Yellow Jackets not finished with rebuild

In his first season as the basketball head coach at Georgia Tech, Josh Pastner said over and over that his basketball team could not afford to make mistakes. They Yellow Jackets had “zero margin of error” he said many, many times.

After winning 21 games and reaching the championship game of the NIT, the Yellow Jackets returned to practice this week with an improved margin-of-error odds.

Slightly.

“We finished in 11th place in the ACC,” Pastner said. “That’s double-digits. Our margin of error has gone from zero to maybe two or three percent. We have a long way to go, still have to build moving forward.”

Pastner got good news last week when he received a one-year extension on his original six-year deal. It will take him through the 2022-23 season.

At least the Yellow Jackets have a strong base around which to build. There’s center Ben Lammers, the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year last season who averaged 14.2 points and 9.2 rebounds, and guard Josh Okogie, who emerged as a star last year when he led the team in scoring as a freshman at 16.1 points per game.

But there are plenty of flaws, too, which Pastner is quick to point out.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, got a long way to go,” he said. “We’re far from being out of the woods. We can’t forget that this is still a major rebuild job. We’re only in year two. We may be more talented in areas, but we’re a lot less experienced. We’re going to have some growing pains. There’s a lot of work to do.”

The Yellow Jackets also return senior guard Tadric Jackson, who averaged 12.2 points but can be inconsistent, and point guard Justin Moore, who started 18 games a year ago. The other returners are forward Sylvester Ogbonda and forward Abdoulaye Gueye, who was starting to earn more playing time when he suffered a season-ending wrist fracture Feb. 1.

“We’re not a real deep team, so we’ve got make sure we’re in great shape and keep improving individually,” Pastner said.

The Yellow Jackets lost forward Quinton Stephens and guards Josh Heath and Corey Heyward. Stephens will be especially missed for his rebounding and ability to make a 3-pointer. Heath ran the offense and distributed the ball, and Heyward played hard but offered little offensive punch.

That leaves the door open for a group of freshmen to come in and play right away. Jose Alvarado, a 6-foot point guard out of Brooklyn, New York, could start. Curtis Haywood II, a 6-5 forward out of Oklahoma City, will get a chance at wing. Evan Cole, a 6-9 forward from South Forsyth, is another player who could add to the inside game. Moses Wright, a 6-9 forward from Raleigh, is considered a late bloomer — he grew four inches since his sophomore season — and can play multiple positions.

“With freshmen there will be some highs and lows,” Pastner said. “We’ll see how they been progressing.”

Pastner will use the rest of the month to assess the talent, move players around and try to determine the best five players to put on the court. Like last year, the team isn’t going to be deep; Pastner stuck with mainly seven players through the conference schedule.

The Yellow Jackets play their season opener Nov. 10 against UCLA in Shanghai, China. The home opener is Nov. 19 against Bethune-Cookman.　　

“We want to find the five best players,” Pastner said. “If we need to go small, we’ll go small. I tell them to forget position. ‘Your job is to produce. If you produce, I’ll find a way to get you on the floor. I’ll find a way, but you’ve got to produce.’ ”

This story was originally published October 9, 2017 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Yellow Jackets not finished with rebuild."