It was 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, and Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner was in bed but still awake, responding to text messages. One came in from a friend at Memphis.
It was a reminder that, after losing to Syracuse to end the regular season and to Pittsburgh in the ACC tournament, Tuesday night’s 75-63 win over Indiana in the opening round of the NIT staved off a three-game losing streak. Why someone would text Pastner in the middle of the night to inform him of that fact probably requires some explanation.
Expected to be among the weaker power-conference teams in the country, the Yellow Jackets have gone the whole season without a three-game losing streak. And the win over Hoosiers means that Pastner can still claim that, after eight seasons, he has never suffered a three-game losing streak as a head coach.
Among the five power conferences, only two coaches can make the claim that they’ve made it through the past eight seasons without a three-game losing streak. Pastner is one, and the other is Kentucky coach John Calipari, for whom Pastner worked one season at Memphis.
