Archive for February, 2011

Anthony Allen may have helped himself at the NFL Combine.

Allen, was among the top performers in all seven of the physical competitions, topped by having the highest vertical jump (41.5 inches).

He was third in the 20-yard shuttle (4.06 seconds), fifth in the three-cone drill (6.79 seconds), sixth in the 60-yard shuttle (11.46 seconds) and broad jump (10 feet) and seventh in the bench (225 pounds 24 times). Thirty-nine running backs attended the Combine.

On his first attempt, he ran the all-important 40-yard dash in 4.54 seconds. However, he wasn’t included among the top-15 performers in the category later listed on nflnetwork.com. The analysts said they were impressed with his time, saying he moved well for a big man. He’s listed on combine site as weighing 228 pounds.

The question mark about Allen is how will he fare in a more traditional offense than the option offense Tech runs. Allen rushed 1,843 yards and 12 touchdowns in two seasons at Tech. He also rushed for 1,102 …

Continue reading Allen does well at NFL Combine »

Jimmie Kitchen, a former standout at Lithonia, signed a letter of intent with Georgia Tech. He is the team’s 23rd signee.
According to jacketsonline.com, Kitchen was going to be in Auburn’s 2009 class, but there were questions about his academic eligibility.
He then signed with Tennessee State, but the NCAA Clearinghouse had an issue with an online English class he took. He never enrolled.
He began working to improve his transcript and the Clearinghouse recently cleared him.
Tech assistant Joe Speed was recruiting some other players when a coach suggested he look at Kitchens, a 265-pound defensive end.
Kitchen visited Tech, was offered and signed.
He will add more depth to Tech’s defensive line. He is the first signee in the class who is a defensive lineman.
– Doug Roberson, AJC

Continue reading Tech picks up another football signee »

There are a lot of Georgia Tech football fans who are very excited to see what freshman Vad Lee can do this fall.

Lee had quite the career at Hillside in Durham. He was named the Class 4A player of the Year after leading his team to a 16-0 record and state championship. He completed 60 percent of his passes for 2,969 yards with 23 TDs and added 1,004 yards rushing.

He was on his way with a few teammates to watch the Hillside girls basketball team take on Green Hope on Wednesday.

He took a few minutes on the way there to answer a few questions.

Q: Are you looking forward to starting your college career?

A: I’m very excited about coming to Atlanta. It’s a great opportunity with football and with so many jobs that if football doesn’t work out I can get into a great business.

Q: There were a lot of rumors as we got closer to Signing Day that you were wavering on your commitment. How many of them were true and how many weren’t?

A: Some of them were false. Some of them were me …

Continue reading Catching up with Vad Lee »

Quotes following Georgia Tech’s 62-56 loss to Virginia on Wednesday, courtesy of the sports information department:

GEORGIA TECH COACH Paul Hewitt

Opening statement

“We got off to a pretty good start. We wanted to establish Daniel early, and we were able to get him a couple of touches. Obviously at 46 or 43, we couldn’t make a shot and just went dry. They made some big shots.”

Were you waiting on the TV timeout at four minutes before calling a time out when Virginia went on that run?

“That was part of it. The other thing was I thought we were coming out and getting some pretty good looks at it. I thought we were getting some good cracks at the basket. I think there was a timeout at 4:05, with 15 seconds on the clock, they switched defenses. Again, we had Jason (Morris) in the corner we just did not knock it down.”

After Mfon Udofia missed the two free throws, what we were you trying to do there?

“At that point, you are trying to make it and get a steal. The original …

Continue reading Quotes after Tech’s loss to Virginia »

With 12 points, four rebounds but no steals in Wednesday’s loss to Virginia, Georgia Tech’s Iman Shumpet still moved up a few of the school’s career charts.

But what is troubling is after doing a solid job shutting down Farrakhan in the first half (he had just 5 points), he was able to score 12 points in the second half, including a few free throws during the critical 12-0 run in the second half that sealed the game. Virginia coach Tony Bennett said afterward that Farrakhan was playing with some sort of stomach ailment. He went 3-of-9 from the field, but 9-of-10 from the free-throw line. He scored 23 points in the teams’ first meeting.

The last three players Shumpert has faced in the ACC have combined to score 78 points. Coach Paul Hewitt said the points scored by Virginia Tech’s Malcolm Delaney and Nolan Smith can be traced back to Tech’s poor shot selection. Missed 3-pointers led to long rebounds and easy layups or three-point plays for the guards.

