coach…I’d go so far as to say he’s lazy.
He started getting heat from the AJC and fans going into the UNC game and he started working harder, won a few, now it’s lazy time and C-span. I say this due to the fact on his radio show, he talks more about that and politics, than BB.
By splitatom
February 15, 2008 11:59 AM | Link to this
I sat right behind the GT bench and had a great view of the game. I don’t think coaching was the problem. I think the problem was that Clemson wore our team down. GT seemed to have been doing their best and actually look somewhat decent with their defense the problem was that they didn’t block out and crash the boards with any effort. On the offensive side I never saw anyone following up their shot or positioning/blocking out for a rebound. Talk about one and done. They also became very unraveled a couple of times in the 2nd half and looked lost. The “mojo” just wasn’t there which is disappointing since I think they appeared to have been getting some. I do think however that Hewitt rotates much too much and disrupts the flow of the game. Clemson was just was heads and shoulders better than us last night. GT players, especially seniors need to step up since we are relatively young and take control. I saw none of that. By not establishing ourselves early last night we seemed to have given up within the first 5 minutes of the game. Very disappointing.
By ben
February 15, 2008 12:57 PM | Link to this
Lawal will probably go pro and be great, leaving us all to scratch our collective heads again and go “huh”? Have you seen Young’s numbers for the 76ers? Because of the “Hotel Hewitt” mad need to rotate early and often, he seems to forget that stars need the ball to dominate. He didn’t feed Young or Bosh, he just treated them as if they were one of ten. With that said, it’s a tough job to come to a mediocre school in the ACC and be expected to win big. And I say mediocre because that’s what we are, whether you like hearing it from Dave Braine or me. That’s why Chan felt like he was doing a good job and so does Hewitt, because it could be a lot worse.
By old gold engineer
February 15, 2008 1:02 PM | Link to this
I know Coach Hewitt likes to emphasize defense and one year that emphasis took GT all the way to the championship team. However, I’m ready to see if an emphasis on offense might be more successful. Nothing wrong with outscoring your opposition even if they score 100.
By RAMBLE ON!
February 15, 2008 1:16 PM | Link to this
ben you’re a moron. Cremins had us in the top three of the ACC almost every year, with 3 ACC Championships, O’Leary had one, Ross had one with a National Championship, and let’s keep Dodd out of it. You embarrass me. If you really do/did go to GT, you’re just wet behind the ears who knows nothing about GT sports.
By still sleeping after all these years
February 15, 2008 1:33 PM | Link to this
another zero start…not slow…zero! Cannot be good for job security.
By GT80
February 15, 2008 2:05 PM | Link to this
RAMBLE, you and I have gone back and forth on hear about Hewitt but don’t start making off the top ridiculous statements like “Hewitt is lazy”. You just can’t be lazy and be a D1 coach, of any caliber.
And Cremins did NOT have us in the top 3 almost every year. He had 3 great years where we were better than 9-7, but for the rest of his 18 seasons we consistently middle of the pack. But I do admit that middle of the pack of the ACC in those days meant you were a pretty good team, and most times would make the NCAA and do fairly well. Today, middle of the pack ACC is the same as middle of the pack for the entire D1, around team 40-80.
And I’ve asked this before, if you want to get rid of Hewitt, who do you think should be our next coach? Please tell me who is a better coach out there that we can get to take over. I’m waiting.
By RAMBLE ON!
February 15, 2008 3:18 PM | Link to this
MARK PRICE, and HEWITTS LAZY relative to all college coaches in the NCAA in all sports. I’m just trying to figure out some other reason why our BB teams play terrible basketball other than Hewitt being a terrible coach…Ok, he’s not lazy, just a terrible coach. You GT80 could coach these guys better. I’m telling you, it’s going to be the same crap next year if he comes back!!!
Yea Price doesn’t have the exp. but, he won’t do worse than this crap.
If you took Cremins first 15 years in the ACC (even those with the rebuilding), he would finish no worse than 3rd overall record. We were in the top half all the way through Marbury. It wasn’t Maryland, Cremins own Lefty, WF till Duncan got there…tell me who was the number 3?
That’s what’s wrong with you, you’ve forgotten how good we use to be…remember 9 straight (I think) NCAA appearances, when it was 48 teams NOT 64?
By old gold engineer
February 15, 2008 3:40 PM | Link to this
I’ve read quite a bit recently about Paul Johnson’s “system” and how it’s worked well everywhere he’s coached. Does Paul Hewitt have a “system” that he relies on? I would suggest that it worked remarkably well in one season at GT. In the past three seasons, it has not produced good results. If the “system” only works well 25% of the time, I recommend changing the system.
I’m willing to give Coach Hewitt a little slack this season due to the personnel losses. But I don’t see this “system” producing championships any time soon. I’m ready to see more emphasis on scoring points.
By ben
February 15, 2008 4:27 PM | Link to this
Ramble, so you are going to hire a guy with no coaching experience and I’m wet behind the ears? Houston already did that with Clyde Drexler and he lasted about a year and a half. Take a look at the past football coaches after Dodd: Bud Carson 1967-1971 .500 Bill Fulcher 1972-1973 .543 Pepper Rodgers 1974-1979 .522 Bill Curry 1980-1986 .423 Bobby Ross 1987-1991 .543 Bill Lewis 1992-1994 .367 George O’Leary 1994-2001 .612 Chan Gailey 2002-Current .578
Your best coach has a .612 winning percentage, translating to a 7.3-4.7 record in todays 12 game schedule. The rest were 6-6 or 7-5. If that’s not mediocre, tell me what is. As for Cremins, he finished with a winning percentage of around .600, so thats a 15-10 average record. As for wet behind the ears, I walked to the Tech games every week from the V, to root for the likes of Lenny Snow and Billy Lothridge, attended Tech’s last final four appearance and follow Tech sports way too closely for my own comfort. However, a .600 winning percentage at football and basketball makes you mediocre. As you have to live with the dawgs, I live with the University of Texas fans, who run an elite program indeed, and Tech’s unfortunately, pales in comparison.