AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > May
May 2008
Overachieving Jackets nearing regional crown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OK, be honest. Did you think at the start of the season this could be a regional champion Georgia Tech baseball team?
It hasn’t happened yet, but Tech is 2-0 in the Athens Regional and in commanding position to earn what most likely would be a super regional trip to N.C. State. Not only do the Jackets need just one more victory, with two chances to earn it, but they’ll have two of their top four starting pitchers (Eddie Burns and Zach Von Tersch) available to go against Georgia or Lipscomb’s fourth and fifth starters.
Danny Hall and his team would like nothing better than for Georgia and Lipscomb to play a high-scoring elimination game Sunday afternoon to use up even more of their pitching. Already, Georgia had to use Joshua Fields for an inning today.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: baseball
The look of a champion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Tulsa World has some good pictures of Amanda McDowell winning the NCAA tennis championship. They’re part of a slideshow from the whole tournament; McDowell is in photos 105, 106, 115 and 116 at this link.
Incidentally, here’s a look inside the glamorous world of college tennis: Amanda McDowell met her championship match opponent, Baylor’s Zuzana Zemanova, the night before their match. They were doing their laundry at the hotel. Awkward? Not according to McDowell, who said they hit it off.
My colleague Todd Holcomb says he thinks McDowell is the first player who grew up in Georgia to win an NCAA tennis title since Lisa Spain of Moultrie in 1984. McDowell’s achievement is a credit not only to her but to her coaches, including, of course, Bryan Shelton. With last year’s team title and this year’s individual title, Shelton is sure to be highly sought-after. Tech has done well to keep him; it might have to work to continue keeping him.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Post your comment | Categories: tennis
NCAA tournament update
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Catcher Jason Haniger, who hurt his hand in Saturday’s loss to Clemson, is healthy and ready for this weekend’s regional at Athens, Tech coach Danny Hall said today. Haniger was able to practice Monday and Tuesday and swung the bat well on Tuesday, Hall said.
Hall is sticking with David Duncan (7-3, 4.47 ERA) as the Friday starter. Duncan had a rough outing last week at the ACC tournament, but the other Yellow Jackets pitchers didn’t exactly shine, either. Before that trip to Jacksonville, Duncan had allowed only one earned run in three of his previous four starts.
The interesting decision for Hall will come in Saturday’s game, especially if Saturday’s game is against Georgia. Freshman Deck McGuire pitched against Georgia three times this season; his results: 2-1, 3.37 ERA, 22 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings pitched. Do you pitch him again in what would arguably be Tech’s most important game of the year? The advantage: He has been effective against UGA, so he should be confident, and the matchups seem good. The disadvantage: UGA has seen him three times already, and batters generally benefit from familiarity with a pitcher.
The alternatives are Eddie Burns, who had the best ACC tournament outing of any Tech starter but has been subpar in six of his past eight starts, and Zach Von Tersch, who has been on-again, off-again for the past month.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: baseball
Back to Athens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A few thoughts on Georgia Tech’s regional draw:
The matchup with the No. 1 seed could be a lot worse. After all, Tech did beat Georgia two out of three this season. Then again, that was against midweek pitching, not weekend pitching.
If you’re a believer in momentum, Georgia has to have among the worst of all the No. 1 seeds, having exited the SEC tournament 0-2 after losing its final SEC series against Alabama.
Tech might never get to play Georgia. Louisville’s ace is an excellent left-handed pitcher, and the Cardinals are hot. Though they were the fourth seed in the Big East tournament, they might be one of the stronger No. 3 seeds out there in the NCAA tournament, at least with their game-one pitcher. The numbers on Justin Marks: 9-1, 2.21 ERA, 85.2 IP, 66 hits, 32 runs, 21 earned runs, 35 walks, 85 strikeouts.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment | Categories: baseball
Jackets lose, wait for NCAAs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech left the ACC tournament without its 40th victory but with an ugly 10-4 loss to Clemson, instead.
