Coaching Carousel 6 - You can't make everyone happy. You are not bacon.

[orientalnc]

There are a few names (Brey, Collins, Hopkins, and kind of Martin) that are at least a little surprising

Maybe we can dream about uga firing Crean and Gregory backfilling in Athens.

 

[orientalnc]

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I would add Jeff Capel to this list if he had not just gotten an extension (for what I will never understand). He has had three losing seasons at Pitt and is facing an uphill job this year. And he left Oklahoma after two losing seasons. So, that's five in a row and likely to be six. And he is making something north of $3million.

 

[brandon_cox]

Same author last year:

Josh Pastner, Georgia Tech
Overall Record: 65-67 (4 seasons)
Contract Situation: Signed a one-year extension in 2017 through 2022-23

Pastner enters his fifth season with the Yellow Jackets still searching for his first NCAA Tournament appearance, and he does so with a team fully capable of reaching the Big Dance. Georgia Tech went to 15 NCAA Tournaments from 1985 to 2010, so there’s certainly some tradition — just not much in the past decade. Current AD Todd Stansbury didn’t hire Pastner, but has stuck by him thus far. Pastner’s buyout is in the $3 million range after this season.

 

[slugboy]

Same author last year:

Josh Pastner, Georgia Tech
Overall Record: 65-67 (4 seasons)
Contract Situation: Signed a one-year extension in 2017 through 2022-23

Pastner enters his fifth season with the Yellow Jackets still searching for his first NCAA Tournament appearance, and he does so with a team fully capable of reaching the Big Dance. Georgia Tech went to 15 NCAA Tournaments from 1985 to 2010, so there’s certainly some tradition — just not much in the past decade. Current AD Todd Stansbury didn’t hire Pastner, but has stuck by him thus far. Pastner’s buyout is in the $3 million range after this season.

If you look back at last year

• We were on probation (technically we still are)
• We hadn't made the NCAAs under his tenure
• Pastner had not been getting the 5* recruits

Winning the ACC and making the NCAAs helped Pastner a lot. If he had missed the NCAAs, I think he'd have been retained, but it wouldn't have been good. To keep last year's goodwill, I think this season's coaching is more important than last year's--he needs to start stringing together good seasons, and get into that Leonard Hamilton range of repeatable strong teams

 

[4shotB]

I think this season's coaching is more important than last year's--he needs to start stringing together good seasons, and get into that Leonard Hamilton range of repeatable strong teams

Can you or anyone else speak to what obstacles are in our way as far as having another good year? I know we lost 2 guys who are going to remembered for a very long time by GT hoops fans which has to hurt but I am curious what the better informed posters have to say about our outlook for the season. We desperately need stability in one of the main 2 revenue sports. The conversations about the coaches rather than the games/players is getting wearisome.

 

[orientalnc]

Can you or anyone else speak to what obstacles are in our way as far as having another good year? I know we lost 2 guys who are going to remembered for a very long time by GT hoops fans which has to hurt but I am curious what the better informed posters have to say about our outlook for the season. We desperately need stability in one of the main 2 revenue sports. The conversations about the coaches rather than the games/players is getting wearisome.

We are deep with very talented players:

DeVoe - 4*
Usher - 4*
Coleman - 4*
Kelly - 4*
Saba - 4*
Smith - 4*
Kyle - High 3*
J Moore - High 3*
Maxwell - NC POY
Meka - High 3*

Did I miss anyone???

If one or more of our bigs breaks out enough to give us quality defense at the 5, I think we will be in the hunt this year for a first round bye in the ACC. Going forward, look for us to be all over any quality big that enters the portal. I love our roster right now and the 2022 needs are narrowly focused.

Early in Pastner's tenure I remember @RamblinRed posting that we had only one ACC level player on the roster. Right now we have an entire roster of ACC level players.

 

[slugboy]

Can you or anyone else speak to what obstacles are in our way as far as having another good year? I know we lost 2 guys who are going to remembered for a very long time by GT hoops fans which has to hurt but I am curious what the better informed posters have to say about our outlook for the season. We desperately need stability in one of the main 2 revenue sports. The conversations about the coaches rather than the games/players is getting wearisome.

