Article Jackets head to Miami to take on St. John's

Jackets head to Miami to take on St. John's

KNOXVILLE, TN – NOVEMBER 13: Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets guard Michael Devoe (0) takes a shot over Tennessee Volunteers guard Jordan Bowden (23) during a college basketball game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on November 13, 2018, at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, TN. (Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Coach Josh Pastner’s Jackets remain on the road this week. After dropping a game to Northwestern in the ACC/B1G challenge, they head down to Florida to play an undefeated St. John’s squad on Saturday. The contest is being called the Air Force Reserve Hoop Hall Miami Invitational and tips at noon EST on ESPNU.

St. John’s is one of 17 remaining undefeated teams in the NCAA and is currently ranked 46th by KenPom. This game will mark the first time St. John’s has played outside of the NY/NJ area this year. The Red Storm currently rank 245th in strength of schedule and their highest rated opponent, according to KenPom, is Rutgers. Despite the poor schedule and their ability to score in bulk (83 points per game), their average margin of victory is only 11.5 points.

The Red Storm are led by dynamic junior point guard Shamorie Ponds who averages 2o points, 5.2 assists, 3.3 assists per game. Going back to 1992-93, he is the only St. Johns player to have a season of 550 points, 100 assists, 65 steals and less than 10o turnovers. He has done it twice. He is joined this year by high scoring Auburn transfer Mustapha Heron, who was granted immediate eligibility by the NCAA. Heron is currently averaging 18.2 points and 6.2 rebounds. He is also shooting 43.5% (23 attempts) on the young season. As a team St. John’s shoots an impressive 38% from three. LJ Figueroa, a budding star for Coach Chris Mullin, shoots 54% from deep on the season.

As mentioned, St. John’s is coached by former Red Storm superstar Chris Mullin. As a player, Mullin appeared in 125 games, averaged 19.5 points and won the Big East Player of the Year award for three straight seasons. His coaching acumen thus far has been a bit underwhelming, having yet to lead his alma mater to an above .500 season in his first three tries. His record coming into the 2017-18 season was 38-60.

This is an interesting match-up for Georgia Tech. The Johnnies are a live by the three, die by the three team and the Jackets currently rank 14th in the nation in three point percentage against at 25.7%. The good guys only give up 59 points per game, good for 16th in the nation. The contrast in styles is one of the most intriguing parts of this contest. St. Johns is 56th in adjusted tempo (KenPom), while Georgia Tech is currently 190th.

The KenPom metric currently gives St. Johns a 73-70 edge. If Georgia Tech can maintain their defensive intensity and put together a complete game on the road they have a chance. The Red Storm have yet to really play anyone of consequence, while the Jackets have played two opponents inside the top 50 (Kenpom) and both on the road. The Jackets hold the edge as far as being battle tested.

Georgia Tech needs to defend and they need to shoot it. Stop me when this sounds familiar. It is always a grab bag when this program goes on the road. I guess we will just have to see what we see.

 

[GTRX7]

Most frustrating game of the season so far for sure. Talent and coaching are definite problems. The double technical was a big turning point for the game. Thought there were a bunch of really bad calls down the stretch that hurt us to be honest. But, as others noted, what killed us was terrible offensive identity and lots and lots of hero ball. We need to have some players that can make threes to win games and we still don’t. Seems like the 10th year in a row of saying that with the exception of Adam Smith.

Going to be a really really long year with not much optimism for next year. : (

 

[GTRX7]

Also really felt like the announcers were blatantly pulling for St Johns, which did not help my viewing experience.

 

[BigDaddyBuzz]

Also really felt like the announcers were blatantly pulling for St Johns, which did not help my viewing experience.

glad I wasn't the only one that thought this.

 

[lauraee]

I think the biggest thing is that this program needed someone that could come in after Gregory and significantly enhance the talent level. Pastner was supposed to be a very good recruiter, but who knows what has happened there. It will be interesting to see how Capel does at Pitt, as they have had a very nice start to their season.

