Georgia Tech’s season reached its unsatisfying conclusion Tuesday night. Its 84-74 loss to Louisville in the first round of the ACC Tournament in New York ended coach Josh Pastner’s sixth season with a 12-20 record, by winning percentage his worst.
It was a season in which nothing ever quite seemed to come together for the Yellow Jackets, and the loss to the Cardinals reflected that. The Yellow Jackets nearly were run off the Barclays Center court, falling behind by 27 midway through the second half, before making a stunning rally with a 19-0 run and closing the gap to five points with about three minutes remaining. That was as close as Tech got. The effort was there; the consistency and execution were not.
“It’s been a tough season,” Pastner said.
Five takeaways from the Jackets’ season as defending ACC champions:
1. Valiant struggles for Michael Devoe, Jordan Usher
It would seem that the pairing of seniors Michael Devoe and Jordan Usher, a savvy scorer and an energy giver with an all-around game, could have produced more wins. Devoe finishes his career as the 12th-leading all-time scorer at Tech and earned third-team All-ACC honors. Usher’s final game was representative of the effort and productivity that he brought to the Jackets – 19 points, a career-high nine assists, two steals and only one turnover. When the Jackets were flailing on offense in the first half, Usher stepped to the front, scoring 10 first-half points, including a pair of 3-pointers.
Devoe, though, struggled to score in ACC play, enduring a funk that seemed to affect his confidence. He was frustrated by his difficulty to draw foul calls that he had in previous seasons. When center Rodney Howard was injured or not at his best, Usher (and forward Khalid Moore) had to play out of position as the center of Tech’s Princeton offense, which put the Jackets at a size disadvantage.
They were limiting factors that may have held them back from leading Tech to the sort of season that they had undoubtedly hoped for. Without consistent scoring help and inexperienced players around them, the burden of helping deliver a key stop on defense or ending the team’s many scoring lapses often fell to them, a challenge they couldn’t always meet.
They nevertheless likely will be remembered fondly by fans, who saw in them players who gave effort, were key contributors to the ACC title and represented the team well. After the loss to Louisville, Usher expressed his gratitude to Tech in his own inimitable way.
“Tech means so much to me,” he said. “Like I tweeted the other day, like, I am Georgia Tech. Like, I wish I could turn into the actual institution, for real. It’s turned me into a man. It’s been some of my most fun times in my life, for real.”
2. Injuries a factor, but ...
A frequent lament of Pastner’s was that injuries, particularly to guard Bubba Parham, who played in only two games after a knee injury suffered in the preseason, but also to Howard and guard Deivon Smith, probably cost the Jackets wins. Guard Tristan Maxwell played in only five games because of a thumb injury and a family matter.
A full complement almost certainly would have won more games. Parham could have been another dependable ball handler and a perimeter scoring threat to take pressure off Devoe and Usher. That said, it’s not as though Tech was the only team that wasn’t healthy.
Clemson beat Tech without forward P.J. Hall (15.4 points, 5.7 rebounds per game), and Syracuse did it without center Jesse Edwards (12.0 ppg, 6.5 rpg). N.C. State was without forward Manny Bates (9.8 ppg, 5.9 rpg) for the whole season but gave the Jackets arguably their worst loss of the season without him.
Tech was 5-7 in games decided by five points or fewer or that went to overtime, suggesting that it was within the Jackets’ – and Pastner’s – capacity to wring out a few more wins even with Parham and others on the sideline.
3. Hope for the future
Freshmen Deebo Coleman, Miles Kelly and Jalon Moore and sophomore Deivon Smith are building blocks for the future. Coleman played the most of the four, led the team in 3-point shooting percentage (41.3%) and may be the player who takes leadership of the team next season. Kelly overcame a shooting slump that plagued him in the first half of the season and finished with a flourish, scoring 35 points in his final two games on 11-for-17 shooting. Appearing in 14 games – seven of them in the final nine games of the season – Moore showed athletic ability and the ability to do a little bit of everything.
“Unfortunately, our record wasn’t what it needed to be,” Pastner said. “That being said, it’ll help us next season for the experience that those young guys got.”
Similarly, Howard showed signs that he could develop into a more impactful player as he developed over the course of the season. He has a long way to go yet, particularly as a scorer and rim defender, but appears to be on the right track in his two remaining seasons of eligibility.
4. A verdict
It would be difficult to color this season as anything other than a disappointment. Tech was picked to finish 10th in the ACC, a rather humble projection for a defending conference champion, but still failed to meet that forecast. The Jackets began with a home loss to mid-major Miami (Ohio), which went on to finish seventh in the MAC. Of the team’s 12 wins, most likely only one will have come against an NCAA Tournament team, crosstown rival Georgia State.
As of Wednesday, its KenPom offensive efficiency ranking was its second worst in Pastner’s tenure and its defensive efficiency rating the worst. The team lost seven games by 15 points or more, the most in Pastner’s tenure.
In part because of injuries and inexperience, Pastner was not able to settle on a rotation and had difficulty fitting the pieces together.
“It’s been unfortunate,” Pastner said after the Louisville game, sitting next to Usher and Devoe. “I couldn’t get a set rotation for these two because, like I said, I was playing a lot of guys outside of these two trying to figure out the right combinations.”
5. Perspectives of Pastner
In a year when the ACC was down, the Jackets finished with a league record of 5-15. By winning percentage, Tech has had only four worse seasons since the start of coach Bobby Cremins’ tenure in 1981.
The record might elicit a response that Pastner shouldn’t have that sort of record this deep into his tenure. Possibly, but of two of those four aforementioned seasons, one was in Cremins’ 16th season (following Tech’s regular-season conference title) and another was in coach Paul Hewitt’s ninth (which preceded his final NCAA Tournament season).
In six seasons, Pastner teams have finished under .500 in the ACC four times. That’s tied with Wake Forest, and only Pitt and Boston College have more.
On the other hand, Pastner also has the team’s only two winning ACC records since 2004, and the only back-to-back winning ACC seasons since 1988-90.
As Pastner leads his team into the offseason, he’ll be under heavy pressure to land difference-making players out of the transfer portal with Devoe and Usher both moving on along with Moore and perhaps Parham, too. The freshmen offer hope, but it’s certainly plausible that the next NCAA berth could be two years away.
Even as the 2021-22 season was wrapping up, Pastner already had his eyes on the offseason. On Tuesday night, he spoke of notes and a list of ideas that he wanted to share with athletic director Todd Stansbury and senior associate AD Brad Stricklin (the sport supervisor for men’s basketball) about plans for the year to come.
“There’s quite a few things we’ve got to get better at,” he said.
He won’t find much disagreement anywhere.
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