I’ll be writing a story about how bad the Jackets’ pitching has been and what the situation is now with the NCAA tournament, whose regional sites are announced at 7 p.m. on Sunday and whose field is announced on Monday. A victory today cerrtainly would have improved Tech’s chances of hosting.
Here’s the as-it-happened blog of today’s game.
Derek Dietrich’s two-out single drives in Charlie Blackmon with the game’s first run in the Tech half of the first.
Eddie Burns on the mound for the Jackets.
It’s early, but Clemson looks like what it is, a not-very-good team with nothing to play for.
I’m perusing Baseball America’s list of the top 200 prospects for the draft. Blackmon is No. 142. David Duncan is No. 151. Blackmon is a terrific story; a year ago he wasn’t a prospect at all, but over the summer he switched from pitching to hitting. He’s got speed, he’s hitting .384 and now he could be gone as high as the fourth round.
Well, the storyline of this tournament, too many walks by Tech pitchers, plays out again. Burns loses Mike Freeman on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the third, and Jeff Schaus makes Burns pay with a two-run home run. Clemson 2, Tech 1, through 2 1/2.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Post your comment | Categories: baseball
Meaningless game? No way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech plays Clemson on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. with both teams knowing they have no way of winning the ACC tournament championship.
But that doesn’t mean this game isn’t important. Here are three reasons it’s a big deal:
A victory gives Tech a 40-win season and should go a long way toward firming up the case for a regional in Atlanta. The NCAA announces the regional sites on Sunday. The Yellow Jackets started the week sixth in the NCAA’s Ratings Percentage Index and surely wouldn’t drop by going 2-1 in Jacksonville, with victories over RPI No. 10 N.C. State and RPI No. 24 Clemson and a loss to RPI No. 2 Miami.
A Tech victory over Clemson eliminates N.C. State from ACC championship game contention and guarantees Tech will do at least as well this week as the Wolfpack. That could be significant, as N.C. State is a rival in the competition to host one of the 16 regionals.
A victory gives the Yellow Jackets some positive momentum heading into a regional. The alternative is a two-game losing streak.
If Tech wins and N.C. State beats Miami, all three teams will finish 2-1. In that case, Miami advances due to its superior regular-season conference record. That tie-breaker is one of the flaws of the ACC tournament format. So is the fact that it leads to games in which one or more teams know they no longer have a chance to win the tournament.
It’s the price the ACC is willing to pay for a format that guarantees each team at least three games and no more than four. That’s an ideal number for coaches who care more about setting up their pitching staffs for next week’s regionals than finding the fairest method of choosing a conference tournament champion. Settle-it-on-the-field systems, such as an eight-team double-elimination tournament or two four-team double-elimination brackets with a single championship game, can wreak havoc on pitching.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment | Categories: baseball
Beesball, BCS/Bowls and a random thought
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mike’ll probably blog more later on Tech being eliminated from the ACC tournament (you walk nine, and they walk two — especially when a team hits like Miami — and you’re not going to win very often).
Here’s a quick thought, though, driven by a BRILLIANT blog by Tony Barnhart:
Why not go back to the straight bowl system, with conference alliances if you want them, and then do a plus one?
Sure, there’d still be controversy, but that’s not going to end. It’s just not. No way, no how, even if there was a playoff.
And Tony did a brilliant job of pointing out why presidents/commissioners are standing their ground.
So go back to the bowl system of yore, and the best two teams (subjectivity will remain an issue, of course) and play one more.
Whether you retain the numerical rating system that picks participants or amend it, I don’t know, but what about it?
And will Tech sign another basketball player this spring. Talk about a tough recruiting circuit. The Jackets have been digging dirt without getting any deeper for a long, long time now.
Matt
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment |
Miami eliminates Tech 15-12
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It has been two wild days of baseball for Georgia Tech. On Tuesday, the Yellow Jackets beat N.C. State with two amazing comebacks — a five-run eighth to take the lead, and then a two-runs-on-no-hits-and-three-errors ninth to re-take the lead.
