I am sure most of you already saw this, but for those of you that have not-

ESPN announced last week their college baseball coverage plans for the 2024 season.

Georgia Tech is set to play in front of a national audience four times as it currently stands-

March 24th- at UNC (ACC Network)
April 7th- at Pitt (ACC Network)
April 16th- at Auburn (SEC Network)
May 7th- vs. Auburn (ACC Network)

I am honestly surprised that no one picked up any of the three games against UGA.

Walking up thanks to a major accident on the connector.

Did the following sign anywhere? Not seeing it

Jaedon Matthews​

Khamani Alexander​

NLRB rules even non-scholarship athletes receive enough compensation to count as employees. Pour one out for the NCAA and shamateurism. The jig is up.

has taking so long to get Peoples hurt us in anyway or is that something that makes no impact either way?

KQ- The impact of not having that position settled only involved guys who were long off the board. The plan was to hire the defensive staff and look at the situation post-spring as things were pretty well set before Key was going to hire more defensive assistants. So no.

Love the People's hire, good times are coming. Any insight on prospects he has been pursuing.

KQ- Different fishing in different holes but @Russell Johnson might have a few names.

Anymore news on Kevin Sherrer? I know they typically don’t announce coaches leaving but figured we’d hear of him moving to another place if he’s not taking an off the field role.

KQ- I would be surprised if he comes back in an off-the-field role. He has been trying to get on an NFL staff of late. He is not super interested in recruiting these days due to all of the changes and how things have changed.

What the over/under on the number of people who regularly post on the board while under the influence of something?

And is it just me, or has this number gone up in the last year.

KQ- There are more characters than we used to have. I'd be curious to see who is lit posting as well.

How many basketball players are we taking this year? We have Mustaf in the boat, a line set with Sutton. Who are the remaining prospect(s) we are most likely to get? Who are the remaining top ranked, elite prospects we are trying to get but are longshots?

KQ- They are not recruiting very man HS kids. They are over on spots at the moment, but that will change after the season as guys transfer or go pro or whatever. So there is no way to actually know the true number right now. There are only a two seniors without additional eligibility, Kyle Sturdivant and Ty Claude and they used all 13 spots this year. They have three committed out of HS and could take one more HS kid. I expect they will add a big and shooter out of the portal as well. I'd expect them to take 3-4 HS kids and two transfers as a jumping off point.

We are very athletic but only have Ndongo to count on every game for shooting. Some games Kelly and Deebo are on, some games not. Next year Kelly, Deebo and Kyle move on. Leaving Reeves and Ndongo for shooting. Of the two firm recruits and the one or two more we might recruit, are any shooters, players who will score 15-16 with consistency?

KQ- Ndongo isn't very consistent either, he is as inconsistent as Deebo and Miles when you look at his splits by half in a lot of games so I'd say you are off. The whole team is inconsistent scoring it is not a Miles problem or a Deebo or Nait or Baye problem, it is an issue overall. Guys like Amaree Abram are struggling too. They are going to go after some shooters, but he wants guys who can beat people off the dribble as well, that is the biggest hole on the entire team. Kyle is the best at that and that is really bad.

Kelly, How many scholarship players do we
have on the current football roster.

KQ- They are at 75 right now counting everyone who is currently in school. There are additional players who are not enrolled yet. That puts them at 84 or 85, however there will be some attrition post-spring.

How’s Bobby Crimons doing? I feel like he hasn’t been to a game in a while.

KQ- Bobby Cremins and I answered this question in a mailbag two or three weeks ago. He has been to one college game this year and that was back in November at CoC.

It’s Feb. Are Coleman and Tillman on the payroll?

KQ- Their contracts expired on 1/31 as I understand it. I can ask around, but I'll probably not get a straight answer but I can ask.

Can you ask when the Edge demolition will start?

KQ- The last date I heard was sometime in March. It is a ghost town and I think everyone is out of there by now. I don't know anyone still in the building. The last few people moved out to Wardlaw several weeks ago.

What happened with the feedback from the OTE players who attended the NC game Tuesday.

KQ- @Russell Johnson

Russell, what does your projected lineup and weekend rotation look like for GT Baseball?

@Russell Johnson

What does Haynes King need to do in 2024 to improve upon his 2023 results?

KQ- His evolution is reading his progressions and making better decisions with the ball. I would say 1/4 of his interceptions came on plays where he forced a ball and should've run it. Another 1/4 or more came on pre-determined throws, meaning he read coverage pre-snap and tried to force the ball sometimes in the wrong coverage or even threw balls on option routes where the receiver broke it off and went under instead of deep or something like that. If he can improve in those two areas the offensive efficiency will improve dramatically. The ability to fix those things will also determine whether he has pro potential or not.

In the grand scheme of survival- does the NCAA need these rebel conferences more than the conferences need the NCAA? Can the SEC/Big 10 move out from under the NCAA shield and survive? I realize the TV Deal’s are substantial but is their things behind the scenes that would be big issues that the NCAA make easy for the Conference?

