The NCAA’s ruling that Georgia Tech guards Josh Okogie and Tadric Jackson will have to sit six and three games, respectively, is a win for the Yellow Jackets.
The NCAA’s guidelines call for athletes who receive impermissible benefits in the amounts that Okogie and Jackson did to be suspended nine and six games, respectively, before being reinstated.
However, the reinstatement staff is instructed to review factors that might increase or decrease an athlete’s culpability, and to reach an outcome that is fair and considers the athlete’s well being. Tech officials provided what they believed were mitigating circumstances, and evidently the NCAA agreed with that position.
It also would suggest a confirmation of Tech’s version of the events that coach Josh Pastner did not know about the violations until after they had occurred, which was challenged by the man who identified himself as the source of the benefits, Ron Bell of Arizona.
From a competition perspective, the scheduling works out fairly well. Jackson and Okogie did miss the UCLA game – a game Okogie would not have played regardless due to his dislocated finger. Tech withheld both after finding the violations, and it will count towards the suspension.
Jackson will also miss Sunday’s game against Bethune-Cookman and next Wednesday’s game against Texas-Rio Grande Valley before returning for the North Texas game.
Okogie will miss those two games plus North Texas, Northwestern and Grambling State before returning (if healthy) for the Tennessee game December 3.
Of the five games, four would seem winnable without Jackson or Jackson and Okogie, the lone exception being Northwestern, which was picked to finish fourth in the Big Ten in a preseason media poll. All four schools (Bethune-Cookman, Texas-Rio Grande Valley, North Texas and Grambling State) finished with RPI rankings in the bottom 37 of the 351-team Division I.
And the Northwestern game is hardly to be chalked up as a loss. The Jackets nearly beat UCLA without either player and with a lineup that relied heavily on freshmen playing the first games of their careers.
It’s hardly unreasonable to think that Tech could pull that out, particularly playing at McCamish Pavilion and with Jackson back in the lineup.
On the other hand, for the two more games that Tech will be without Jackson and the other four that the Jackets will be without Okogie (besides Northwestern), it’d be difficult to count any as a sure thing. Given the struggle that the Jackets can have scoring, Tech isn’t necessarily a candidate to win any game running away.
It won’t be a surprise if, in coming weeks, Pastner invokes the example of Tech’s near loss to North Carolina A&T as an example of his team’s razor-thin margin for error. North Carolina A&T finished second to last in RPI but led the Jackets as late as the 4:30 mark. (It continues to baffle that, in back-to-back games, Tech nearly lost to the second worst team in Division I and then beat the eventual national champion.)
The next five games will provide great experience for guards Brandon Alston and Curtis Haywood to produce without Jackson and Okogie. Neither played great against UCLA, but it’s one game and both have shown that they can score, though what Pastner wants from both is to focus on finding ways to contribute without the ball and let scoring be a byproduct of that approach.
And if they can gain that experience without the cost of a loss, so much the better for the Jackets.
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