This years team:

[D-man44]

He could be the shooter, but sometimes he looked like he did not have the confidence. To me that is about all he needs improve on is that confidence level. You have to let go.

I see him as a 6th man anyway so bring him in when he's hot. it'll be Alvarado and Devoe for the next 3 years barring Devoe going crazy and going pro early. Devoe walks in the shooter his high school coach said he is the best spot up shooter in the country and he coaches a consistent top 3 high school program. He shot 42% from 3 at EYBL which is one of the biggest AAU tournaments in the country every year.

 

[SecretAgentBuzz]

Jay...buddy...I get your disappointment. I do. But you have to have some patience. Last year's team greatly over-achieved and Coach Pastner was the ACC coach of the year! Like its been said, NOBODY with any pedigree or experience wanted to take this job, and everybody recognized that it would be at least 3 or 4 years before GT would be winning consistently. Recruiting has gotten better, and hopefully will continue to improve. Players, on the whole, have gotten better (AD, JO, even Cole), but we are extremely short-handed. What ACC team could compete after they lost their 38-min-a-game PG? Not many. Especially not with the lack of depth that we have had. This season has been a horrible combination of injuries, suspensions, and distractions. It's been a complete train wreck. I don't think the coaches nor the players have been satisfied with the results, and I am trusting that they will do what it takes to right the ship. Have patience.

However, I will say this: the team has really lacked effort the last two games. I can have patience, and I can hope for better days, but I don't like watching our team get run out of the court because they aren't giving 100%. I think all of it has gotten to their heads (especially Jose's injury), and I think they are lacking leadership on the court. I can't say that I blame them, but I expect more. From here on, I don't care about W and L (although wins would be nice!), but I want to see development and effort. And of course, I will keep watching and cheering them on.

 

[RyanS12]

I think a lot of the frustration comes from 15 years of irrelevant basketball and 1 winning season in the ACC since 1996!! It’s hard to keep waiting. I can say I’ve lost patience but it’s not all on JP. Yea, this season has been a train wreck and one of the worst on and off the court I can remember in the 30 years I’ve been a Tech fan. But with kids we have coming in, along with JO (Hopefully) JA, AD who’s been a huge suprise and CH I think we make the tournament finally. I’m hoping we hit the Grad transfer market and get a quality big and a pure shooter as well.
The problem right now is everyone just looks as if they want this season over now. From the staff to the walk ons. Hopefully losing the way we have the last few games and the bleak outlook for the final 5 games doesn’t hurt the locker room and carry over into next season.

 

[YlJacket]

Not to argue your basic point but I think we have made our bet on shooters with Deborah, Haywood and to some degree Jose. So I doubt we go after a grad transfer shooter. Those guys have high ceilings so I don’t want a grad transfer taking minutes next year either

Grad transfer big is still an open question and we could see a true 5 rim protector type

 

[YlJacket]

God I hate spell check
DeVoe

 

[reckrider]

One thing I think we can all agree on is we were extremely optimistic about the development Lammers and Jackson showed under the new staff and were hoping for further growth. Unfortunately they haven't taken the next step. Rather they have regressed a significant amount. I thought Lammers was a top 25 player in the nation coming into the year.

I think Ben has decided he’d rather be an Engineer than a basketball player.

 

[RamblinRed]

I'm glad the OP is back to his old self.

I also disagree fundamentally with the thought there are not ACC caliber players for the future on this team. if that is the case then alot of players in the ACC are not ACC caliber players.

This season has been a disappointment both on and off the court, but no one should expect the rebuild to be smooth. You should expect highs and lows.

Recruiting is about getting incrementally better recruits each year. Anything we got out of the 2017 class (and i think there are at least 2 and possibly more ACC level players in it) was sort of gravy due to the hiring process for Pastner. When he was hired the AD wanted alot of say in who the assts would be. So for the Spring AAU season in 2017 Pastner was the only GT coach, while every other team had 4 guys on the road. That put GT way behind for the 2017 class. The AD felt it was more important to get the staff right than to hit in the 2017 class. And then it appears that one asst did try to get us in with a big name and it likely cost him his job.

I like the 2018 class. You have a Top 50 guy in Devoe, you have a guy that many analysts think is underrated in Sjolund and you got a nice developmental piece in Moore. Devoe and Sjolund were 2 of the top 3 guys they wanted.

2019, they need to have a strong class.

