Can Georgia Tech be contenders in the ACC with George and Ndongo as their best players? Assuming they both return, it’s my belief that we need to bring a couple players from the portal that Baye and Nait can compliment, not the other way around.
KQ- I still think you need a third banana that can carry more of the scoring weight over those two. At times you've seen Duncan Powell or Lance Terry or even Javian McCollum do that. That is what is missing. They need an alpha scorer so my answer is no. I think Damon would probably agree. Could Duncan develop into that? Maybe. I was feeling better about him until the goose egg at Wake.
Which football player looks like he’s worked on his physique the most in the offseason?
KQ- Ask me again next week. I got only one day down there because I got sick. I didn't see much of the DBs, LBs or DEs up close either because of that.
Since you write for a living and play guitar, have you tried songwriting at all? If so, how would characterize what you've written?
KQ- I've done lots of songwriting in the past as well as poetry and other things in college. I took a lot of music classes and some pretty deep theory classes on poetry as well in my younger years. I have not written a song in about 20 years at least that I've recorded or wrote down. I still dream of new songs from time to time. I actually had one of those dreams about two weeks ago with a full song. However, I forget them if I don't do a voice memo or something. The last one was more of a metal song in the Iron Maiden/Metallica realm. I once wrote an entire album's worth of music based on the primary colors during my proggier days. I also dabbled with recording some friends' conversations while they were in an altered state in college and turning that into something as well. There was a lot of experimentation in those days.
With some teams skipping spring games due to poaching, should we expect a bunch of yada yada from position coach interviews on how the players are doing! Me think yes.
KQ- It is always going to be quite a bit of careful praise as I would call it. I think you have to really get specific to get any information, but like last year I don't think Key will be giving out any public most improved players from spring ball like he did for Akelo Stone before Ole Miss poached him anytime soon.
If you have your house in order you should be able to avoid some of that nonsense though.
How do you think we approach Wednesday’s rematch with UVA? What weakness’s will the tape reveal
KQ- They want to play slow as molasses and will give up on offensive rebounding to stop GT from running. GT has to pick up the pace when they can and see if they can get UVA to speed up some by forcing the issue. Closing out on three-point shooters is the bigger thing and that is what killed them in Charlottesville. UVA moved the ball well and GT closed out late and got sucked into some of their eye candy on offense with double teams or trying to steal the ball. They just have to play them straight up IMO.
Could you do a pre-spring expected depth chart? Sorry if it has already been done and I missed it. Thanks
KQ- Everything got a little scrambled ahead of spring ball for various reasons because of some stuff I was dealing with at home as we prepared to move my mom down to Sandy Springs.
Here is a stab at what I expected going into camp. I'll work on something else during the bye next week that may be more accurate.
QB- King, Philo, Knowles
RB- Haynes, Alexander/Holsey, Maddox/Carrie, Powell
X- Patterson, Canion, Gatling
Z- Rivers, Taylor, Horne
F- Rutherford, Stockton, Brice
TE- Beetham or Byrne, Lodge, Prince
HB- Seither (out), Lodge or Harpring
LT- Mackenny, Rosinski, Petty
LG- Fusile, Moore or Peay or Joseph
C- Moore or Tana, Jacob Benjamin (walk-on)
RG- Rutledge, Galloway, Joseph or Canales
RT- Riggs or Jakolby Jones, Floyd, Canales
DE- Tripplette or Hoffler, Boyd, Garrett
NT- Moore or Matthew Alexander, Marshall, Blake Belin
DT- van den Berg, Jones, Derry Norris
RE- Manley, Bradford or Boyd or Hoffler, Andre Fuller
MLB- Efford (out), Lightsey, Spaulding, Austin Dean (walk-on)
WLB- Melvin Jordan, Hamilton or Butler
NB- Gibbs or Shelley (out) or CP Lee, Stevenson, Jayden Barr
FS- CP Lee, Pritchett, Barr
SS- Daniels, Tae Harris
CB- Shelley (out), Tobe, Chandler, Dowdell or Elgin Sessions
CB- Harvey, Daiquan White, Kelvin Hill, Cedric Franklin,
I'll add the DBs could end up anywhere as that is shuffling with Gideon on board. I know that Barr, Sessions and Harris and how they fit in and the new guys are probably all over the place as he figures it out.
Birr is the kicker, Marshall Nichols will punt, snapper job should be wide open. Return jobs also wide open.
What is your personal assessment of Stoudamire's coaching job? Is 8-4 in the final twelve games, 10-10 overall in the ACC, and zero notable wins out of conference impressive considering the injuries? Is it not as impressive considering how bad the conference is this year? What do you see that gives you confidence for next year, and what do you see that concerns you about Damon's future?
KQ- I think given how poorly they started and the sophomore slump starts for Nait and Baye it was a pretty good turnaround job. He built the entire team to play one way with Luke and Kowacie in the corners and Javian gunning it and they had that lineup for like one or two games only the entire season healthy. I would bet they played maybe four games together with those three seniors and Doryan Onwuchekwa.
Overall he did a good job, but they have to start a little faster and not lose some of those buy games. They had good non-conference wins last year so I think that is also something to keep in mind.
What is Rivals planning to do about basketball recruiting analyses?
KQ- We have a committee and some other things going on. I can't really offer much else on that front publicly that I'm comfortable saying. It has been complicated.
Random ones. Answer what you want or none of them.
1. Why do we not have a better student section in hoops that can be seen on TV? Why not put more people on the TV side. I know winning helps but I was watching Auburn and they have all the kids able to be seen on TV just like at Duke. I hate seeing those empty seats.
KQ- So all those decisions were made four ADs ago when the building was built. The club is on a specific side and you have seats on the other just like they have forever. The students sit below the club. You'd have to move the cameras to the other side of the building to change the angle. Same issue with football. The camera equipment and broadcast facility is on the club side by press row upstairs so there isn't an easy way to move any of that either. That is millions of dollars worth of stuff to change it.
2. Why do so many people on here get angry about Navy uniforms.
KQ- I think it is funny. We are now 40 years away from the 1990-era uniforms and people still complain. They wore what they wore or they complained when they wore white or they complained when they wore gold because it is the wrong shade of gold. I'm not sure how you please those people. Most coaches would wear pink uniforms if they could win with them and call it a day. lol
3. How were we able to keep Drew Burress from going to an LSU or other SEC school.
KQ- He has a nice deal at GT and the family are close with the staff who have done a good job of working with him so far and developing him as much as you develop a guy that talented.
4. Thoughts on how Tech is viewed for hoops transfers. Do you think we will be able to improve or do we not have the funds
KQ- The money will be there should J Batt want to invest in hoops and judging by the signing class that appears to be the case as they will be able to do revenue sharing unless a roadblock hits before that goes into effect this summer. Key has a nice NIL war chest built up and Damon has some money, but now the school can also kick in money (expect $13-14 million per my sources in rev share) for mostly football and men's basketball.
They are recruiting as if they will have plenty of money to put together a team and keep guys like Nait and Baye and Duncan around. Also, guys like Nait and Duncan should remember and keep in mind how much they owe Damon Stoudamire and GT. I know that is something Duncan has spoken about to us in his media avails. I'm sure there will be sharks on all those guys.