KQ- I think the structure of everything will end up forcing the teams to still stay somehow tied to the NCAA. Once they break away there will be enough pissed-off politicians that they will go after non-profit status and the connections with the schools as well and then the whole thing gets blown up. No one wants to watch minor league football. The market has been clear on that for a long time. People like seeing Bama-Shitball State or Nebraska-Cornball State in addition to the traditional games because the chance for another Michigan-App State makes it watchable. Also, the fans of Ohio State or Bama or UGA are not going to be super excited in a super league going 8-5 or 7-6 to limp into some playoff. That shit won't fly. None of them want to be on an even playing field either. The entire history of the sport has cheating to get an advantage as a core thing everyone does. Like who hasn't been caught cheating over the last 30 years in NCAA FB?

From @TheAnalogBee -

Has GT tweaked the NIL philosophy re allocating more funds to high school? Or maybe a better way to ask, has the increased interest from higher profile players necessitated a tweak?

KQ- No, Key like Kirby or Saban or any other coach has a way they allocate money and Key believes in allocating most of it to proven assets and not potential. Once you give player X money and you aren't giving the guy playing next to him as much money despite that dude being a multi-year contributor your locker room is absolute toast. So no that is a dumb way to deploy NIL money for GT for football. Hoops is a completely different story as we are seeing. You can spend on freshmen there.

And is GTs NIL budget competitive in our weight class?

KQ- Yes it is okay. They need more and J Batt is pushing everyone to donate there because he sees how it will raise the other income streams if the sports are successful.

Given the last few weeks and some of CDS answers to questions about in week prep it sounds like he indexes heavier on film and mental preparation than physical practice at this point in the season. Two weeks ago he talked about not trying to “win practice” and doing the work needed to set plays or new tweaks on defense but not going hard good on good to protect the bodies.

Is that a fair interpretation of his practice philosophy at this point in the season or am I reading too much into it? He specifically said STTE of guys aren’t going to improve their shooting mechanics at this point to go from 70%-> 85% from the stripe for example so he wants them focused on huddle clips, the scouting report and self scout dependencies.

KQ- I think that is the approach every coach has at this point in the season whether it was Pastner or BG or Hewitt or Cremins. You are not going to grind basketball players in the middle of the season in practice because that is how guy get injured. All it takes is one play to shut down a key guy. Look at what happened with Ndongo or Lance Terry at the beginning of the season. Both were injured in practice. The cardio of playing in the games and those reps are enough for a lot of the guys to stay sharp.

Thoughts on Bill O’Brien (likely) to Boston College? Hell of a hire for them IMO, especially with the timing of Hafley leaving. Much bigger name than I thought would go there.

KQ- I guess. He really hates recruiting. That is why he left Penn State and then didn't go after a college job the last few years he was at Bama as an OC. He doesn't want to kiss asses, but he was so bad as an OC with the Pats that he is left with no choice. It is to become a HC in college again or take a non-coordinator job in the NFL and that dude has too much pride to be the Cowboys TE coach or something.

For hoops

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Bearwith me these next few days, have a ton of content in the works as I get caught up from what has been a rough week.

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I’ve got more content coming today as well.

Visited Wednesday-
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Visited Thursday-
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Visiting today-
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Visiting tomorrow-
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Visiting Sunday-
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Fire away

Has also coached LBs, was let go at Memphis when they hired a new DC who is also a DL coach. Pope worked with Key at Bama.

-Bold indicates returning player
-Gold indicates incoming transfer
-Italics indicates MLB-bound

Stephen Reid is enrolled in classes as a student, but is no longer with the team per the GT student directory. I am unsure if Cody Carwile ended up anywhere.

That five-star OTE F Karter Knox was in attendance tonight along with the rest of the group. I'll see if I can gather anything from him or my sources, as I was not aware GT was recruiting him.
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Let’s do this. I will go until 10:15 or so.

Sports movie legend.

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Interesting read and development based on what is being discussed about the future of the NCAA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/02/02/big-ten-sec-advisory-board/

Greetings from Raleigh as the Jackets aim to finish the Triangle trifecta.

Dealing with some personal stuff around the house tonight.. not going to be able to do the Q&A as a result.

I thought things would settle down enough to have it, but they have not.

Let’s plan for Saturday night, assuming by then my house is back up-and-running and whatever this latest sickness is has run its course through my house.

-RJ

Per Damon he is ready to go for NC State. Message was simple Baye Ndongo is good to go for NC State.

Adding notes below from Damon's presser, I'll be more concise than usual because I'm a little tied up today.

Damon said he thinks it is good they are on the road and he said he always played better on the road as a player because there is less comfort and distractions on the road and the team gets to bond and focus on hoops.

He talked about how he actually heard some legit player leadership during the UNC game from some of the older guys like Miles Kelly and Kowacie Reeves. He said they can impact the game in more ways than just scoring.

He said that DJ Burns is a load, but what really impresses him is his passing out of the post (this is something I really noticed whenever GT has played them as well, he averages almost three assists a game) and between that and his ability to back down defenders it makes him a headache as a matchup.

Stoudamire feels like they are capable of playing with anyone when they are on and connected and he hopes they are ready to take the next step and go on a run now.

Damon said that he wouldn't mind a lineup with even three point guards like the one he plays with Nait George and Kyle Sturdivant and they did that in the NBA with the Celtics as long as they can defend on the other end. He is not afraid to have too many ballhandlers on the court together at the same time.

Miles Kelly said he feels like the UNC win was a corner-turning moment for this team and he expects them to play better. He said that everyone was doing their role more.

@Russell Johnson Any coaches make the rounds today?