FWIW, anyone that doesn't think Jose is an ACC level starter is just not watching very closely. I am currently tracking 129 ACC players. He is ranked 65th in one metric I use and 58th in the other. So as a FR he is performing at a low end starter level (there have to be 75 starters in the ACC - or at least a top 75 in the metrics). Also, getting hurt and playing only 12 min against Duke costs him roughly 5 spots.
At the time he was injured Haywood had the 4th highest metrics on the squad behind Lammers, Alvarado and Jackson. He was well ahead of Gueye, Alston, Cole and Wright, I actually thought he was playing a little better than Jose at the time of his injury, but they were turning into a nice backcourt.

This team is hard to watch right now because it is missing pieces it couldn't afford to miss and the pieces it has do not fit well together at either end of the court.
Next year i would expect a very different look. First off you will have 2 primary ballhandlers (Jose and Devoe) and 2 secondary ballhandlers (Phillips - who has played significant min at PG for TN and Haywood - who has the best Asst:TO ratio on the team) Both Haywood and Phillips give you alot of versatility. Based on how Jackson has played this season I expect Phillips is likely to end up an upgrade. He's a better ballhandler, a better defender and while you aren't going to get 20 pts very often from him, you didn't from Jackson this year either. He's had a number of 15,16,18 pt games in SEC action so he is capable of scoring at times. He also is a much stronger shooter than Jackson.

I'm actually pleased with what I see from Cole. He got off to a really slow start in pre-season, missing almost all of pre-season practice with first an illness and then an injury. But given his lack of time to this point he is playing fairly well for GT, especially given he is being asked to do things he isn't ready to do yet.

Wright shows off his athleticism, but his game needs alot of refinement.

With no Alvarado we are seeing the limits to JO's game. When he has someone else to handle the ball he is a good catch and shoot three guy, but he lacks the ability to hit deep shots off the dribble. His ballhandling skills are pretty average so he relies largely on using his strength and wingspan to get to the basket to get shots up. But right now we have no real PG as Tad and Josh don't really look to distribute when they drive.

 

[YlJacket]

I think Ben has decided he’d rather be an Engineer than a basketball player.

I don't think Lammers was ever a top 25 type of player, but I put most of the regression this year at the feet of CJP rather than Lammers. Saying he simply wants to be an engineer instead of a BB player is not correct.

We lost games early with the idiocy of JO and TJ. Then Lammers gets hurt and instead of resting him a week or two to get healthy we ask him to play through it and he never really gets healthy. The pressure of early losses without the other 2 IMHO led to a bad decision on CJP's part. IMHO I also think his knee injury is partly due to trying to play through not being healthy. He is not what he was physically and that is not his fault.

Additionally, 1/3 of the way through the season we ask him to make a major change on the offensive end and become a stretch 4 instead of a 5. So on a bad wheel he has to try to make cuts/drives and make jumpshots from places he has never shot from before. From everything I heard, this is not something that CJP had worked with Lammers on in the offseason or preseason. But a change driven by other teams adjustment to playing AD at the 4 and realizing he can't shoot from more than 10 feet. Something CJP should have recognized was coming way before the season started. And certainly not something CJP should be walking around saying it is all in Lammers head.

He hasn't played well - full stop. But I put most of that on CJP - especially earlier on in the year. The nonsense we are seeing now is a result of the early season decisions.

 

[slugboy]

I'm glad the OP is back to his old self.

I also disagree fundamentally with the thought there are not ACC caliber players for the future on this team. if that is the case then alot of players in the ACC are not ACC caliber players.

This season has been a disappointment both on and off the court, but no one should expect the rebuild to be smooth. You should expect highs and lows.

Recruiting is about getting incrementally better recruits each year. Anything we got out of the 2017 class (and i think there are at least 2 and possibly more ACC level players in it) was sort of gravy due to the hiring process for Pastner. When he was hired the AD wanted alot of say in who the assts would be. So for the Spring AAU season in 2017 Pastner was the only GT coach, while every other team had 4 guys on the road. That put GT way behind for the 2017 class. The AD felt it was more important to get the staff right than to hit in the 2017 class. And then it appears that one asst did try to get us in with a big name and it likely cost him his job.

I like the 2018 class. You have a Top 50 guy in Devoe, you have a guy that many analysts think is underrated in Sjolund and you got a nice developmental piece in Moore. Devoe and Sjolund were 2 of the top 3 guys they wanted.