Tonight, Tech gets the tying run on a wild pitch and the go-ahead run on a throwing error on the same play in the eighth inning, then sees Miami win thanks to a three-run homer in a four-run ninth.
That eliminates Tech from the tournament. Miami will finish no worse than 2-1 in the four-team round-robin, and Tech will finish no better than 2-1, and Miami would have the head-to-head tie-breaker. In the event three teams finish 2-1, the tie-breaker is best regular-season conference record, and Miami would win that tie-breaker.
If N.C. State loses to Clemson later tonight, Miami clinches. N.C. State could finish no better than 1-2, Miami could finish no worse than 2-1, and Miami would have the head-to-head tie-breaker over Saturday’s Clemson-Georgia Tech winner, which would finish 2-1.
Tech’s loss tonight also eliminated Clemson.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Post your comment | Categories: baseball
McGuire no-decision sets up tourney rotation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall confirmed what the statistics suggested: He really has a four-man rotation. Freshman Deck McGuire, a midweek starter during the regular season, started today’s ACC tournament opener against N.C. State.
McGuire got a no-decision in his shortest start since March, just 4 2/3 innings. He allowed only one earned run but five overall, and he walked four.
David Duncan, Eddie Burns and Zach Von Tersch started ACC games during the season, and they will all get starts if Tech makes it to Sunday’s championship game. Rather than bring back Duncan on five days’ rest, Hall chose to go with McGuire today. Now, Tech has its normal rotation for the rest of the tournament, with Duncan pitching today against Miami.
Would Hall use the same approach in a regional? Probably not. Asked about it, Hall said that with Duncan pitching today he’ll have eight days until the opening game of the regional, one day more than his normal rest.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: baseball
Calvin Johnson finds way to give back
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you knew anything about Calvin Johnson and his family, you knew he would find a way to get involved in some way with kids back home. The only question was how he would choose to do it.
I got at least part of the answer in an e-mail today announcing a free football camp for 40 Atlanta area high school receivers. The camp, for 9th- through 12th-graders, will be July 19 and led by Johnson, who played three years at Georgia Tech and was a rookie last season with the Detroit Lions.
Athletes must apply for a spot, and there’s not much time.
Students can e-mail their name and address to cjjrf@yahoo.com or mail it to P.O. Box 1015, Tyrone, Georgia, 30290. All application requests must be received by Monday.
Johnson also intends to fund an unspecified number of scholarships for receivers who did not get college scholarships.
Permalink | Comments (55) | Post your comment | Categories: Football
Radakovich to Washington? No
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech athletics director Dan Radakovich would be a logical candidate for the opening for an athletics director at the University of Washington. Mark Emmert, president of the UW, was chancellor at LSU when Radakovich worked there, and Wayne Clough, who hired Radakovich at Tech, is leaving to head the Smithsonian Institution.
But there’s nothing to it. Radakovich said he isn’t interested in the job and hasn’t been contacted.
“I have the greatest respect for Dr Emmert … we had a great time and did many positive things (due to his leadership) at LSU, but I am very happy here at Tech,” Radakovich said by e-mail Wednesday afternoon.
That’s good news for the Yellow Jackets, because having an athletics director opening now would be tricky without a president in place. Radakovich is busy negotiating a new marketing deal with ISP (and, if that doesn’t get done, potentially with some other company). He is also in the second year of implementing the Tech Fund program, in the middle of constructing a softball stadium and working on various other renovations and projects.
Tech’s Deck runs for Dog-catcher
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Freshman Deck McGuire has had one heck of an introduction to the Peach State’s biggest rivalry.
On April 9, he struck out seven and allowed four hits in 5 2/3 innings to beat Georgia 9-4. Last Wednesday, he was even better, striking out nine, walking none and allowing four hits and one run in 7 innings of an 11-1 victory at Georgia.
