Georgia Tech has added three more games to its non-conference schedule. They likely won’t send Yellow Jackets fans racing to put down season-ticket deposits, though.
Tech is in the process of finalizing home games against James Madison, Longwood and Mount Saint Mary’s, coach Josh Pastner confirmed Tuesday night. The games were first reported Tuesday by Jeff Goodman of Stadium. Pastner did not have dates for the games.
On the surface, it’s a rather light-hitting trio. In NET rankings, James Madison finished at No. 280, Mount St. Mary’s at 299 and Longwood at 302. On the 2019-20 schedule, Tech played one Division I opponent that finished with a NET lower than No. 280, Bethune-Cookman at 286. (The Yellow Jackets also played a game against Division II Morehouse.)
After the combination of point guard Jose Alvarado’s ankle injury and a rigorous non-conference schedule left Tech at 6-6 at the start of the bulk off the ACC schedule last season, Pastner said the games are not part of a plan to find less competitive opponents.
“Everyone we play is a hard game,” he said. “Everyone is well-coached. We’re no juggernaut that we can show up and win.”
By the metrics of KenPom, Tech’s non-conference schedule was rated the second strongest in the ACC, behind only North Carolina. The Jackets played five non-conference games against teams that finished in the top 100 in NET – Houston, Kentucky, Arkansas, Boise State and Georgia.
Pastner said that it is his plan to assemble a non-conference schedule as challenging as last season’s. Beyond the benefit of meeting the NCAA tournament selection’s preference for teams that challenged themselves in non-conference play, playing the likes of Kentucky and Houston benefited the Jackets by preparing them for ACC play, Pastner said.
Tech is scheduled to play Kentucky at State Farm Arena, Georgia at McCamish Pavilion, Stanford in a neutral-site game in New York and also will have a Big Ten/ACC Challenge game. In addition to the games against James Madison, Mount St. Mary’s and Longwood, Tech has four more non-conference games to schedule in addition to the 20 ACC games.
Pastner and associate head coach Eric Reveno have been communicating with teams from high-major conferences for potential games.
“I think we’ll have another (game against a high-major opponent),” Pastner said.
Pastner did recognize that the Jackets will need to do better against whatever non-conference opponents they play. Non-conference losses to Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ball State and Houston before New Year’s went a long way toward taking themselves out of NCAA tournament contention even before they had begun the meat of the conference schedule.
Had Tech won perhaps two of those games, it would have put the Jackets in much better position to contend for a tournament berth after finishing 11-9 in the ACC, their first winning record in league play since 2004.
That did prove fortuitous, though, as athletic director Todd Stansbury elected to withdraw the school’s appeal of its NCAA postseason ban as the Jackets had no chance of making the tournament short of winning the ACC tournament. Had Tech been in better position to play in the tournament for the first time since 2010 and not withdrawn its appeal – Tech was eligible for the postseason as long as the appeal was still being processed – the bid would have been squelched by the cancellation of the tournament because of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, Tech would have now been in the position of trying to win its appeal with the NCAA to be able to play in the 2021 tournament. Instead, its penalty served, Tech is clear to play for the tournament in 2021.
“As we see, the game in November counts just as much as the game in March,” Pastner said. “That’s something that’s another step for us in our progression of trying to get to the NCAA tournament.”
Pastner did acknowledge that Tech great Kenny Anderson, now the coach at Division II Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., has inquired about the possibility of playing an exhibition game against the Jackets. Pastner has leaned toward scheduling in-state teams for preseason games, “but we would like to take care of Kenny if it works out,” he said. “But we haven’t even finished out the regular-season (schedule).”
All of Tech’s plans have been made with the realization that there is no certainty as to if and when the games actually will be played.
Said Pastner, “There’s a lot of moving parts in college athletics right now.”
A previous version of this story did not include Tech’s game against Stanford.
About the Author