I thought the timing of the Gregory firing was awful & sasquatch didn't have any replacements lined up. Face it there was very little interest in the tech job. IIWII

 

[GT_EE78]

was certainly disappointed with the crappy play at crunch time especially forgetting to go inside with a height advantage.
cjp did adjust since the NW game, phillips/gueye got less minutes and Moore/Moses/Alston/banks got more.
Heyward pulling another 0-fer should get him more pine time. There's two practice games to get ready for Ark/UGA.
I'd sure like to see them work moore/Devoe into the offense , they disappeared in second half. need to win both sec games to have momentum entering acc play.

 

[slugboy]

was certainly disappointed with the crappy play at crunch time especially forgetting to go inside with a height advantage.
cjp did adjust since the NW game, phillips/gueye got less minutes and Moore/Moses/Alston/banks got more.
Heyward pulling another 0-fer should get him more pine time. There's two practice games to get ready for Ark/UGA.
I'd sure like to see them work moore/Devoe into the offense , they disappeared in second half. need to win both sec games to have momentum entering acc play.

Haywood scored 5 and had one assist. Devoe played longer and scored 5 points and had 1 assist. I don’t think Haywood was unusually bad; I thought he was OK. It’s just that no one was good from outside.

Banks however had 12 rebounds, 1 assist, and 14 points. More of that would be awesome.

One problem is that we shot 19% on 3s and 45% overall. To me, that says we either need to get much more accurate outside, or play inside more.

Also 16 turnovers—16!

St Johns got 20 defensive rebounds and we got 8 offensive rebounds, but our front court guys should have had the advantage. Am I wrong to think we should have done better there?

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/matchup?gameId=401082900


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[GT_EE78]

Haywood scored 5 and had one assist. Devoe played longer and scored 5 points and had 1 assist. I don’t think Haywood was unusually bad; I thought he was OK. It’s just that no one was good from outside.

Banks however had 12 rebounds, 1 assist, and 14 points. More of that would be awesome.

One problem is that we shot 19% on 3s and 45% overall. To me, that says we either need to get much more accurate outside, or play inside more.

Also 16 turnovers—16!

St Johns got 20 defensive rebounds and we got 8 offensive rebounds, but our front court guys should have had the advantage. Am I wrong to think we should have done better there?

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/matchup?gameId=401082900


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was referring to heywoods 0-4 on threes but yea that was also a team feature . I think the rotation is slowly evolving in a positive direction and i won't complain if he goes with the hot hand. Maybe just put some hand warmers on the sideline.

 

[Peacone36]

I thought the timing of the Gregory firing was awful & sasquatch didn't have any replacements lined up. Face it there was very little interest in the tech job. IIWII

Should have been fired the year before but the buyout would have been higher, mostly due to Bobblehead resetting the buyout.

Bottom line is if we want to be a successful basketball program we need to stop shopping in the Walmart $5 DVD bins.

Make a quality hire. Support your coaches. Don’t be a doormat. Don’t be content with cashing other programs checks. If you can’t get behind that, drop down to the Sunbelt and take a shot at the auto bid. Even then, programs recruit better than us (GaST) and have had coaches far better than ours (Hunter, Beard)

 

[AE 87]

As others have said, we can turn it around, but let's be real based on what we've seen so far.

We don't have shooters who reliably hit open shots.

Coaching can only do so much. I'm not the biggest CJP fan, but we missed at the rim. We missed open jumpers.

It's not like we have a roster full of 4* cats who are being coached down. We are playing fairly well, but until we actually settle down and hit open shots, we're not that good.

 

[slugboy]

was referring to heywoods 0-4 on threes but yea that was also a team feature . I think the rotation is slowly evolving in a positive direction and i won't complain if he goes with the hot hand. Maybe just put some hand warmers on the sideline.

That makes sense.

I just went back and looked at the box score. Alvarado was 0-6 from outside the arc and 5-15 on field goals. Moses and Banks were really good. We really needed to share the ball.

Looking at the teams that are doing well as outside shooting teams today, I’m seeing numbers ranging from 30% to 50% (Michigan was 50% in their 3s in their win today). Their offense, positioning, and their movement didn’t look that different than ours, but they were just much better with their shots.

