A Few Early Impressions

Boomergump

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I have watched every game on TV so far. Obviously, the 2014-15 Jackets are a completely retooled team. Here are some initial impressions.

I like the aggressiveness of our guys down low. The body types are a little different than what we are used to with Miller and Holsey. We will not get pushed around, by anybody. However, the lack of length may cause some matchup problems in certain games. Cox and Mitchell should be a physical duo and Sampson provides a little length and athleticism.

Quenton Stephens is growing as a leader. He has matured from a timid player to one who looks to carry the team at times. He reminds me of Harpring in this regard. In a sense, he has come out of nowhere to take, and make critical shots. He is still slight, but the range he has shown, combined with his height will cause teams problems. He is pretty athletic.

Tadric obviously has a lot of skills. He can score the ball and create things in a way that no recent jacket has been able to do. However, right now, he acts as if he is the only Jacket on the floor and he has an 8 second shot clock to work with. That kid needs to settle down and just get in the flow of the game a little and rely on his teammates some. He wants to prove himself so bad that he is a detriment. He just needs to stop forcing everything and he will be fine.

I like Heath. I think he plays with a high IQ. He sees the floor, keeps his mates involved, and takes good shots while passing on the bad ones. To me, he looks like a kid whose dad is a coach.

Jorgensen looks more physical. I think he has an everybody but me first mentality, almost too unselfish. I hope his knee gets back to 100 percent so we can see what he truly can do. I don't like his shooting motion, but I have seen some crazy ones be very effective before.

I am intrigued, but not yet super confident. On the surface it still looks like a struggle to finish in the middle of the league. Points will be a little easier to come by than last year. Hopefully the offensive chemistry will be good. I feel we will rebound the ball and we have some quality depth. Lots left to determine.
 

alaguy

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the best pts of the team so far--
1.May have a real SHOOTER in Q-- a threat most nights,he just has to look for shot
2.we won't be bullied in the paint much at all, good thing we can get OFF rebs because there are lot of chances
3. Heath--when is the last time (ever?) that a Tech PG went 14 assts with 0 TOs in 2 games? and he would have more if we could shoot well

worse
1.FTs, DUH! 44% last game , and not just Cox - if not improved,we can forget winning close games
2. general Off and shooting , we will see a lot of zone , other Greg teams looked the same but maybe this group will improve with time together
3. outside def might be a problem vs good teams

the best hope--
if MGH and Q both get aggressive/dangerous/hot ,we could have a decent Off to go with decent DEf and rebing
 

dtm1997

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If we end up in the 6-10 range in the ACC with 18 wins in total, I think we'll have overachieved a bit and consider this season a success.
 

orientalnc

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I am intrigued, but not yet super confident. On the surface it still looks like a struggle to finish in the middle of the league. Points will be a little easier to come by than last year. Hopefully the offensive chemistry will be good. I feel we will rebound the ball and we have some quality depth. Lots left to determine.

This is perfect. @Boomergump expressed my general feeling as well. I am concerned that we do not play better defense, especially in the paint. And, we have not played anyone with truly athletic big men, which will be a test for Mitchell and Cox when it happens.

If we end up in the 6-10 range in the ACC with 18 wins in total, I think we'll have overachieved a bit and consider this season a success.

To get 18 wins, we have to win 10 OOC games or play .500 in the conference. I think I did this earlier, but look at the schedule.

We will not win the Orlando tournament, so there is one loss. I think we will beat Northwestern, but our last three OOC games after finals will be a test. Dayton on the road will the hardest win from what I can see right now, but Charlotte worries me a lot. We will have a better read on them after tonight. Let's hope we hold service on the lesser lights and are 9-3 entering the ACC schedule.