He is the first Tech pitcher to beat Georgia twice in a season since reliever Matt Saier did it in 1995. He is the first Tech starting pitcher to beat Georgia twice in the same season since Brent Colson in 1992.
Has any Yellow Jackets pitcher beaten the Bulldogs three times in a season? When last we asked, Tech was still checking. It’s not likely. Nobody would have had an opportunity since 1971.
McGuire hasn’t just been good against Georgia. He has been good against everybody. He’s 8-0. If he looks good again against Georgia, the SEC champion, don’t be surprised if Danny Hall moves him to one of the top spots in the rotation for the postseason. If I were Hall, I’d consider pitching him in one of the first two games of the ACC tournament.
When I asked Hall about shaking up the rotation, he said only, “He’s going to have to pitch a game in the ACC tournament if we’re going to win it.” That, of course, would be true wherever McGuire fit into the top four spots. The way the ACC tournament works, there are two, three-game round-robin brackets with the winners of each bracket playing for the championship. That’s four games for the two bracket winners.
If you save McGuire for the fourth game, and he doesn’t get to pitch, have you wasted one of your top pitchers? OTOH, if you save him for the fourth game and he does get to pitch, does the advantage that might give you in the championship game outweigh the risk of waiting?
Here’s one reason to move him into the round-robin portion of the tournament: If you don’t get him a start, he will sit more than two weeks between Tuesday night’s start and the NCAA regionals. You have to give him a turn to avoid that long layoff.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: baseball
A farewell to champions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They sometimes call each other “Granny,” so maybe the Bill Moore Tennis Center has been Grandmother’s House. And Kristi Miller and Whitney McCray are about to leave it for the last time.
Saturday’s second-round NCAA tournament match will be the final home appearance in the All-America careers of Miller and McCray. With them, Tech has won an NCAA championship, two national indoors, three ACC tournament championships and four ACC regular-season championships.
Miller plans to begin a pro career in June, with trips to Mexico and Australia in the fall. But she’s not so eager to see her Tech career come to a close.
“It almost feels like a part of me is going to be missing,” she told me. “That will be difficult. I love the team environment, and these girls are my best friends.
“You almost want to pause it and have it for awhile.”
That’s not an option, of course. They leave a lot of talented players behind them, and one heck of a coach, and Tech has two strong incoming freshmen. But make no mistake; an era is ending.
Plenty happening on The Flats
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Campus may be nearly dead, as school’s out at Tech, but it’ll be busy this weekend. If you’re looking for a pleasant, low-stress way to spend time, there’s tennis and baseball aplenty.
The defending national champion womens tennis team (19-5) begins defense of its title with a noon match Friday against Alcorn State (13-12). Tickets are $5 for adults, $3 for students and children. Tech is seeded No. 3 nationally, behind Northwestern and Georgia. A win there matches the Yellow Jackets Saturday at 1 against the winner of Friday’s 3 p.m. match between Illinois and Tennessee.
Great atmosphere if you’ve never been, particularly if the weather is nice. Parking will be far more plentiful than it was for the spring football game. Seriously.
The netters, led by All-Americans Kristi Miller (who graduated last Saturday with a 4.0 GPA and a 32-9 singles mark this season) and Amanda McDowell (36-8) will later send a Tech-record five players to the NCAA singles tournament (Miller, McDowell, Whitney McCray, Kirsten Flower and Maya Johansson).
The baseball team has kind of been treading water in the ACC (12-12), but the Jackets have a huge series at home against Clemson, which is way down from most years (looking at first sub-.500 ACC record since 1972). Tickets are $5 for adults, and $3 for seniors and children. They play at 7 on Friday and Saturday, and 1 on Sunday.
Tech is trying to win the right to host a regional, maybe even a super regional, and needs to perform well over the final seven games.
Check out freshman SS Derek Dietrich, and converted pitcher Charlie Blackmon, now a hot-hitting OF. And 3B Brad Feltes is a great example of player development, a senior who has ramped up his production dramatically in his final season.
