This team will surprise some

[grandpa jacket]

Call me crazy. I think this team is going to surprise a lot of people this year.

Might win 4 ACC games.

 

[lv20gt]

The team could surprise people but I doubt it. as of this moment I feel like the two deep should look something like...

PG - Moore/Heath.
SG- Jackson/Okogie
SF - Matthews/Price
PF - Stephens/McCormick
C - Lammers/Ogbonda

Probably not exactly how things will shake out but something like this probably gives us the best chance at surprising this year. Heath will probably start but I don't see us doing any surprising with him at PG. Not that he is terrible, but he just is consistent at a level below what this particular team will need. If we are to surprise some people I think we will need more to come in and provide us with higher potential so that we win the game where he plays up, even if it means losing worse in the games he plays down. With the addition of McCormick I think we will mostly use Stephens at the 4 and it allows us to more or less remain unchanged systematically when either he or McCormick are in there. Might see him at the 3 if we go big and have both Lammers and Ogbonda in at the same time, but I don't see him and McCormick both being on the court much.

 

[Peacone36]

PG - Moore/Heath.
SG- Jackson/Okogie
SF - Matthews/Price
PF - Stephens/McCormick
C - Lammers/Ogbonda

I mean, there it is. Where's the scoring? Where is the leadership outisde of Q? Where is the consistent shooting? Foul shooting? Hell outside of Q and Heath where are the significant ACC minutes played? Jax and Lammers are decent players but what did Big Ben get last year? 13mpg? I realize the OP is trying to be optimistic in a situation that seems gloomy. But we didn't win all that much with these kids AND players like MGH, Daniel Miller, Charles Mitchell, Demarco Cox and Adam Smith.

It just comes off as silly. I would be willing to bet we see more games in the 40s than the 60s.

Completely agree about the people that fly off the handle and look for Pastners head in the 2016-17 season. That's just more silliness. The 16-17 season is what some of us have been talking about for the past 3 years with BG living on the FA wire and unable to land quality 4 year recruiting classes.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I still think we'll be competitive most games. Wins/losses is too early to tell, but we have the possibility of being competitive. If we're able to stick around, then who knows what could happen. It could be 2014/15 all over again.

 

[RamblinRed]

To put it in perspective, using Verbal Commits consensus star rankings (hardly perfect, but not a bad place to start), here are the average star rankings over the rosters of the 15 ACC teams .
Duke - 4.23
UNC - 4.09
Syr - 3.94
NC ST - 3.69
FSU - 3.67
UVA - 3.51
L'ville - 3.50
Miami - 3.50
ND - 3.18
Clem - 3.07
VT - 3.04
Wake - 3.01
Pitt - 3.00
GT - 2.72
BC - 2.37

GT simply lacks the horses to compete. It's almost as far behind the #13 team as it is ahead of the #15 team.
The top 8 teams all have at least one 5 star player on their roster.

The first 9 teams shown above are likely all expecting going into the season to be NCAA teams.
#10 Clemson has sort of loaded up to make a run this year with Blossomgame coming back, Shelton Mitchell and Elijah Thomas (2 4-stars transfers) coming off redshirts, a 4-star JUCO, and another high scoring transfer in G Marquis Reed. Brownwell is likely under some pressure to make it this year and has his most talented and deepest team to try to get there as well.

VT and Wake have teams where the majority of their talent is in their FR and SO years - probable NIT teams with an outside NCAA team. Pitt is more the opposite, more talent in its upper classes. Then you have GT and BC probably just hoping to steal a game or 2 somewhere.
Every team playing GT and BC are going to be going in thinking - this is a game we simply have to win.

 

[jayparr]

Tadric is a great athlete, but in his case does not translate into a good basketball player!

 

[ESPNjacket]

I've looked at the roster with gold colored glasses fully in place and can't see this team winning more than 2 ACC games. It is hard to even discuss this roster without it turning into an unwanted player bashing session. The best one or two players are 5th starter level in the ACC with the gold colored glasses.

For full disclosure, I renewed my tickets and fully support the program. This year is just going to be ugly.

 

[lv20gt]

I mean, there it is. Where's the scoring? Where is the leadership outisde of Q? Where is the consistent shooting? Foul shooting? Hell outside of Q and Heath where are the significant ACC minutes played? Jax and Lammers are decent players but what did Big Ben get last year? 13mpg? I realize the OP is trying to be optimistic in a situation that seems gloomy. But we didn't win all that much with these kids AND players like MGH, Daniel Miller, Charles Mitchell, Demarco Cox and Adam Smith.

I'm not expecting much of anything in terms of wins and losses next year. I'm expecting next year to be mostly about how we play and improve over the course of the year and to rack up a ton of Ls. That being said, weird things can happen. To break it down by position.

