Any info on the full Spring Practice schedule
KQ- They are starting on Thursday this week, I assume it will be Tue/Thr/Sat again, but we should get more info shortly.
My question is about the makeup and leadership of the athletic association board. I realize you probably have not looked at this area but I want you opinion based on this info I gathered. When you compare Tech's athletic board to UGA's you see some similarities but also some big differences.
Similarities
- The president of the school of each school is the chair
- They have Chair, Vice Chair, Sec, and Treasurer positions.
- Board is made up of faculty, alumni, and student reps.
- Outside of officers the UGA board has 17 voting members vs 15 voting board members consisting of faculty, alumni, and students.
- The UGA board includes the Pres of Alumni Association. Tech invites Pres of Alumni association but he cannot vote.
- UGA board (non officers) is 41% alumni, 35% faculty, and 18% students (they have 3 students same as Tech). But Tech board is 53% faculty, 27% alumni, and 20% students.
- At Tech the faculty have a bigger voice and at UGA the alumni have a bigger voice.
- The president of the alumni association is on the board. Which likely takes the alumni view on issues and it shows that they view fund raising for athletics and the alumni association as going hand in hand.
- At UGA the Vice Chair is the Provost. At Tech it is a faculty rep from ME school. So UGA has head of academics and budgetary affairs in VC spot.
We often blame Tech issues on the AD or the coach but we never hold accountable the board or the president. The board is not held accountable because no one really pays any attention to them. The president is not held accountable because no one is sure how involved the president is or should be in athletics.
Do you believe the board's makeup with a heavy faculty influence makes it harder for Tech to compete athletically?
Do you believe it would benefit Tech athletics to change its athletics board to be more reflective of UGA's makeup?
If so then how likely do you believe that would happen?
KQ- I'll be perfectly honest with you I'm not sure how to approach this. I will say that having a school president who believes in the value of academics is a major piece of the puzzle and I think it is hard to tell where Cabrera is on that, but again at Tech the politics of how things are run are completely different than UGA and the priorities of the people with power are totally different as I understand it. There are plenty of other people on here who could answer this a lot more clearly than I can, but you are correct, if GT wants to be good at sports they are capable of funding it and making it a priority and the person who can make that happen the easiest is the president if he made it a priority. Can he do that? Is that something that is important to him? I have no idea.
Okay I have another question. This one has a shorter setup. The program has had a lot of changes both with coaches and older players leaving. Change can be received in a positive or negative way. You recently wrote that the players are going through a more intense winter training with new no nonsense coaches and most are rising to the challenge. That sounds good.
Do you know if the players are rising to the challenge more due to the players being better leaders or because they like the new coaches and the approach more?
KQ- Yes for the most part guys are digging deeper and working hard. Some of the young kids who came in early this cycle or in the last class are not going to be outworked like Pyron or Efford or DJ Moore. The team also is a little different just in makeup and the pushback from different voices has changed some of the workouts from what I'm gathering from people down at GT.
Who are some players who have stepped forward to become new leaders on the team?
KQ- Kenyatta, Kaleb Edwards, Derrik Allen, Dylan Leonard, Zach Pyron and Dontae Smith, so a good mix of guys on both sides of the ball.
Did Coleman leaving have anything to do with the possibility of hiring Turner?
KQ- No, GT did not have an opening to hire Turner, those things are two separate transactions.
Thanks for doing this weekly.
Pastner calls you and wants you to serve as his GM. How many spots are you trying to turn over from this years roster and what type of players are you going after?
KQ- I am looking at what he is probably looking at 4-5 open scholarships and building around what you have that works well which is the young shooters Deebo Coleman, Miles Kelly and the fast PG Deivon Smith and hopefully an improving Rodney, Meka and Saba and Jalon Moore who hopefully will be ready to step into a 10-15 mpg role next year but is raw.
There are three things I would like to see them add, they need a combo guard who can play some point and play off the ball and score as well and create their own shot, think about Marcus Georges-Hunt or Iman Shumpert or how they used Jose Alvarado a lot of the time.
The next thing on my list would be a LONG wing/forward type player basically what you saw Pitt do with Mo Gueye a guy who is 6'8 or 6'9"-plus that has an outside game and can dunk and do the things Ush does but has length to him. That is the big downside of Ush along with his mental lapses at times, he is a little too short and not long enough for his style of game. Call it a stretch 4 or a long 3 or whatever you want, they could really use someone like that and maybe that is what Jalon Moore will become as he has already grown some in his time, but think about the body type of AD Gueye or Jordan Meka with the offensive game of Ush.
The last thing is a physical center/power forward type who cleans the glass and can score 15ft in, doesn't have to be a pure center, even a Chuck Mitchell type guy who will give you 8 ppg and 7-8 RPG in 20 mpg and shoot at a good clip and get to the line. A player like that with Rodney and Meka gives you some flexibility with the lineup and something you can use when the offense stagnates to create easy buckets.
What other changes might we see for the basketball program? I seem to recall some chatter mid way through the 19-20 season on a staff change but a strong finish helped that not to occur.
KQ- I still think they need to tweak the offense some, I'm not as sold on the Princeton stuff as Pastner is and I think they have no adapted as well since Hardy left for his head coaching job with the offense. I think they've been a little stale in terms of adjusting that. Maybe that is a change-up in staff or just changing how they teach it and what they focus on, I think it is weird they can be so dysfunctional on offense when you have Deivon, Kyle and Devoe in the game together and turn the ball over on offense, that just shouldn't happen with that lineup in, but it does sometimes because they try to set up the Princeton stuff at the elbow.
Does GT try to host an unofficial visitor for just about every home game like in football? I know bball recruiting is much more individual so i know we are not hosting multiple guys
KQ- They will have kids here and there at games, for a while that was part of the NCAA sanctions issue, if there is a big visitor we will post it on here or Dan will typically. Once kids are in the middle of their HS season the visits dropoff a good bit. There are almost always a few kids there, they may just not be legit targets every week.