If we’re going to miss outside as much as we do, we better get more offensive rebounds. Otherwise, it’s not worth taking 3s if our drop off is that bad (19%).


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[mstranahan]

I'm not a Gregory fan by any stretch. However..... his recruiting was WAY better than CJP so far.

Tadric, Okogie, Lammers, MGH & Carter were all very good gets. CJP has Alvarado & Devoe in comparable group.

Stephens, Heath,Bolden, AD were all serviceable prospects that panned out to varying degrees. As of now, CJP has CGB, Moses, Cole, Khalid in this category.

In addition to getting better HS recruits (I count Heath in that group, even though he was a transfer after his dad got fired), Gregory also pulled in grad transfers that helped plug holes. I didn't like the reliance on these mercenaries, but give me Mitchell, Cox, or Jacobs over relying on AD & Ogbonda any day of the week

 

[lv20gt]

I'm not a Gregory fan by any stretch. However..... his recruiting was WAY better than CJP so far.

lmao.

I completely lost it at pointing to AD as a positive get for gregroy and then holding it against Pastner that he is playing AD instead of going the grad transfer route that got us into this mess.

 

[THWG]

I'm not a Gregory fan by any stretch. However..... his recruiting was WAY better than CJP so far.

Tadric, Okogie, Lammers, MGH & Carter were all very good gets. CJP has Alvarado & Devoe in comparable group.

Stephens, Heath,Bolden, AD were all serviceable prospects that panned out to varying degrees. As of now, CJP has CGB, Moses, Cole, Khalid in this category.

In addition to getting better HS recruits (I count Heath in that group, even though he was a transfer after his dad got fired), Gregory also pulled in grad transfers that helped plug holes. I didn't like the reliance on these mercenaries, but give me Mitchell, Cox, or Jacobs over relying on AD & Ogbonda any day of the week

Bolden?!?! Are you kidding me?? Bolden?!?! Haha ok dude, I needed a good laugh. Also, CJP had to hold on to Okogie and not let him slip away.

 

[SecretAgentBuzz]

This game was painful. We took their second half run like a deer in headlights. This is exactly the kind of game we need to be winning, and we just couldn’t do it. I love Alvarado, but he tried to be the hero at the end and killed us. Banks played very well, but couldn’t get position against smaller guys and we couldn’t get an entry pass in to save our lives.

Season is still young and I will keep cheering, but this one hurt. We will want it back later, I’m sure.

Q: what has happened to Phillips? He looks lost and is forcing things, but his highlights from TN looked good.

 

[YlJacket]

As a random comment after the last several games, why the hell did we play Sjolund the few minutes we did to burn his shirt?

 

[MiracleWhips]

As a random comment after the last several games, why the hell did we play Sjolund the few minutes we did to burn his shirt?

He can still red shirt I believe

 

[dtm1997]

As a random comment after the last several games, why the hell did we play Sjolund the few minutes we did to burn his shirt?

2 items here that have been reported, to a degree.

1) Pastner asked him if he wanted to redshirt. He wanted to play.
2) That decision for him to play was made before we knew Banks would be eligible.

 

[awbuzz]

I’m concerned , idk why we even hired Pastner

Someone had to be head coach after CBG was canned.

 

[awbuzz]

Just before and definitely after JA got the foul then technical we couldn't do squat. Spiraled out of the a Way to the jaws of defeat.

We should have won today... [emoji19]

 

[Ramblingon]

I was distraught when we lost. But after reflection this game did show some things. St. Johns is a pretty good team, lacking a big man. We have a very good big man in Banks on both ends of the court. He is a game changer. Our problem is getting it to him when we need to. We did for a while, but not at the end of the game. Alvarado played against what will probably be the best PG he will see all season. Ponds should be in the NBA. He's that guy you need at crunch time. Alvarado played a good game. Alston, as I have said all along, saves us at times. He is our effective (and only) 3 pt shooter. He often plays above his ability. Not sure what's going on with Haywood and Phillips, but hopefully they will improve. We have the ability to beat some good teams...just not yet.