Arizona HC Search and Pastner Implications

Jacket Forever

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",,,He might not be the greatest coach but...
Let's give CJP his 'propers'. A 5th place ACC finish in 2020 and a 4th place ACC finish along with a ACC Tournament CHAMPIONSHIP in 2021 say to me that he's a darn good coach. I am sure glad for us that he's not the coach at Arizona this morning. Thanks for doing a great job, Josh Pastner!
 

Techster

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Let's give CJP his 'propers'. A 5th place ACC finish in 2020 and a 4th place ACC finish along with a ACC Tournament CHAMPIONSHIP in 2021 say to me that he's a darn good coach. I am sure glad for us that he's not the coach at Arizona this morning. Thanks for doing a great job, Josh Pastner!

Pastner is a lot better coach than most give him credit for. He's the type of coach GT needs in terms for this period in college basketball: someone that can develop players (Moses, Jose, Usher, Devoe, Banks, Lammers, etc), has good X's and O's (check out our offensive and defensive metrics over the years), and can recruit well/find diamonds in the rough. Obviously there were questions about all three when he got here, and it's been some rough periods to get to this point, but if you look at where we were when he got here, where we are now, and the potential of this program going forward, it's hard to argue that Pastner hasn't checked those 3 boxes since he came here.
 

iopjacket

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Let's give CJP his 'propers'. A 5th place ACC finish in 2020 and a 4th place ACC finish along with a ACC Tournament CHAMPIONSHIP in 2021 say to me that he's a darn good coach. I am sure glad for us that he's not the coach at Arizona this morning. Thanks for doing a great job, Josh Pastner!
IMHO, he relates to his team very well and they play hard for him. Recruiting has improved. CJP is fairly young with time to learn additional skills.
 

SecretAgentBuzz

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Let's give CJP his 'propers'. A 5th place ACC finish in 2020 and a 4th place ACC finish along with a ACC Tournament CHAMPIONSHIP in 2021 say to me that he's a darn good coach. I am sure glad for us that he's not the coach at Arizona this morning. Thanks for doing a great job, Josh Pastner!
Yeah, it didn't mean to sound harsh or against Pastner. I just recognize that he isn't a Hall of Fame coach, and that's ok. He had a great year, and I am ready to give him credit for that. The point of my post was how thankful I am that he didn't move on, not because he is irreplaceable, but because the timing would have been quite unfortunate for the program. I am thankful that he is still our coach and can't wait to see next year's team. The potential is there to repeat the success of this year.
 

Jacketman99

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IMHO, he relates to his team very well and they play hard for him. Recruiting has improved. CJP is fairly young with time to learn additional skills.
Speaking of fairly young, we have the youngest coach in the conference. I think it is possible Pastner took a little time to learn and develop as a head coach and we have started seeing the benefit of that. His only real weakness at this point has been high school recruiting until this last class. Hopefully he can keep putting together top 25 classes.
 

AUFC

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Yeah, it didn't mean to sound harsh or against Pastner. I just recognize that he isn't a Hall of Fame coach, and that's ok. He had a great year, and I am ready to give him credit for that. The point of my post was how thankful I am that he didn't move on, not because he is irreplaceable, but because the timing would have been quite unfortunate for the program. I am thankful that he is still our coach and can't wait to see next year's team. The potential is there to repeat the success of this year.
He's not a Hall of Fame coach yet, that is true but a 30 year career at Georgia Tech with multiple national championships should do the trick I'd think.

Unironically though, I do see Josh as the next breed of K/Roy/Leonard Hamilton/Boeheim in the ACC. There hasn't been a time since 2016 that he hasn't struck me as genuinely humble. You can hear it in his voice during GT:60 shows w/ Demetra that he sees coaching in the ACC as the pinnacle of his career. I feel like he feels like he's made it here at Georgia Tech. And on the flip side, I haven't seen any signs that Stansbury doesn't want him to stick around. You can tell his teams love him by how hard each one of them has played defense over the past half-decade. It's almost as good a feeling as winning to know that your team cares.

Tl;dr: Alcohol fueled post that Pastner will win a national title in his 30 year career at Georgia Tech.
 

MidtownJacket

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He's not a Hall of Fame coach yet, that is true but a 30 year career at Georgia Tech with multiple national championships should do the trick I'd think.

Unironically though, I do see Josh as the next breed of K/Roy/Leonard Hamilton/Boeheim in the ACC. There hasn't been a time since 2016 that he hasn't struck me as genuinely humble. You can hear it in his voice during GT:60 shows w/ Demetra that he sees coaching in the ACC as the pinnacle of his career. I feel like he feels like he's made it here at Georgia Tech. And on the flip side, I haven't seen any signs that Stansbury doesn't want him to stick around. You can tell his teams love him by how hard each one of them has played defense over the past half-decade. It's almost as good a feeling as winning to know that your team cares.

Tl;dr: Alcohol fueled post that Pastner will win a national title in his 30 year career at Georgia Tech.
Hell, let’s win a few!
1618540902379.jpeg

Cheers
 

ESPNjacket

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He's not a Hall of Fame coach yet, that is true but a 30 year career at Georgia Tech with multiple national championships should do the trick I'd think.

