Let’s be clear: By recent Georgia Tech standards, this is a pretty good team. Let’s also be clear about this: It’s not nearly as good as it should be.
The Yellow Jackets haven’t played an ACC game decided by more than eight points. They’ve won one of six. The players have changed over these past few years, but there’s your constant: In close games, Tech remains terrible.
At this late date, that’s worse than being lousy across the board. If you have a coach of 4 1/2 years’ standing and his team is getting blown out on a nightly basis, any athletic director will say, “Time to cut bait.” Tech under Brian Gregory isn’t getting blown out. It wasn’t last season, either. It just isn’t winning often enough.
On Saturday, Marcus Georges-Hunt described Tech’s goals as “winning the ACC championship and making a long run in the NCAA tournament.” At 11-8 overall and 1-5 in league play, the Jackets aren’t even on the Big Dance bubble. They could maybe make the NIT, but that’s a steppingstone tournament for teams building toward something. If, after five seasons, the best Gregory can do is an NIT appearance — in Years 1-4, his Jackets haven’t even managed that — he has failed.
Thanks to a heapin’ helpin’ of transfers, Tech is a remarkably seasoned aggregation. Against Louisville on Saturday, the Jackets started two seniors, two grad students and a third-year sophomore. Their first substitute was a fifth-year senior. Meaning: Gregory’s best Tech team is fighting the clock. None of its four leading scorers will be back. Two of those four weren’t here last season.
Tech’s incoming recruiting class isn’t ranked among the nation’s top 40 by ESPN. There’s always the chance the Jackets will find more transfers, but is that a sustainable model? Hoping somebody falls in your lap and gives you a year? (Transferring cuts both ways: The best player Gregory has signed — Robert Carter Jr. — is averaging 13.2 points for Maryland, which entered play Saturday ranked No. 7 in the land.)
OK, to Saturday's game: If you saw Tech lose to Louisville here in February, you pretty much saw this one. The Jackets played an excellent first half against a Brand Name opponent and were in Position A to post a meaningful victory. (They led by seven at the break Saturday and by eight with 13:43 remaining.) Being the Jackets, they lost.
If you were playing one college basketball game for the fate of mankind, Rick Pitino might be the second guy you’d want coaching it. Gregory might be the 350th. This one was tied with 61 seconds remaining. Anas Mahmoud, a 7-foot sophomore sub from Cairo — the one in Egypt, not Georgia — was about to try free throws. He entered the day as 40.9 percent foul shooter and had missed three of four already, so there was a chance the game would stay tied. Even if it had, Louisville still figured to win. Because Tech’s halfcourt offense had just fouled out trying to block Mahmoud’s shot.
That would be Georges-Hunt, who finished with 23 points in 28 minutes. Without him, the Jackets’ only offensive prayer would be to fling a ball at the backboard and hope somebody in a white shirt tipped it in. As it happened, Tech’s next trip didn’t look even that refined. (Mahmoud made both free throws, surprising even himself.) The Jackets fanned the ball around the perimeter until Tadric Jackson lost it to Damion Lee. Quentin Snider’s free throws sealed it.
Biggest possession of the game. Tech doesn’t even get a shot. Seen that before? Tired of seeing it? You’re not alone.
After Tech blew a 13-point lead against Louisville last season, Pitino called Gregory “a top-15 basketball coach in this country.” This time the Hall of Famer said: “(Tech’s) coaching staff takes away and knows what we run better than any team in the conference.” So there’s one guy presumably in favor of keeping Gregory — the guy who keeps beating him.
Fair or not, coaches are judged on wins and losses. Gregory is 20-56 in ACC regular-season play. The best team he has had is 1-5 in its league. It plays hard and sometimes well. It just doesn’t win often enough.
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