Georgia Tech, under first-year coach Damon Stoudamire, got out to an 8-3 start with an early win over Duke, then lost 11 of its next 13 – notably, the two were wins over Clemson and North Carolina.
The Yellow Jackets seemed to get things back on track with four wins in their last five, among the Ws, a win at Wake Forest that put the Demon Deacons back on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Tech was never competitive in a 72-57 loss at Virginia last weekend, then found itself down 17 with 12:59 to go in its first-round ACC Tournament game with Notre Dame.
Credit to the Ramblin’ Wreck – they battled back to take the lead with 2:24 to go, but went scoreless from there in an 84-80 loss that, just like that, ended a frustrating up-and-down first season for Stoudamire’s rebuild.
“I think that we have a really bright future,” said Stoudamire, a first-team All-American point guard at Arizona, 1996 NBA Rookie of the Year and 13-year NBA veteran in his second stint as a college head coach.
“I learned a lot this year,” Stoudamire said. “As we move forward, being in this conference and being where I’m trying to go, where we’re trying to go as a program, you learn how to recruit, you learn the different styles of play within the conference. There’s a lot of intel taken. You know, from being in the pros, you, I study coaches a lot, so I was studying coaches, studying philosophies, looking at the way guys play, and now I can construct my roster accordingly.”
He has his point guard of the future to build around, 6’3” freshman Naithan George, who finished his first season of college ball strong, going for 24 points (8-of-13 FG, 5-of-8 3FG) and seven assists in 39 minutes on Tuesday.
His season numbers were modest – 9.3 points per game, 4.6 assists per game – but George had some signature games.
The 17 in the win over Duke is an example there, as is the 16 in the wins over UNC and Wake.
His best all-around game may have been the 15 points and nine assists that he had against ACC Defensive Player of the Year Reece Beekman in a 75-66 loss to Virginia on Jan. 20.
The issue for George going forward: consistency.
“I think the future is really bright just because we showed glimpses of what we could actually do,” George told reporters after the season-ending loss on Tuesday. “I didn’t feel like we were able to do it, but we fell short. But I feel like the young guys and everyone that’s stepped up like Tafara (Gafare), Baye (Ndongo) and just seeing everyone come today, even Kowacie (Reeves) as well. Just seeing us build, I feel like the future is really bright.”
The key going forward for the Georgia Tech program, to Stoudamire, is the consistency that he wants to see out of his floor general.
“The plan and the emphasis will be to get people to think like Coach Stoudamire moving forward. That to me has to be the emphasis,” Stoudamire said. “These guys will tell you there’s a lot of things that I talk to them about that they’ve probably never even heard of. Quit looking at the score, look at the possessions. How many possessions are left in the game, things of that nature. Picking on matchups. Forget what we’re doing, picking on matchups. Most college guys just run 1-5 ball screens. Burton got four fouls. Everybody stay flat, whoever you’re guarding, come set a screen, set a real screen, come off, let’s see what we got.
“I just think that once the mindset and the terminology and the fluidity of what we’re doing, we won’t have the inconsistent play,” Stoudamire said. “I think we have inconsistent play, again, because I relied on a couple younger guys, as well. But it’s a part of it. It’s a growing process. I look forward to helping everyone grow. I look forward to the guys that will come in and helping them grow as players.
“We’ve done enough in this first year to where I feel good about where we’re going moving forward in the future.”
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Chris Graham