We will rightly be double digit underdogs to ND on the road, Syracuse at home, Pitt, UVA, Miami, Duke & UNC on the road, then Louisville and UNC at home. There are nine games where we are likely losers, which means we need to win all the rest to finish at .500. Of the other nine ACC games, two are on the road. Fortunately, one is at Clemson. Of the remaining home games, the best we can say about ND and NC State is that they will not be easy. Maybe we will get lucky and win one of the underdog games, split with ND & NCSU at home, hang on in the other winnable games. That is our formula for 18 wins. It means we do not lay any eggs against people like App State or Clemson or VPI, and manage to keep Oliver Hanlan from beating us single handed.

BTW, as I write this, BC is behind by five at home against of Dayton.
 

GT_ATL

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I don't see us with fewer than 8 ACC wins this year. We have a top notch frontcourt with impressive depth, and the guards aren't the dumpster fire they were last year.

  • We should sweep Clemson
  • Home vs BC will be a win
  • We'll at least split vs ND
  • Home vs Florida State is probably 75-85% a win
  • Likely sweep Wake, no worse than a split
  • I'd give us a 40-50% chance of us beating Syracuse
  • No idea what NC State has this year, but we have them at home
And that's not counting road games we could conceivably steal against Pitt or Miami. There's a lot of mediocre past the elite ACC teams and we have the pieces to string wins together unlike last year. I think 6 or fewer wins is a fireable offense for Gregory. ACC has elite high end teams but it's nothing special past them.
 

orientalnc

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I don't see us with fewer than 8 ACC wins this year. We have a top notch frontcourt with impressive depth, and the guards aren't the dumpster fire they were last year.

  • We should sweep Clemson
  • Home vs BC will be a win
  • We'll at least split vs ND
  • Home vs Florida State is probably 75-85% a win
  • Likely sweep Wake, no worse than a split
  • I'd give us a 40-50% chance of us beating Syracuse
  • No idea what NC State has this year, but we have them at home
And that's not counting road games we could conceivably steal against Pitt or Miami. There's a lot of mediocre past the elite ACC teams and we have the pieces to string wins together unlike last year. I think 6 or fewer wins is a fireable offense for Gregory. ACC has elite high end teams but it's nothing special past them.

I hope you are right. Next week should give us a better read on the team.
 

dtm1997

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I agree. Next week will tell us a lot about this year's team.

I'm planning on a loss this wknd of some sort, Dayton (I like our guards, I think Dayton's has a better group), & will make a call on Charlotte after this week. Northwestern is in the same rebuilding position as us, but younger. Vandy has some solid youth, but I'm hopeful we'll be amped at home to avenge last year's terrible reversal of fortune. Can't slip up on USC Upstate or App State, which are our remaining buy games.

Let me reiterate, I'm not saying we'll finish between 6th-10th place in ACC with 18 total wins or more. I do think that's a reasonable goal to chase after though and probably above everyone's expectations.
 

dtm1997

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Gonna revise that to 7th-10th place. I think UNC/dook/Ville are opening the season at an elite level. UVA are just outside that group, but have upcoming games to show they belong with those first 3. Miami is starting out excellently and I think ND is opening quite well. Based on those 6, 7th-10th place finish is my revised reasonable goal that would probably exceed our expectations.
 

orientalnc

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Gonna revise that to 7th-10th place. I think UNC/dook/Ville are opening the season at an elite level. UVA are just outside that group, but have upcoming games to show they belong with those first 3. Miami is starting out excellently and I think ND is opening quite well. Based on those 6, 7th-10th place finish is my revised reasonable goal that would probably exceed our expectations.
You think we could finish ahead of Pitt and Syracuse?
 

dtm1997

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I don't know, but I do think each will have their own challenges to deal with. Also, I'm not predicting a 7th-10th finish for us just yet. Just a reasonable goal for the team to chase.
 

Connell62

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Gonna revise that to 7th-10th place. I think UNC/dook/Ville are opening the season at an elite level. UVA are just outside that group, but have upcoming games to show they belong with those first 3. Miami is starting out excellently and I think ND is opening quite well. Based on those 6, 7th-10th place finish is my revised reasonable goal that would probably exceed our expectations.

Based on that goal, I think that we would need to beat one of the aforementioned teams to get there.