Farrakhan was taking …

Continue reading Shumpert moving up lists »

If Glen Rice doesn’t start for Georgia Tech and no one is there to see it does it count?

With an eyeball estimate of perhaps a 1,000 fans at Alexander Memorial Coliseum for the start of Wednesday’s game against Virginia, Glen Rice was held out of the starting lineup for disciplinary reasons. He entered the game at the 13:22 mark.

Rice, a sophomore, is Tech’s second-leading scorer (13.9 points per game) and rebounder (5.6 per game).

You can follow game coverage on twitter @ajcgatech.

I will try to find out more after the game.

Continue reading Rice not in starting lineup »

On every blog I post about Georgia Tech’s basketball team the comments usually turn into a roulette wheel of all the reasons that coach Paul Hewitt should be fired. Of course, that means that athletics director Dan Radakovich must pay the $7.2 million buyout that Hewitt’s contract demands, unless a settlement can be reached.

With this season drawing to a close, I thought it might be interesting to bring up some of the most-oft used reasons and do some more research to find out what has credence and what doesn’t so that the conversation might be more balanced.

 1. He doesn’t develop players/look at how well his players do in the NBA: I think these two things are related because many of you see a player like Chris Bosh, who is one of the most effective big men in the NBA, and ask “why didn’t he do more of that at Tech?”

Since Hewitt took over, seven players have made the ACC’s All-Freshmen team. Just one of those players, B.J. Elder, later made the All-ACC team in a different …

Continue reading Looking at arguments against Hewitt »

Brian Oliver, who has missed the past four games, won’t return until March 4, according to Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt.

Oliver, a sophomore, suffered a small fracture in the base of the thumb on his non-shooting hand in the loss against Clemson on Feb. 5.  He was re-examined today and the doctors elected to leave the pins in his hand.

Oliver, who has started 12 games, is averaging 10.9 points and 4.5 rebounds this season. After hitting 38 percent of his 3-pointers last season Oliver has struggled this year, hitting 29.5 percent of his 3-pointers and 36.8 percent of his shots overall.

The team is 1-3 since he went to the sideline. Tech will host Virginia on Wednesday.

“He is a threat offensively, he has had some big three-point shooting games for us,” Hewitt said. “But also, he is a physical presence around the basket and where we have missed him the most is on the boards actually. I didn’t think I would say that but since he has been out people really have been hitting …

Continue reading Brian Oliver won’t return for Saturday’s game »

Some have speculated that the only way Georgia Tech’s Paul Hewitt will remain head coach is if the Yellow Jackets make it back to the NCAA tournament for the second consecutive year.

With an 11-15 record and an RPI that is so low I’m not even going to bother looking it up, Tech isn’t going to make it in as an at-large.

So, they are going to have to win the ACC tournament and with it, the automatic bid.

“Doug, are you nuts?” you are saying to yourself right now.

That’s neither here nor there.

Yes, the Jackets have won just three conference games and are 11th in the 12-team league with four games remaining.  Yes, they have have lost their past six games in the ACC, falling behind in most by gruesome margins.

But what’s life without hope?

Let’s assume that the standings don’t change much before the ACC tourney begins on March 10 in Greensboro.

The Yellow Jackets would likely open with either Maryland or Boston College. They’ve already lost to both those teams, but the losses …

Continue reading Can Tech make it back to the NCAAs? Wait, read on »

Some quotes following Georgia Tech’s loss to Duke on Sunday, courtesy of the Blue Devils’ sports information department:

Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Hewitt

Opening Statement:

“Got off to a pretty good start. Did some of the things that we wanted to do: try to score in transition; if we didn’t have anything in transition, use the clock a little bit and space the floor out. I thought we did a pretty decent job, but the one thing we didn’t do for the entire first half, which was a number two priority behind stopping from three, was defensive rebounding. They had six in the second chance points, which was something, they feast on that. They get second shots, get offensive rebounds and kick them out for threes or drive them up too easy. That was tough to overcome.”

On satisfaction with the 3-point defense:

“Yeah. I wasn’t satisfied with the rebounding because the rebounds led to some of the threes they got. I think they were 2-for-6 in the first half, excuse me, …

Continue reading Quotes after Tech’s loss at Duke »