The rough start of the season and the struggles from the core group of Miles Kelly, Deebo Coleman, Jalon Moore and Deivon Smith have people losing their patience with head coach Josh Pastner.
Pastner brought up the point during the press conference after his team lost at Clemson that two players on Clemson's starting five PJ Hall (5th year player) and Brevin Galloway (grad transfer from BC via College of Charleston) had 11 years of college experience while Tech's starting five only had 13 total.
Tech has one of the youngest teams in college basketball and I believe only trailing Duke.
How did that happen?
Josh Pastner's mantra is to get old and stay old and that led to his two strong seasons in ACC play in 2019-20 and 2020-21 that kept him employed and landed him an ACC Title and a ACC Coach of the Year Award.
Pastner has admitted as well his team should've been better last season and they were more competitive overall despite playing a schedule he set up for NCAAT seeding rather than confidence expecting his two cornerstone players Moses Wright and Jose Alvarado to return for their senior seasons.
The 2021-22 squad was 5-15 in ACC play but they had six ACC losses last year by five points or less including two overtime losses against Notre Dame and at Syracuse. GT was one win away in one of those games away from an 11th-place finish because the bulk of the back half of the league was tied at 6-14 in ACC play.
That doesn't answer my question, but that gives some context of how competitive they were relative to this season.
So why are they so young?
That can be traced back to two factors. One is NIL which I've beaten to death on here.
The other is a series of misses in recruiting.
In the 2020 class when the team was turning the corner but still under scholarship limits 12 instead of 13 Pastner signed two HS prospects. Both were terrible. These should be seniors on this team
A smooth-scoring guard in HS with some baggage at home that led him to bail early. Price had some people in his ear giving him terrible advice and he left and ended up at NC Central. Then it didn't work out there and he is at a place called Benedict College that I've never heard in Columbia, SC. He does not start there.
Didenko was one of Coach Rev's finds. Rev could coach big men but he was a lousy recruiter and evaluator of HS or euro-talent. Didenko played in 11 games over two years before transferring to UT-Martin. The Russian Rifleman Jr. he was not. He struggled at UT-Martin. Didenko was basically a JUCO having played at a school called Palm Beach College and somehow GT took him. To this day, I never understood this and it was the second worst signing of my entire tenure covering GT sports behind Harrison Jump.
The next year they signed three players
Another Rev "find" Saba was slow and could not understand the defense or move his feet. He transferred after two seasons of limited action and is playing some and occasionally starting for the San Francisco Dons again not really anywhere near ACC level.
Probably the biggest killer among this whole list is Maxwell. The son of a great former NBA player Vernon Maxwell, Tech won a hard battle against NC State, South Carolina, Marquette and Providence to land the sharpshooter. He has barely played because he cannot stay healthy and out of his own way. He played in six games in his first two years total and then 14 games this season where he was dealing with a finger injury that bothered his shooting and then a hip pointer that has kept him out of the last two games. He hasn't been healthy enough to develop and he has been a bust to this point.
Meka like Maxwell has suffered from a lack of availability. He played in one game as a freshman and then had back surgery. Meka had been a national recruit at one point before his stock dropped off a little as a senior. Meka's problem is he has zero offensive game other than putbacks and dunks and he hasn't played enough to be a skilled defensive player. He is also undersized a bit as a center. With the Princeton offense, they can't really play him because of the elbow action they are addicted to using even though he might help them defensively create transition opportunities and fix the porous interior D on this team.
After two absolute duds, Pastner then struck gold in the next cycle and signed Tech's best class in decade with two Rivals top 100 players in Coleman and Kelly and a special talent in Moore. They added Deivon Smith as a transfer as well after one year at Miss State, a former top 55 player out of HS.
The main issue is those five misses kept Tech from signing five guys who could be in the rotation and it is the biggest whiff rate for Tech in hoops in many years.
Going back over the years there are plenty of misses but most years they find one or two starters. Here are the guys who worked for GT from each prior class
2018- Devoe and Khalid Moore
2017- Alvarado and Wright plus Evan Cole who was very solid until he left
2016- Josh Okogie out of the transition class
2015 only signed one because Gregory was so hard on the transfers, Sylvester Ogbonda who was not great
2014- AD Gueye, Ben Lammers and Tadric Jackson
2013- Quinton Stephens
2012- Robert Carter and Marcus Georges-Hunt
2011- This is the last real dud class, Julian Royal and Bobby Parks who never was allowed to enroll at GT
2010- Jason Morris he had a chance but his body broke down but he did start 30 games at GT
2009- Derrick Favors, Glen Rice Jr., Daniel Miller, Kam Holsey, Mfon Udofia
2008- Iman Shumpert
2007- Mo Miller, Gani Lawal
2006- Thaddeus Young, Crit, Zach Peacock
2005- D'Andre Bell, Lewis Clinch, Alade Aminu
2004- Jeremis Smith, Anthony Morrow, Ra'Sean Dickey, Zam Fredrick
2003- Will Bynum
2002- Jarrett Jack, Chris Bosh
The misses fall on Josh and his staff. The lack of NIL money to fix those misses fall on GT and overall the state of the program falls on like 3-4 ADs who did not prioritize being competitive in the ACC. I'm curious to see how this plays out.
Pastner has half an ACC schedule left with the bottom part of the league mostly ahead of him. The growing pains can turn into something better if they can keep it together and fix the offense IMO, but so far we have not seen that either or guys just shoot at their normal clips.