2019, they need to have a strong class.

FWIW, anyone that doesn't think Jose is an ACC level starter is just not watching very closely. I am currently tracking 129 ACC players. He is ranked 65th in one metric I use and 58th in the other. So as a FR he is performing at a low end starter level (there have to be 75 starters in the ACC - or at least a top 75 in the metrics). Also, getting hurt and playing only 12 min against Duke costs him roughly 5 spots.
At the time he was injured Haywood had the 4th highest metrics on the squad behind Lammers, Alvarado and Jackson. He was well ahead of Gueye, Alston, Cole and Wright, I actually thought he was playing a little better than Jose at the time of his injury, but they were turning into a nice backcourt.

This team is hard to watch right now because it is missing pieces it couldn't afford to miss and the pieces it has do not fit well together at either end of the court.
Next year i would expect a very different look. First off you will have 2 primary ballhandlers (Jose and Devoe) and 2 secondary ballhandlers (Phillips - who has played significant min at PG for TN and Haywood - who has the best Asst:TO ratio on the team) Both Haywood and Phillips give you alot of versatility. Based on how Jackson has played this season I expect Phillips is likely to end up an upgrade. He's a better ballhandler, a better defender and while you aren't going to get 20 pts very often from him, you didn't from Jackson this year either. He's had a number of 15,16,18 pt games in SEC action so he is capable of scoring at times. He also is a much stronger shooter than Jackson.

I'm actually pleased with what I see from Cole. He got off to a really slow start in pre-season, missing almost all of pre-season practice with first an illness and then an injury. But given his lack of time to this point he is playing fairly well for GT, especially given he is being asked to do things he isn't ready to do yet.

Wright shows off his athleticism, but his game needs alot of refinement.

With no Alvarado we are seeing the limits to JO's game. When he has someone else to handle the ball he is a good catch and shoot three guy, but he lacks the ability to hit deep shots off the dribble. His ballhandling skills are pretty average so he relies largely on using his strength and wingspan to get to the basket to get shots up. But right now we have no real PG as Tad and Josh don't really look to distribute when they drive.

I’m amazed that we’re doing as well as we are with a freshman point guard who isn’t a one and done type player. Or, were doing. We didn’t have the luxury of a starting senior PG to show him the ropes.
I hope this is a good experience for JO. It’s not the role that he’d want to be in, but maybe it’s good for his development. Are the limits permanent limits, or just skills he just needs time to develop?
I find it hard to believe this is a worse team than we’ve seen in ages. Though, there are at least three losses that will leave a mark for a while. It’s a young team, and not complete. But sometimes, these are the kinds of years that build good teams later


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[awbuzz]

Fact: We have won 12 more games than we were supposed to in years 1 & 2 combined when Pastner was hired.
Fact: We have 3 players out for the year.
Fact: We've had 6 players miss a third of the season.
Fact: Even the guys that are playing have had long injury stretches where they're playing through issues (Lammers, Jackson, etc.). We may not really know the full extent of that until later.

Opinion: This is the most optimistic I've been about our program in at least a decade.

I predicted 6-12 in the ACC this year before the season started. This is not how I thought we would get here, but I was not confident we could win a lot of games.

I will go on record as saying I think we'll get to 20 wins next year.

This year was a terribly frustrating year. But I wouldn't read more into it than is necessary. When stocks are in a bear market, everyone thinks the world is ending - that's when you put all your chips on the table.

:applause:

 

[awbuzz]

Regardless i will continue to support this year's team. Best shot at out next (last?) W is against WF on 3/3. Or maybe if we get lucky enough to face Pitt in the ACC Tourney (not sure it's possible though).

 

[AUFC]

Honestly, the only reason we weren't this bad last year is because we had as close to zero injuries as it really gets.

This program is still on the up & up and trending the right direction. We hit the bottom of the parabola in 2014-15.

For one, Okogie and Jose are probably the 2 best players we've had in this decade (maybe a shoutout to MGH and Lammers). And then we sit 34th here https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Basketball/CompositeTeamRankings . We have no business being in the company of some of those teams listed around us, and here we are.

 

[D-man44]

Honestly, the only reason we weren't this bad last year is because we had as close to zero injuries as it really gets.

This program is still on the up & up and trending the right direction. We hit the bottom of the parabola in 2014-15.

