Georgia Tech’s Damon Stoudamire on expectations for 2025-26 Yellow Jackets

“So that’s what we gotta get better at. That’s where I gotta get better at getting these guys better at that. It’s about a mentality, and it’s gonna be a Day One mentality. Because next year starts (Wednesday) for me. There’s just things that I’m just not gonna accept no more.”

Stoudamire opened his postgame news conference with a soliloquy on what necessary steps must transpire over the next several months for his program to reach the next level. The theme of that speech was a newfound mentality that needs to permeate through his locker room.

Tech has gone four seasons without an NCAA Tournament appearance and that same length without a winning record. While the 2024-25 squad certainly made strides toward breaking those streaks, it fell short because of inconsistent play and a rash of injuries that wreaked havoc on the Jackets’ rotation.

“We were under siege so much this season, trying to keep our head above water and not drown,” Stoudamire said. “We did a good job of doing that. I thought we learned how to fight. I thought guys learned how to prepare. I think at times, and we had some big wins to show we learned how to win, but now it’s time — everything you do, you gotta do it like a winner. I mean that.

“This spring, this summer, it gotta hurt. When you leave the weight room, it gotta hurt. When you leave the gym, your wrist gotta be locked because you shot too much. It’s preparing to win. That’s the mentality that each player has to have if he wants to be in my program moving forward.”

Tech’s 2024-25 season got off to a rocky start with a 6-5 nonconference record that included a loss at home to North Florida in the second game of the season. The Jackets also lost home games to Georgia and Cincinnati and lost on the road at Oklahoma. Before the calendar turned to 2025, Tech was 0-2 in ACC play with losses to North Carolina and Duke, respectively.

Stoudamire took a no-more-Mr.-nice-guy approach after that Duke loss. The Jackets won immediately won three in a row, but the injuries began to take their toll.

Forward Luke O’Brien, a transfer from Colorado, played his last game Dec. 18 and missed the rest of the season with a foot injury. Guard Kowacie Reeves missed the final 3½ months of the season with a foot injury of his own. Guard Javian McCollum, a transfer from Oklahoma, missed two separate stretches with head injuries and wound up playing 19 games for the Jackets (Tech went 9-10 in those games). Freshman center Doryan Onwuchekwa also left the team for personal reasons in December.

The remaining available players who could take the court wandered aimlessly through January as Tech went 1-5 over its final six games of that month.

But Tech got off the mat and finished the regular season 7-3, a stretch that included victories over three of the ACC’s top teams in Clemson, Louisville and Stanford. The Jackets (10-10 in the ACC), however, also lost at Virginia and at Boston College in February, results that could have greatly enhanced Tech’s final ACC standing and ACC tournament seeding.

A 1-3 mark over its final four left Tech at 17-17, a three-win improvement from Stoudamire’s first season in Atlanta.

“I think we were one of the, like, most-injured teams in NCAA history,” Tech guard Duncan Powell said when asked how Tech can be better next season. “We only had seven scholarship players at one point in time for a few games. Other than, which you can’t really control, other than working out and rehab, honestly, just get pieces. We have a great group of guys coming back, so it’s kind of on coach. That’s his job to figure out what we need. Just pieces that will help us play harder, play smarter and just be more physical.”

Powell was a revelation for Tech, scoring 12.2 points and grabbing 5.4 rebounds per game in his debut season with the Jackets. If he and sophomores Baye Ndongo (13.4 ppg, 8.9 rpg) and Nait George (12.3 ppg, 6.5 apg) all return for 2025-26, Tech most certainly will have three of the better players in the ACC. Freshmen Jaeden Mustaf and Ibrahim Souare were key pieces for Tech as well, especially over the final two months of the season.

Tech will add at least five players to that group in signees Eric Chatfield Jr., Brandon Stores, Akai Fleming, Cole Kirouac and Mouhamed Sylla. Stoudamire said the process of continuing to add to, build and reshape the 2025-26 roster begins Wednesday.

“One of the biggest things I told the guys that come back, it’s time to do everything like a winner. You gotta train like a winner, you gotta eat like a winner, when you moving in the streets, you gotta move like a winner,” Stoudamire said. “You gotta always have your chest out. You gotta exude confidence in the next man. That’s how I feel.

“It’s not about not executing the game plan. That’s on me. It’s on me to get these guys mentally tough. That’s what it is. It’s a focus. It’s a toughness. That’s all it is.”