Last season was giddy. This has gone ghastly. Georgia Tech, which reached the NIT final in March 2017, has lost nine of 10 and mightn’t win again. (Circle the date: Wake Forest here March 3.) The Yellow Jackets won 21 games in Josh Pastner’s first season; they’ll have to work not to lose 20 this time.
With every loss, Pastner hammers his latest Talking Point – that he said all along that Year 2 would be the hardest of this rebuild. But in the wake of Saturday’s 76-56 trouncing by Virginia Tech, a good team not among the ACC’s upper crust, we need to ask: Should it have been this hard?
Georgia Tech was the only ACC team to return three players who averaged 12 points. Of those three, two were suspended; two have been hurt and two have disappointed. Two Jackets – Ben Lammers and Josh Okogie – were voted to the preseason all-ACC team, which was two more than Virginia managed and one more than North Carolina.
“The injury bug has killed us,” Pastner said Saturday, and here we call roll: Freshman point guard Jose Alvarado and sub Curtis Haywood II are lost for the season; Okogie hurt his thumb in an exhibition loss to Georgia State, an injury softened by his six-game suspension for receiving impermissible benefits, and Lammers hurt his ankle in November and hasn’t been half as good as a year ago.
“Obviously we’ve had other things to deal with,” Pastner said, and here he meant the bizarre-beyond-belief saga of his fractured friendship with Ron Bell and Jennifer Pendley. Pastner is suing them for defamation; Pendley is suing him, alleging sexual abuse/harassment. (Pastner denies all her claims.) It was Bell’s impermissible benefits that got Okogie and Tadric Jackson suspended.
There’s your Georgia Tech season – injuries, suspensions and litigation, not to mention a team that’s 11-16. Given that the Institute is investigating Pendley’s claims, Pastner should feel lucky not to have been placed on administrative leave. As sunny as last season was, the sequel has been that wretched.
Said Virginia Tech coach Buzz Williams: "I don't think anybody has had to go through what they have the past eight months."
Pastner: “I think fans in the long run can see what we’re trying to do. … We had one guard on the roster (when he took the job). In that ’17 recruiting class, we missed on a lot of guys. This year we have a top-30, top-35 class. (247 Sports’ composite index has it 34th.) What we need to do in ’19 is to have a great class. We’ve got to continue to increase the numbers.”
Then: “I think fans see that and understand that. This year we’ve been snake-bit, obviously. It’s important next year they see the continuation of the growth, that we’re knocking on the door of postseason play.”
As ever, Pastner is a passionate and persuasive advocate. Up until now, he hasn’t seemed overmatched in the rarefied ACC. (He was the league’s coach of the year as a Tobacco Road rookie.) That said, the product on display Saturday would have been substandard in any major conference.
The Jackets trailed by as many as 35 points. Twice the Hokies doubled the score – at 64-32 and 68-34. Spanning both halves, Georgia Tech went 8:27 without a basket, 11:54 with one. Three Virginia Tech players had four assists each; the Jackets as a team had nine.
Briefly channeling Reggie Miller in Madison Square Garden, Jackson made three 3-pointers in the first 3:14. The Jackets wouldn’t make another until 1:06 remained. Georgia Tech made three of its first four trey tries; it missed the next 19. Okogie and Jackson were a combined 8-for-31 from the field, 3-for-17 on 3-pointers. Lammers authored this first-half line – 13 minutes, no points, one shot, one rebound, one assist, one turnover.
Said Williams: “I thought ‘44’ (Lammers) would shoot it more.”
Pastner: “I probably should have sat Ben for three weeks (in non-conference play). If I had it to again, that’s what I’d do.”
Lest we forget, the Jackets lost to Grambling State, Wofford and Wright State in pre-ACC play. With suspensions and injuries, it would have been nigh-impossible for the Jackets to achieve the sparkle of last season. Still, nobody saw this coming.
Said Pastner: “There’s no question in my mind – we will get the program where it needs to be. I have zero doubts. I have 100 percent faith. We’re going to get this program back (to postseason play) where it won’t be a one-time appearance.”
Then: “Tech has been great in the past, and we will get there. … It’s going to happen. It’s just not going to happen overnight.”
Last season bought Pastner the benefit of many doubts, but last season can’t be the new standard of excellence. Even Brian Gregory took Tech to the NIT. And the way the Jackets looked Saturday recalled the abject ineptitude of Gregory’s first season. This was really, really bad.
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