Best opportunity for that would be at McCamish against Notre Dame on 1/14.
 

Connell62

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I don't wanna put too much weight onto one game, but I think this Marquette game is going to be a huge pendulum for our Jackets this year. If we are able to pull out a W on Thursday night, I think that it will really bolt these guys forward and give them the confidence that they can have a good season. Even if we were to lose to Michigan State (whose not your MSU of year's past) the next day, I think that we could come out with the W on Sunday and move forward strong.

That leaves big games against Dayton, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and perhaps Charlotte. The Flyers are proving that they will once again be a solid team this year, and it would take a huge effort to win that one, and while winnable, Northwestern seems to have our number, but I think that we take care of business against the Commodores and 49ers. With all that said, here is my projection for the remainder of the schedule after a big swig of Kool-aid

Optimistic Outlook 10-2
Marquette - W
MSU (most likely) - L
Santa Clara or Tenn. - W
Northwestern - W (able to win a close one on the road using confidence gained by playing well in Orlando)
USC Upstate - W
App State - W
Vanderbilt - W (easier than expected)
Dayton - L (Dayton back court just too much)
Charlotte - W (Jackets come out hot looking to get bad taste out of their mouth and rite ship before ACC)

More Realistic Outlook (9-3 if we beat Marquette or 8-4 with a loss)
Marquette - ?? (toss up)
MSU (most likely) - L
Santa Clara or Tenn. - W
Northwestern - L (able to win a close one on the road using confidence gained by playing well in Orlando)
USC Upstate - W
App State - W
Vanderbilt - W (easier than expected)
Dayton - L (Dayton back court just too much)
Charlotte - W (Jackets come out hot looking to get bad taste out of their mouth and rite ship before ACC)
Optimistic outlook 10-2

My only concern is with our ability to find a consistent scorer in the back court. Having Q step up and provide a lift scoring wise has been good, but this is all new territory for him, and I think that it is dangerous to expect that level of point production to continue. We either someone else to step up (Tadric or Jorgensen) or, we must continue getting stat lines from the PG position like we did last Friday (17 pts 10 *** 3 to's) and than we should be okay.
 

Connell62

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I've never been big on the RPI, polls, and all that jazz, but while I was looking for information on Marquette's opponent last night, I came across the Massey Index. Many people consider the Massey Index to be the most accurate tool in projecting team strength. Nonetheless, I thought it might be interesting to some to see the Massey Index ratings for GT and our opponents thus far:

Georgia Tech - 61

UGA - 76
Alabama A&M - 444 (Yikes)
IPFW - 167
Marquette - 117
Northwestern - 83
USC Upstate - 181
App State - 330
Vanderbilt - 88
Dayton - 37
Charlotte - 93

Only a couple of what I could consider "cupcakes" (A&M, App State) on the schedule. This gives us an opportunity to build a pretty decent resume if we take care of business. Hey, don't read too much into that, I'm just saying!!
 
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RamblinRed

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I believe this early in the season most of the rankings still have a tie to last season, so take things for what its worth.
After watching Marquette play NJIT last night i would rank them below IPFW but above AL A&M in terms of ranking.
 

orientalnc

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Some thoughts:

Northeastern is ranked 83; Northwestern is 127

Santa Clara is 154, Tennessee is 72.

And App State beat VPI last weekend.
 

orientalnc

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I believe this early in the season most of the rankings still have a tie to last season, so take things for what its worth.
After watching Marquette play NJIT last night i would rank them below IPFW but above AL A&M in terms of ranking.

Agree. I was not even aware the computer rankings were available before Christmas.
 

alaguy

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One BIG question yet to be answered is-how do we play on the road? some can rip last yrs team but we didn't "freeze up" much on road.We lost decently mostly. The Offense/shooting is the biggest concern.If nobody is hitting outside nor FTs ,things could go south fast.
Having Heath and Jorg hopefully means we don't give up easy TOs.So there is hope.
 
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