For one, Okogie and Jose are probably the 2 best players we've had in this decade (maybe a shoutout to MGH and Lammers). And then we sit 34th here https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Basketball/CompositeTeamRankings . We have no business being in the company of some of those teams listed around us, and here we are.

100% what you are saying. this is very telling https://247sports.com/college/georgia-tech/Team/Georgia-Tech-Yellow-Jackets-10/Roster We have 2 players on the roster that were rated higher than the lowest rated recruit we have coming in (jose with a composite of .89 and Tad who was a .96 and 79 in nation) for comparison Devoe .98 46 in the nation Sjould .89 and Khalid .88. Recruiting wise they are saying we are bringing in 3 of our top 5 most highly scouted players according to recruiting services.

 

[g0lftime]

Without a capable big next year we need shooters to keep defenses honest. Need to penetrate and attack the rim or kick it out for a spot up three. We also have not been good at creating fouls with Ben or AD. They shoot hooks or fall aways. Neither go strong to the rim. Need to create fouls on the other team bigs. We are going to need help inside next year. Not sure where it will come from.

 

[MidtownJacket]

I wish things had shaken out differently this season, but do people really believe the same team (and early injuries / suspensions) would have been better off under a different coach?

People see the development of Cole and Moses and declare they should have been playing more and earlier (but isn’t is possible that we have seen them rise up given the extra work they have been given in lieu of game time and getting smoked early?).

People are upset about playing Lammers while he was recovering ( but isn’t it possible that the coaches and trainers who work with him every day are better prepared to know if he was physically ready to come back?). I haven’t read or heard or seen anything to indicate Lammers asked to get more recovery time. Is it not possible that he was a player who wanted to spend time on the court his senior year and wasn’t overly focused on making the NBA so wanted to maximize his PT?

It is always easy to look backwards and dissect decisions given the benefit of knowing what would happen. I am not suggesting it isn’t fair or good to do, just suggesting we should wait till the end of the season to judge it and weigh the obstacles we faced this year fairly on the balance.

Fans have every right to be unreasonable and make broad baseless claims. I don’t like the ignore button because I would like to believe most people posting here are open to general discussion and I don’t believe I am always right. Having said that I do wish people were more mindful that this is a public forum read by any and all. We should want what is best for the program and general statements of unease and annoyance without context or awareness of the whole situation do the program and our fan base a disservice.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Gold1]

100% what you are saying. this is very telling https://247sports.com/college/georgia-tech/Team/Georgia-Tech-Yellow-Jackets-10/Roster We have 2 players on the roster that were rated higher than the lowest rated recruit we have coming in (jose with a composite of .89 and Tad who was a .96 and 79 in nation) for comparison Devoe .98 46 in the nation Sjould .89 and Khalid .88. Recruiting wise they are saying we are bringing in 3 of our top 5 most highly scouted players according to recruiting services.

Someone please tell GTfletch that. He acts like the program is going under and we must get rid of pastner immediately. Ridiculous.

 

[jayparr]

Someone please tell GTfletch that. He acts like the program is going under and we must get rid of pastner immediately. Ridiculous.

I am not saying fire him, but you do need to read the latest report that is out today on the swarm.

 

[GTFLETCH]

Dumpster Fire...laughing stock of the ACC.. After a promising year last year, the whole program has gone in the toilet and is a joke. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

 

[D-man44]

Dumpster Fire...laughing stock of the ACC.. After a promising year last year, the whole program has gone in the toilet and is a joke. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

100% what you are saying. this is very telling https://247sports.com/college/georgia-tech/Team/Georgia-Tech-Yellow-Jackets-10/Roster We have 2 players on the roster that were rated higher than the lowest rated recruit we have coming in (jose with a composite of .89 and Tad who was a .96 and 79 in nation) for comparison Devoe .98 46 in the nation Sjould .89 and Khalid .88. Recruiting wise they are saying we are bringing in 3 of our top 5 most highly scouted players according to recruiting services.

So bringing in more talent isn't a light?

 

[JacketFromUGA]

Dumpster Fire...laughing stock of the ACC.. After a promising year last year, the whole program has gone in the toilet and is a joke. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

This is where we benefit from being irrelevant currently. Literally no one outside of our fanbase cares. We aren't the "laughing stock" of anything we're given "apathetic" looks if anything.

Everyone and their mother knows GT is a multi year rebuild project. Everyone but GT fans it seems.