Have fun.
Did UGA beat Tech, or did both win?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are two ways to look at how Georgia and Georgia Tech performed in the academic progress rate figures the NCAA released on Tuesday. I reported it as a win-win; both schools exceeded the NCAA minimums in every sport.
I could have reported it this way: Georgia beats Tech in the highest-profile sports of football and men’s and women’s basketball. (But Tech stomps Georgia in baseball.)
Or I could have reported it: Georgia wins the SEC academic championship in football, comes in second in men’s basketball and places third in women’s basketball (but finishes in the bottom 40 percent nationwide in baseball). Tech finishes sixth in the ACC in football, 10th in men’s basketball and 11th in women’s basketball (but ranks in the top 20 percent nationwide in baseball).
I’ve chosen that path before, and it has some validity. Here’s why I didn’t this time: The world of the APR is pretty much a pass/fail world, and now that there are actually some schools that are failing, that’s where the news is. (In the first couple of years of the APR, there was almost zero in the way of penalties, but the rules got tougher as the NCAA did away with a fudge factor in the penalty process.)
The academic progress rate measures how many scholarship athletes stayed eligible and in school through graduation over the most recent four-year period, from 2003-07. It does not measure how difficult the courses were or whether players had legitimate reasons to leave school. (For example, Tech’s figures will be hurt next year because Colin Peek transferred. He had a pretty good reason to go, as a tight end whose position disappeared with Tech’s change in football offenses.)
An indignant Georgia Southern fan e-mailed me complaining that I didn’t tell the whole story. The Eagles, he said, will turn around their football APR under Chris Hatcher, who was coach for just one of the semesters in the four-year period for which the most recent APR was calculated. The fan blamed the two previous coaches.
Every situation is different, which is one reason the people who created the APR cringe a bit when they see comparisons among schools. Still, people compare.
So here are the numbers, Georgia vs. Tech, for football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball:
Football: UGA 965, Tech 951. Men’s basketball: UGA 958, Tech 931. Women’s basketball: UGA 971, Tech 957. Baseball: Tech 974, UGA 927.
Permalink | Comments (112) | Post your comment |
Sorting through football matters
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Scattershooting …
Interesting tidbits on the first football depth chart under coach Paul Johnson.
Surprised to hear of developments with Joe Hamilton.
First, on the depth chart …
Bryce Dykes, former walk-on, is No. 2 at QB behind Josh Nesbitt. Calvin Booker is No. 3. Not a shock, based on Dykes’ performances in spring, and all the evidence you need to say Paul Johnson is starting with a clean slate, and going from the ground up.
But there’s more evidence. Three players who started all or parts of last year who were injured this spring are not listed as starters, but potential starters. At strongside linebacker, the starter is listed as redshirt freshman Kyle Jackson OR returning starter Shane Bowen — who missed all spring after shoulder surgery. Anthony Barnes is moving from strongside to weakside, where he’s listed as starter. Brad Jefferson is No. 1 at MLB. At LG, it is Jason Hill OR A.J. Smith, who started some at RT last season. At RG, it is redshirt freshman Joseph Gilbert OR Cord Howard, who started some at RT last season. Howard missed all spring after leg surgery, and Smith was very limited by his troublesome elbow.
Other interesting developments: The experiment moving WR Greg Smith to B-back is not over. Roddy Jones is listed as one starter. At the other spot: Jamaal Evans OR Greg Smith. The starting WRs are Demaryius Thomas and Correy Earls. Backups are freshman Tyler Melton (the only freshman on the depth chart, as he participated in the spring) and Zach Fisher.
Punter and kicker spots remain up for competition.
Jerrard Tarrant, a redshirt freshman from Carrollton, has beaten out Mario Butler for a starting CB spot, at least for now.
Dominique Reese is listed as the No. 1 free safety, with Jake Blackwood behind him and redshirt freshman Willie White No. 3.