Over at Duke and UNC, they’ve been bringing in high 5* players that would be leaders on the team as freshmen. FSU distributes the playing time among players more than we do, so each year is more of a continuation of the previous year. For us, this is a big change.

Reasons for optimism:

1. we have a couple of good transfers coming in, and Smith especially looks promising
2. we have one of the better ranked recruiting classes we’ve seen in years
3. Meka has had a year to heal up. Howard and Saba have had a year of coaching to grow into the 5 role
4. Devoe and Usher are back

Reasons I’m cautious:

1. we leaned heavily on 4 players last year, and it really hurt not having Moses in our NCAA game
2. our 5th player—Bubba Parham—is out for an extended period, so we’re down 3 of our main 5 from last year
3. We didn’t go deep into the bench last year, either in number of players, or in playing time. Kyle Sturdivant was getting about 12 minutes per game. He and Smith are taking over for a player who didn’t really come out. Moore is the player with the most reps of any non-starter, and I haven’t heard a lot of people talking about him taking on a greatly expanded role.
4. Part of it was our slow start last season, but after starting with two losses, we relied heavily on our core players through the non-conference schedule last year. Usually, that’s the part of the season where you go deeper in the bench to develop your bench with game experience.
5. Maybe other teams lose a lot of “returning production” too, but it took us a while to get the chemistry going last season, and we were starting with players who had played a lot together. I think this is a taller task.
6. We have a lot of players that we’re relying on this season that just haven’t had many or any minutes (see chart below). I think that puts a lot of pressure on the coaching staff to get them playing well together for the first game. Pastner even said that he’s going to use a lot of the non-conference slate to experiment with lineups. Howard hardly played, and Saba played even less. Sturdivant had some experience, but last year was more of a “win now” season than a “get our players ready for next year” one. It’d be more of a sure thing if we already knew who could play where

Rk	Player	G	GS	MPV
1	Jose Alvarado	26	26	965
2	Michael Devoe	26	26	909
3	Moses Wright	25	25	882
4	Jordan Usher	26	26	766
5	Bubba Parham	25	14	673
6	Khalid Moore	25	11	597
7	Kyle Sturdivant	26	0	310
8	Rodney Howard	19	2	145
9	Saba Gigiberia	8	0	35
10	Jehloni James	4	0	10
11	David Didenko	5	0	9
12	Tristan Maxwell	1	0	8
13	Jordan Meka	1	0	8
14	Malachi Rice	1	0	2
15	Shaheed Medlock	2	0	2
16	Coleman Boyd	2	0	2
17	Niko Broadway	2	0	2
	School Totals	26		5325

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 11/9/2021.

 

[lv20gt]

Can you or anyone else speak to what obstacles are in our way as far as having another good year?

A lot of people are negative because they are focusing on what was lost in a vacuum rather than what will return, as well as thinking we have to replace what we lost with one to one type replacements.

When looking at the roster and likely lineups I see the following questions.

Rebounding. This isn't so much related to the loss of Moses but more to the fact it was an issue last year and I think will be again by virtue of going with Ush at the 4. He's a decent rebounder but not really someone who goes super hard. Likewise with Moore at the 3. It was a weakness last year and I think it will be this year. FWIW I don't think we'll get much worse. I expect whoever starts to get similar numbers as Moses because some rebounds are just gimmes and just go to the tallest guy, or guy closes to the basket, just by virtue of being there. That being said, unless Ush/Khalid/Deebo become real board crashers it is likely still going to be a weakness.

Scoring - This is less of a concern with having no options scoring. I think we have a good bit. The problem comes from having lineups that we would like to have in for other purposes and whether we'll be able to generate points from them. Specifically, can we generate enough offense with Khalid or bubba on the floor at the 3 spot. Most likely our bigs won't do too much on their own, but perhaps they can be big enough threats off of dump offs and rebounds to make up for it. Or maybe Moore contributes enough himself. Maybe whoever is the PG can be enough of a contributing scorer to make up for it. Basically, will we feel pressured to play Coleman or Kelly to get enough scoring, or will that be something we do when we want to put even more pressure on opponents on that end.

Gel - With as many new pieces as we have how long will it take for us to settle into a normal rotation and get used to playing together.