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To GT. I like Coach Hewitt, and I hope he stays at Tech. But I don’t know if the facts support that he “has proven he can coach.” I totally agree that much of the responsibility rests with the players. Great description - it is like watching Reggie Ball play hoops. But I am beginning to think Hewitt is a Bobby Cremmins type of coach - get a lot of raw talent, throw it on the court, and hope they can sustain two or three great runs per year. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it drives you crazy. It is absolutely not a recipe for consistent, winning basketball. This year he has a bad team, and does not seem to know what to do to remedy the situation. Yes, he went to the final four. But he also went 500 with the third pick in the NBA draft. Remember, Bosch was quoted as saying there was nothing left to learn at Tech. Translated, that means there was no offensive strategy that consistently put the ball in his hands when games were on the line. Not much has changed - we still do not have an identifiable offensive strategy. Hewitt himself has admitted he didn’t do a very good job last year. And we all can see that this year’s team is either not being coached, or (much more likely) not responding to that coaching. When a team does not listen, learn, and improve, that is coaching - just not good coaching. Finally, he does not think it is his responsibility to motivate 19 year old kids who are losing heart right in front of our eyes during their difficult apprenticeship in the ACC. Again, I like Hewitt and hope he stays, but I also think he has a long way to go to become the coach we want him to be. I think things will get better, but they would get better faster if he was a better coach. Just my thoughts.
Take heart, the yellow jackets will have a fine team next year and will push for an ACC title. Jackets were one player, Austin Jackson, away, this year. Hewitt has done a nice job since his arrival. Zam will look mighty good as a sixth man scoring punch next year.
Hewitt has proven he can coach, the question of whose to blame has to go on the players. Danm it’s like watching Ball play basketball. The coach thinks he has got the point across and can advance to other subjects and boom, the athlete transgresses back to the same bad habits that we thought were in the past. Sometimes talent makes the head harder. The individual talent makes the team secondary, he thinks he can do it by himself. This young team has too many players that fit that desciption. At a place like Carolina or Duke the player comes there to fit into a system, maybe not the case at Tech.
being at the MD game, it was frustrating to see GT consistantly go to the corner for an inbounds pass while under a full court press. MD basically gave them that pass and then doubled teamed, and GT fell for it every time - forcing them to have TO’s - turnovers or time outs. You would ‘think’ they would have learned after the first one, two, three, etc, times it happened!
Previous Hewitt teams have been notable for improving as the season goes along. Has this team really improved? Is Morrow really up to ACC play? Not only was he two for 10 from three, but two of those misses were in overtime, during which he committed two fouls. In addition to Morrow, can you say that Smith has improved? Is Hewitt instructing them and they are just not getting it? I’d like some comments. Finally, its looking like 4-12 to me, and what’s all this talk about doing well in the ACC tournament?? Such optimism!!!
The students will get to storm the court Wed night.
What i was really trying to say, before my post was added prematurely, is that the jackets are looking pretty good (in terms of draw, not play) heading into the ACC tournament if they can actually hold onto the 11th seed. I think that means hopefully beating Wake or Clemson, and then losing the rest. 4-12 ought to be good for the 11 seed. As the 11 seed , you would open up in with the 6-11 matchup, which could be FSU, UVA, MD, or Miami, all winnable games. If you win that, you would advance to play the 3 in the quarters and 2 in the semis if the brackets where true. Any of those I would consider winnable games in a down acc this year. As the 11 or (10), you would not have to play DUke until the CHampionship (hopefully someone knocks them off). As you can see, its better to be 10,11,12 seeds as opposed to 8 or 9, because you avoid the Dukies. WIth that being said, lets be realistic, its a long shot. YOu heard it here first.
Dook 88 Tech 61
Hey “K”
The Jackets are actually placed pretty nicely in the ACC tournament
Hey, said the same about the heels game…
Tech still has a shot for one more win since they have a home game against Wake Forest who is the only team that has looked worse than Tech this year. This will be the game to decide last place in the ACC and a chance to avoid losing to Duke in the ACC tournament.