I get the frustration from GT fans, but like anything there is a reason why and it is complicated and sometimes messy and this one is.
Pastner brought up the point during the press conference after his team lost at Clemson that two players on Clemson's starting five PJ Hall (5th year player) and Brevin Galloway (grad transfer from BC via College of Charleston) had 11 years of college experience while Tech's starting five only had 13 total.
Tech has one of the youngest teams in college basketball and I believe only trailing Duke.
How did that happen?
Josh Pastner's mantra is to get old and stay old and that led to his two strong seasons in ACC play in 2019-20 and 2020-21 that kept him employed and landed him an ACC Title and a ACC Coach of the Year Award.
Pastner has admitted as well his team should've been better last season and they were more competitive overall despite playing a schedule he set up for NCAAT seeding rather than confidence expecting his two cornerstone players Moses Wright and Jose Alvarado to return for their senior seasons.
The 2021-22 squad was 5-15 in ACC play but they had six ACC losses last year by five points or less including two overtime losses against Notre Dame and at Syracuse. GT was one win away in one of those games away from an 11th-place finish because the bulk of the back half of the league was tied at 6-14 in ACC play.
That doesn't answer my question, but that gives some context of how competitive they were relative to this season.
So why are they so young?
That can be traced back to two factors. One is NIL which I've beaten to death on here.
The other is a series of misses in recruiting.
In the 2020 class when the team was turning the corner but still under scholarship limits 12 instead of 13 Pastner signed two HS prospects. Both were terrible. These should be seniors on this team
A smooth-scoring guard in HS with some baggage at home that led him to bail early. Price had some people in his ear giving him terrible advice and he left and ended up at NC Central. Then it didn't work out there and he is at a place called Benedict College that I've never heard in Columbia, SC. He does not start there.
Didenko was one of Coach Rev's finds. Rev could coach big men but he was a lousy recruiter and evaluator of HS or euro-talent. Didenko played in 11 games over two years before transferring to UT-Martin. The Russian Rifleman Jr. he was not. He struggled at UT-Martin. Didenko was basically a JUCO having played at a school called Palm Beach College and somehow GT took him. To this day, I never understood this and it was the second worst signing of my entire tenure covering GT sports behind Harrison Jump.
The next year they signed three players
Another Rev "find" Saba was slow and could not understand the defense or move his feet. He transferred after two seasons of limited action and is playing some and occasionally starting for the San Francisco Dons again not really anywhere near ACC level.
Probably the biggest killer among this whole list is Maxwell. The son of a great former NBA player Vernon Maxwell, Tech won a hard battle against NC State, South Carolina, Marquette and Providence to land the sharpshooter. He has barely played because he cannot stay healthy and out of his own way. He played in six games in his first two years total and then 14 games this season where he was dealing with a finger injury that bothered his shooting and then a hip pointer that has kept him out of the last two games. He hasn't been healthy enough to develop and he has been a bust to this point.
Meka like Maxwell has suffered from a lack of availability. He played in one game as a freshman and then had back surgery. Meka had been a national recruit at one point before his stock dropped off a little as a senior. Meka's problem is he has zero offensive game other than putbacks and dunks and he hasn't played enough to be a skilled defensive player. He is also undersized a bit as a center. With the Princeton offense, they can't really play him because of the elbow action they are addicted to using even though he might help them defensively create transition opportunities and fix the porous interior D on this team.
After two absolute duds, Pastner then struck gold in the next cycle and signed Tech's best class in decade with two Rivals top 100 players in Coleman and Kelly and a special talent in Moore. They added Deivon Smith as a transfer as well after one year at Miss State, a former top 55 player out of HS.
The main issue is those five misses kept Tech from signing five guys who could be in the rotation and it is the biggest whiff rate for Tech in hoops in many years.
Going back over the years there are plenty of misses but most years they find one or two starters. Here are the guys who worked for GT from each prior class
2018- Devoe and Khalid Moore
2017- Alvarado and Wright plus Evan Cole who was very solid until he left
2016- Josh Okogie out of the transition class
2015 only signed one because Gregory was so hard on the transfers, Sylvester Ogbonda who was not great
2014- AD Gueye, Ben Lammers and Tadric Jackson
2013- Quinton Stephens
2012- Robert Carter and Marcus Georges-Hunt
2011- This is the last real dud class, Julian Royal and Bobby Parks who never was allowed to enroll at GT
2010- Jason Morris he had a chance but his body broke down but he did start 30 games at GT
2009- Derrick Favors, Glen Rice Jr., Daniel Miller, Kam Holsey, Mfon Udofia
2008- Iman Shumpert
2007- Mo Miller, Gani Lawal
2006- Thaddeus Young, Crit, Zach Peacock
2005- D'Andre Bell, Lewis Clinch, Alade Aminu
2004- Jeremis Smith, Anthony Morrow, Ra'Sean Dickey, Zam Fredrick
2003- Will Bynum
2002- Jarrett Jack, Chris Bosh
The misses fall on Josh and his staff. The lack of NIL money to fix those misses fall on GT and overall the state of the program falls on like 3-4 ADs who did not prioritize being competitive in the ACC. I'm curious to see how this plays out.
Pastner has half an ACC schedule left with the bottom part of the league mostly ahead of him. The growing pains can turn into something better if they can keep it together and fix the offense IMO, but so far we have not seen that either or guys just shoot at their normal clips.
I get the frustration from GT fans, but like anything there is a reason why and it is complicated and sometimes messy and this one is.