Center looks to be the strongest position we have. I think Lammers is a quality big, and Ogbonda a quality backup. Not going to carry the team or anything but all in all should be reliable.

SG looks to be the next strongest, but most of that is by virtue of Jackson and the potential he has. It will be interesting to see how he adjusts to the new coaching staff and to the team effectively being his now that Hunt is gone. How he responds to those two things will play a big factor in how this season goes. At backup I think Okogie is a solid recruit, and all in all the position is in good shape when viewed in a vacuum. A solid junior with good potential backed by a solid recruit who can spend two years gaining experience behind the veteran. It just doesn't provide the oomph that we need given the other factors.

PF - this is where things get murky. I think if Stephens is at the 4 then it's possible that he could take advantage of some slower defenders and provide some 3 support. Maybe same with McCormick. I expect defense wills till be a problem, but perhaps there will be a handful of games where one or both goes off on the offensive end and makes up for it.

PG - Heath is what he is. He's a solid back up who won't make too many outright mistakes, but also won't make too many plays for you. We really need Moore to be a true diamond in the rough and pull a Hanlan, although to expect it is absurd, to really have a chance at surprising anyone. IMO this is what really will prevent any surprises this year. Getting solid ACC level PG play is so important and so hard for a freshman to provide.

SF - Only real hope lies with Matthews imo. Stephens cannot play the 3 at an ACC level and I don't expect Price to contribute all that much. This position is squarely on the back of Matthews and how he adapts to the college game.

IMO the problem isn't that there isn't potential to be somewhat competitive. I think we could be. The problem is that to do so just about everything would have to fall into place. Now sometimes that happens, but it's an extreme long shot. The real hope for next year is that we got the steal of the century with Pastner and that his prior issues were more memphis related than Pastner related. But again. Long shot.

 

[Peacone36]

I'm not expecting much of anything in terms of wins and losses next year. I'm expecting next year to be mostly about how we play and improve over the course of the year and to rack up a ton of Ls. That being said, weird things can happen. To break it down by position.

Center looks to be the strongest position we have. I think Lammers is a quality big, and Ogbonda a quality backup. Not going to carry the team or anything but all in all should be reliable.

SG looks to be the next strongest, but most of that is by virtue of Jackson and the potential he has. It will be interesting to see how he adjusts to the new coaching staff and to the team effectively being his now that Hunt is gone. How he responds to those two things will play a big factor in how this season goes. At backup I think Okogie is a solid recruit, and all in all the position is in good shape when viewed in a vacuum. A solid junior with good potential backed by a solid recruit who can spend two years gaining experience behind the veteran. It just doesn't provide the oomph that we need given the other factors.

PF - this is where things get murky. I think if Stephens is at the 4 then it's possible that he could take advantage of some slower defenders and provide some 3 support. Maybe same with McCormick. I expect defense wills till be a problem, but perhaps there will be a handful of games where one or both goes off on the offensive end and makes up for it.

PG - Heath is what he is. He's a solid back up who won't make too many outright mistakes, but also won't make too many plays for you. We really need Moore to be a true diamond in the rough and pull a Hanlan, although to expect it is absurd, to really have a chance at surprising anyone. IMO this is what really will prevent any surprises this year. Getting solid ACC level PG play is so important and so hard for a freshman to provide.

SF - Only real hope lies with Matthews imo. Stephens cannot play the 3 at an ACC level and I don't expect Price to contribute all that much. This position is squarely on the back of Matthews and how he adapts to the college game.

IMO the problem isn't that there isn't potential to be somewhat competitive. I think we could be. The problem is that to do so just about everything would have to fall into place. Now sometimes that happens, but it's an extreme long shot. The real hope for next year is that we got the steal of the century with Pastner and that his prior issues were more memphis related than Pastner related. But again. Long shot.

I was using your post as a response to the OP not a critique on your previous post.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

So the consensus seems to be that this years team will surprise some people--who have not followed Tech hoops in a decade--with how bad it is.

 

[Peacone36]

To put it in perspective, using Verbal Commits consensus star rankings (hardly perfect, but not a bad place to start), here are the average star rankings over the rosters of the 15 ACC teams .
Duke - 4.23
UNC - 4.09
Syr - 3.94
NC ST - 3.69
FSU - 3.67
UVA - 3.51
L'ville - 3.50
Miami - 3.50
ND - 3.18
Clem - 3.07
VT - 3.04
Wake - 3.01
Pitt - 3.00
GT - 2.72
BC - 2.37

GT simply lacks the horses to compete. It's almost as far behind the #13 team as it is ahead of the #15 team.
The top 8 teams all have at least one 5 star player on their roster.