The Duke game is a no hoper. Put it in the book, Duke wins by 25 or 30 points. Tech has won its last game(over NC State) this season.
Tech played a team to overtime on an away court, that kicked them pretty good at home,only a few weeks ago, that’s improvement. This team has some talent, Hewitt has said it and you can see it. Watching Duke last night against Miami they used the pick much better in the back court to get ride of a defender. Our guys leave too much room between them and the pick, where the defender can get between the pick and stay on the ball handler. It drives me crazy to see all the Tech players rushing up the backcourt to get in position for the offense and not looking back to see if their teammate needs some help. It’s like a parent not watching his kids when they are playing near traffic.
re DOOK…I’m sure JJ will be trying to score another record…If I could design anything for this game, I would box and one on JJ and worry him to death/at least make him anxious/and make the other dookies beat us. If we play our normal (?) game, they WILL! The season is already in the hole, so have some fun with this game.
Matt, you are correct. Ga. played Ga. State at Gwinnett. My mistake.
I wasn’t covering the team then, and screwed up.
Matt Winkeljohn
They played UGA at the Stegasourass, not at Gwinnet Arena. CHeck your facts. UGA played GA. State at Gwinnet Arena. They may have counted the Air Force game at a neutral site, because that was moved off campus.
ND, I could not agree more. Jeremis missed an opportunity to dunk the ball, or get fouled at the end of the game. I’m not a super athlete, but no way I’d have given up the ball with 3 seconds to go and 4 feet from the hoop. That’s another big problem the Jackets have….not knowing the situation of the game on the fly. Sure coming off a timeout they know what to do, but during the flow of the game they lose all consciencousness. Hence the lack of concern for the shot clock.
I’ve said all along that the guards on this team are afraid of the ball for some reason. They constantly pick up their dribble in bad court positions and they never come back to the ball when a teammate is in trouble. It’s like they don’t want the pressure of handling the ball. Jarret Jack wanted the ball in his hands and wanted to penetrate. They need to find someone with that confidence and killer instinct. They also have a problem with on the ball defense. How many times have you seen the opponent’s ball handler dribble up the court quickly, but instead of a Tech defender in front of him, they are trailing in his hip pocket? Since when is a guy who has to dribble the ball faster than the entire Tech defense? That is a problem that needs to be rectified with sprints, until everyone is puking. That’s how you remedy that type of poor defense.
I’m just waiting for Winkeljohn to blame the refs.
As for the Jackets number ONE whiner, I wish Hewitt would devote more time to working with his team instead of working the refs.
The question is why in the heck did Jeremis pass the stinkin ball instead of dunking it or at least drawing a foul at the end of regulation? The game should have never gone to OT.
I wonder what was the planned play in the last half minute of OT…dribble, pass, and runout the clock? You might have thunk we were ahead! And, for the 800th game in a row, we cannot get the ball inbounds/across the time line….NIT my *!
Just saw the Maryland game. I have been buying the conventional wisdom that Tech had a ton of talent and just lacked a good point guard and some time to mature. Sorry, that is not the case, at least not the team I saw today. They are just a bad team. Period. Some folks say they are better than the record shows. Sorry, that is not the case. They are a bad team. I saw a team that had no offensive plan, allowed the Terps to beat them off the dribble all day long, and absolutely could not inbounds the silly ball if their life depended on it. This was a team that looked totally lost, and lacked any manner of self-confidence. Either they are being taught and are not learning, or they are not being taught, but either way they are bad. The best thing was Hewitt finally getting angry - but he was angry at the wrong folks. He should have crawled all over the players who insisted on throwing the ball right into the Maryland trap time after time after time. Maryland is not a good team, and Tech made them look great today. This team needs much more than a point guard. It needs a total makeover - physical, mental, emotional. It needs direction and a heart transplant. I wish it was as simple as “get one or two more players and a year’s experience and then watch out” but it’s not. This is a bad team, badly coached. The record speaks for itself.
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