Unironically though, I do see Josh as the next breed of K/Roy/Leonard Hamilton/Boeheim in the ACC. There hasn't been a time since 2016 that he hasn't struck me as genuinely humble. You can hear it in his voice during GT:60 shows w/ Demetra that he sees coaching in the ACC as the pinnacle of his career. I feel like he feels like he's made it here at Georgia Tech. And on the flip side, I haven't seen any signs that Stansbury doesn't want him to stick around. You can tell his teams love him by how hard each one of them has played defense over the past half-decade. It's almost as good a feeling as winning to know that your team cares.

Tl;dr: Alcohol fueled post that Pastner will win a national title in his 30 year career at Georgia Tech.
You lost me with K and Boeheim being mixed with "humble." 😉

Pastner has really grown on the job at GT. If you watched tape of his Memphis and GT teams side by side you'd swear that had to be a different head coach.
 

MWBATL

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You lost me with K and Boeheim being mixed with "humble." 😉

Pastner has really grown on the job at GT. If you watched tape of his Memphis and GT teams side by side you'd swear that had to be a different head coach.
How much of the credit should go to his assistants, and not the head coach? I believe this became apparent with Hewitt after his national championship run, when the Clogged Toilet Offense (CTO) and Couldn't Inbound the Ball OOB play became famous (or infamous, I should say).
 

tsrich

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How much of the credit should go to his assistants, and not the head coach? I believe this became apparent with Hewitt after his national championship run, when the Clogged Toilet Offense (CTO) and Couldn't Inbound the Ball OOB play became famous (or infamous, I should say).
Even if it's due to the assistants, I have more faith that Pastner will make good replacement hires when the time comes. I think Hewitt saw himself as a mentor and hired a lot of less experienced coaches after the FF run
 

ESPNjacket

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How much of the credit should go to his assistants, and not the head coach? I believe this became apparent with Hewitt after his national championship run, when the Clogged Toilet Offense (CTO) and Couldn't Inbound the Ball OOB play became famous (or infamous, I should say).

A lot. But unlike Hewitt, I think Pastner has incorporated knowledge from his assistants that has become part of his toolbox. Hopefully, he values having good assistants and will continue to make sure that is the case.

I really don't want to open up a Hewitt discussion, those are the worst, but he openly said that part of his job was giving young guys a chance in the industry. This was post-2005 and we know what happened then.
 

4shotB

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Even if it's due to the assistants, I have more faith that Pastner will make good replacement hires when the time comes. I think Hewitt saw himself as a mentor and hired a lot of less experienced coaches after the FF run
My take on CPH is that the FF made him felt as he had arrived so he let his foot off the gas and dabbled in his favorite past times such as mentoring. The contract made it such that he really didn't have to work anymore. Seen this is the private sector when guys felt like that hade it made.
That is what is so astonishing about guys like Coach K, Bellichik and Saban. They still coach as if they are young and have something to prove. Obviously a rare trait in any profession.
 

Pointer

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My take on CPH is that the FF made him felt as he had arrived so he let his foot off the gas and dabbled in his favorite past times such as mentoring. The contract made it such that he really didn't have to work anymore. Seen this is the private sector when guys felt like that hade it made.
That is what is so astonishing about guys like Coach K, Bellichik and Saban. They still coach as if they are young and have something to prove. Obviously a rare trait in any profession.
That's the trick to a happy work life isn't it? Finding something you are passionate about vs doing something for financial security. It's pretty apparent that if you do the first one, the latter will follow.
 

RamblinRed

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I think Pastner has grown alot as a coach. Frankly he probably wasn't ready at 31 to lead a program like Memphis. I think he has continued to learn and grow and hopefully that will continue.
Given that Hardy was the one who brought the original office and LaBarrie had his hand in the defense, to see how we have continued to use and evolve over the last 5 years is a good sign to me.

I'm hoping we will continue on an upward trajectory, but the next 2-3 years will give us a better sense of that.
 

MtnWasp

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Pastner was certainly not ready for the Memphis job. heck, he didn't even apply for the position. The story is that when the Memphis AD called in Pastner to his office to offer him the job, Pastner arrived in shorts and a tee-shirt having no clue that the AD was going to ask Pastner to take the position.

And based on the off court incidents in the first year and a half here, there is a strong argument to be made that he wasn't ready for an ACC level position when he took the GT job. Bobinski did a lot of hand holding in the long process to hire a staff.

On the other hand, 5 years is a good body of work and adequate sample size to know what we have. The on the court results and quality of play are there for all to evaluate. Although he did not make the quantum jump in recruiting that many assumed was needed to turn the corner, he has steadily upgraded roster talent since he has been here, with next year being no exception.

The question that all GT fans want to know is what is Josh Pastner's ceiling? Are we at the pinnacle before inevitable ups and downs or does the booster rocket have more fuel? Does the program have insufficient fuel to attain stable orbit or do we flame-out on re-entry? Are we destined for a low earth orbit or high earth orbit?

Personally, I don't see any signs that his booster rocket is out of fuel. Looks like we are still on ascent.
 

Jacketman99

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Pastner has lost assistant coaches but his teams have continued to improve. I think he has learned things from the other coaches and developed an overall philosophy for what he wants his teams to look like. He is adaptable. Doesn't think he is the smartest guy in the room. In a way I am glad he has had success without hitting the homeruns in recruiting. I think that forced him to be a better coach. I have been impressed with the X's and O's. Now he has started to bring in more talent which hopefully will lead to sustained success.
 
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