David Brown, the much-traveled David Brown, remains No. 1 at RT, ahead of redshirt freshman Clyde Yandell. Paul Johnson told me last month he really likes Brown, and that Yandell has considerable work to do. He played defense only until his senior year in high school, when he moved to offense. I think that guys going to be very good when he figures out what’s being asked of him.
The O-line does not appear remotely deep, particularly with the transfer of Trey Dunmon and the “retirement” of Jacob Lonowski (recurring shoulder problems). If A.J. and Cord are slow to bounce back from their injuries, depth becomes more of an issue even before a game is played.
On Hamilton, who was arrested Monday night near campus for some sort of a situation that the police report suggests may have involved alcohol, marijuana and a possible hit & run … I’m almost speechless. Don’t know what to say. Tech just hired him (despite rumors out there for weeks and weeks) nine or 10 days ago.
See story on website for more.
Later.
Permalink | Comments (71) | Post your comment |
With Bennett’s transfer, the NCAA gets it right
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sometimes, common sense wins out in college sports, and it appears to be happening with transfers like Taylor Bennett’s.
I checked with the NCAA about Bennett’s transfer to Louisiana Tech to see how common such transfers are. Remember that the NCAA’s member schools overrode a rule allowing players like Bennett, who graduated from their original school, to transfer and play immediately at another Division I-A school. That wasn’t the end of it, however.
Those who voted to override the rule were worried it would create a system of free agency, where players who were able to graduate before exhausting their eligibility would be “re-recruited” by other schools.
“I think the fear is exaggerated,” NCAA president Myles Brand said in a 2007 podcast.
And so, essentially, Brand and the NCAA created a workaround. The waiver process Bennett used to be able to play at Louisiana Tech has been used successfully by about 30 Division I athletes since July 1, 2007, NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson told me. That’s actually more than took advantage of the graduate student transfer rule in the one year for which it applied.
“For any individual who has legitimate academic reasons to transfer after graduating, we will grant it,” Brand said.
Determining what is a “legitimate academic reason” is a case-by-case process. Whether to grant a waiver is based on “why the student-athlete is transferring, whether the specific graduate degree is offered at the previous institution, and whether the previous institution supports the waiver,” Christianson wrote in an e-mail.
Do I think there is some fiction at work here? Yes. If Chan Gailey were still Georgia Tech’s coach, I bet Bennett would have found a graduate program at Georgia Tech that suited him just fine, at least for the one semester he’d need to play his senior season. Or maybe he would have taken a different course load this spring and extended his undergraduate career through the fall.
But at least the waiver process tilts the equation back in favor of the athletes. When that happens, the NCAA is getting something right.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Post your comment | Categories: Football
Johnson’s take on the O-line
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m here at the Cobb Galleria listening to Georgia Tech’s coaches on the first stop of the Spring Coaches Caravan. Beforehand, I spent a few minutes talking with golf legend/football coach Paul Johnson.
After congratulating him on his hole-in-one, I asked him a bit about the offensive line. Cord Howard, he said, probably will begin the preseason practices at guard. Howard, you’ll remember, missed spring practice because of a broken foot.
The biggest surprise came when I asked him about depth at center, where Dan Voss is the center but Trey Dunmon, his presumptive back-up, is transferring. Nick McRae, the freshman from Dublin, is one option, Johnson said, and I nodded my head. Then: “A.J. Smith might be a guy,” he said, and I wasn’t expecting that. Smith, 6 feet 7, 299 pounds, is huge for a center.
Johnson saw my reaction. “He was one of the quickest guys off the ball,” Johnson said.
Another option, he said, might be Omoregie Uzzi, the 6-3, 291-pound freshman from Chamblee.
Other tidbits from the Caravan:
—Tech’s Lewis Clinch has bounced back quickly from minor postseason knee surgery, Hewitt said. (An earlier version of this blog misidentified the player.)
—Tech’s women’s basketball team will play an early-season game at Connecticut on ESPN, coach MaChelle Joseph said.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: Football
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