The first 9 teams shown above are likely all expecting going into the season to be NCAA teams.
#10 Clemson has sort of loaded up to make a run this year with Blossomgame coming back, Shelton Mitchell and Elijah Thomas (2 4-stars transfers) coming off redshirts, a 4-star JUCO, and another high scoring transfer in G Marquis Reed. Brownwell is likely under some pressure to make it this year and has his most talented and deepest team to try to get there as well.

VT and Wake have teams where the majority of their talent is in their FR and SO years - probable NIT teams with an outside NCAA team. Pitt is more the opposite, more talent in its upper classes. Then you have GT and BC probably just hoping to steal a game or 2 somewhere.
Every team playing GT and BC are going to be going in thinking - this is a game we simply have to win.

Puke is typically a shallow team in the sense they go 7 deep. So on a 12-13 person roster they still average over 4.2 stars. That's ridiculous.

 

[YlJacket]

FWIW Duke is a lot deeper than 7 this year. They just took in 6 freshman with 4 of them being 5 stars. Plus Allen and Jefferson are back which I don't think they expected. Throw in Kennard and Obi - and I am sure I missed someone on the roster who has more talent than anyone we have.

 

[GTRX7]

I say around 8 ACC wins

LOL. As others have said, this is pure delusion. I am not sure folks appreciate how mediocre Tech historically has been in the ACC regular season, even in our good years. For some perspective, in our 2004-05 national championship season, the team went 9-7 to finish 4th in the ACC.

If we get 8 this year, Pastner should be given the Hewitt contact

 

[g0lftime]

Based on early youtube scenes from practices, Tadric may do really well in this faster paced offense. What is lacking is his outside shot. He turns his body on his jump shot and does not really square up like most really good shooters do. If he can get his outside shot improved, he could average double figures. Lammers has not looked to score in the past so not sure what he is capable of doing in the post. He may have some ability we have not seen, and he has had time to develop some offensive confidence. What will be interesting is how the coaches want to use him and what they have him working on in the off season. Q has shown that he can shoot but usually spot up shots. He hasn't really tried to put it on the floor and take it to the rack in the past. We need players who can put it on the floor and break down a defense in the paint. That opens up outside shots and also inside dumps to the big guys. We did not seem to put a lot of pressure on defenses last year by creating fouls. That was a big weakness in BG's tenure. We just did not get to the foul line very often except for MGH. Once we went to him at PG, we started to get some penetration and got much better on offense. Heath could be the wildcard this year if he is willing to put up some shots. He actually showed some ability last year when he had some open looks at the top of the circle. He may have had a bridle on him from Gregory. The coaches will have to decide who is expected to score and how the offense will get them looks this year. Too early to tell how incoming freshmen will help.

 

[ESPNjacket]

LOL. As others have said, this is pure delusion. I am not sure folks appreciate how mediocre Tech historically has been in the ACC regular season, even in our good years. For some perspective, in our 2004-05 national championship season, the team went 9-7 to finish 4th in the ACC.

If we get 8 this year, Pastner should be given the Hewitt contact

Tech didn't win a national championship but the final four (championship game) team in '03-'04 played in probably the best ACC I've ever seen. 7 of the 9 ACC teams finished in the top 25 of Ken Pomeroy's statistical rankings. For perspective, 5 of 15 ACC teams finished in that top 25 this past season. In that ACC, I'd put the chance of this GT team winning a game at about 5%.

 

[orientalnc]

Everything this season will revolve around how well we shoot. Expect us to be in the bottom third of the ACC in rebounding, but our assists and turnovers should be up considerably, as we begin learning the hot potato style of play.

It will be interesting to see how many points we score, but it will not be enough to win many games. I think we will do a lot better than the 40s. I hope that was sarcasm. The real drop in performance is likely to be on defense. Seriously.

 

[AE 87]

I suspect that we will score more but give up a lot more.

 

[GTRX7]

Tech didn't win a national championship but the final four (championship game) team in '03-'04 played in probably the best ACC I've ever seen. 7 of the 9 ACC teams finished in the top 25 of Ken Pomeroy's statistical rankings. For perspective, 5 of 15 ACC teams finished in that top 25 this past season. In that ACC, I'd put the chance of this GT team winning a game at about 5%.

Yes, ESPN, thanks. I understand we didn't win the national title that year and was clearly referring to our appearance in the championship game. My point remains the same. While that season may have been historically good for the ACC, our historically great Tech team still barely managed over .500. In fact, in the last 25 years, we have only managed a better than .500 ACC record two times (including that season). We have only finished in the top 3 in that time period once. Were we to get to 8 this year, it would be one of the greatest regular season coaching jobs ever at Tech.

 

[Peacone36]

The thing I really like about Big Ben is he can impact the game on the offensive end without having plays run specifically for him. Good on the glass. Good screener.

 

[KeystoneJacket]

Last year's team had 10x more talent though. Fully prepared for a single digit win season.