Tech leaves us wondering how much it might have done
D'Andre Bell's postmortem on his Yellow Jackets : "We were just inconsistent." (AP photo)
Milwaukee – Elbows on knees, a scowling Iman Shumpert bent forward in his chair. Someone asked if Ohio State was better than Georgia Tech. “Not at all,” Shumpert said.
So: Was Tech better than Ohio State? Said Shumpert, almost spitting the words: “A lot better.”
Judge these teams 1-10 and there’s no comparison. Brad Sheehan, Tech’s 10th man, was pressed into service Sunday and contributed a three-point play. Ohio State deployed only seven men, and its two reserves worked a total of 13 minutes. (Brian Oliver, Tech’s eighth man, played 16.) But college basketball isn’t a draft lottery, and it isn’t a beauty contest. It’s a matter of what coach can take talent and mold it into a team.
Paul Hewitt spoke this season of his Jackets having a “high ceiling.” They altered our perception of them as rank underachievers with a stirring run in the ACC tournament and a Round 1 NCAA dismissal of Oklahoma State, but in the end that ceiling remained untouched. This team took Hewitt back to the Big Dance for the first time since 2007, but with three McDonald’s All-Americans was that the ultimate goal? Just to make an appearance?
Said D’Andre Bell: “We were inconsistent. At certain points we showed how great we can be.”
A great team would have beaten Ohio State on Sunday. As strange as it sounds, there was a clear imbalance of talent between the No. 2 seed and the No. 10. Tech had the three best big men this day, and yet Gani Lawal and Derrick Favors got called for the fouls that changed the game. Jacket fans will complain forever about the officiating, but here’s the thing: With no Ohio State post presence to defend, Tech’s post players still fouled. How? Why?
The Buckeyes left the door open almost all game: They fell eight points behind early and gave back 11 points off a 15-point lead late, and they missed six free throws and made 18 turnovers (to Tech’s 21). Evan Turner scored 24 points but needed 19 shots to do it, and his nine rebounds and nine assists were undercut by nine turnovers.
But Tech didn’t lead over the final 22 1/2 minutes because it could never punish the Buckeyes, who essentially start four guards, and when the Jackets’ offense crumbled the game became a flurry of Ohio State fast breaks and transition treys. If it wasn’t easy for the Buckeyes, it was never as hard as it coulda/shoulda been.
So much awaited Tech if it could have upset Ohio State. The Midwest Regional would then have been without its No. 1, 2 and 3 seeds, and nobody in St. Louis — not even Michigan State — would have matched the Jackets on manpower. Asked if Tech could have reached the Final Four, Derrick Favors said: “I think we could have. But we ended up losing this game.”
Loading ...Thus do we take our leave of the most gifted team in Institute annals. If its legacy won’t be of utter failure — it did reach the ACC finals and win a game in the Big Dance, both accomplishments Tech hadn’t managed since 2005 — neither did it approach its potential. It finished seventh in a diluted ACC, seventh with a losing conference record. It lost to Georgia. It made the NCAA as a 10th seed and was gone on the first weekend.
Said Hewitt: “We got to the [NCAA] tournament, and that’s a really major accomplishment. I think our guys played really hard and were really unlucky at times, but their effort never wavered. We had a great year.”
Then, perhaps realizing he’d oversold his case, Hewitt said: “A very good year.”
Actually, it was neither. It was a B-minus season. If losing 13 games with Favors and Lawal and Shumpert is a “great” — or a “very good” — year, standards need to be recalibrated. Hewitt can and will endeavor to put the sunniest of faces on this season, but the empty looks in his locker room Sunday told a different story.
The Jackets knew how much they had and how far they might have gone. Sad to say, this team of vast promise was done playing before it really got going.
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481 comments Add your comment
Jeff
March 21st, 2010
9:04 pm
Max Sizemore (6:57 p.m.)…. very well said. As an SEC fan, I was disappointed with just about every SEC game I saw this year, save for the Georgia-Florida game in Athens and the Tenn.-Kentucky game in Knoxville (UT looked really good that day, showed what they were capable of). But you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that most teams looked average at best…. and I think the REASON is that the so-called “mid majors” and “cinderellas” the last few years (Northern Iowa, Cornell, St. Mary’s, Davidson, George Mason, etc.) have a number of factors in their favor:
1. They build a TEAM over a 3 or 4 year period, not just a ROSTER that is loaded one year and totally different the next due to NBA defections.
2. Speaking of the NBA, they have guys that WANT to be in college and WANT to play in the NCAA tournament, NOT a bunch of one-and-done guys who look at college as a pro-in-waiting training ground. Winning in the NCAA tourney means a helluva lot more to the kids at Buter or Ohio than it does to the Carmello-Anthony types at Kentucky, Villanova, Ga. Tech, Kansas, Texas, etc.
3. A group that has to rely on FUNDAMENTALS and team cohesion and great coaching to win games is a lot more sound than a group that just has freakish natural talent. You can’t always just roll the ball out there and hope your athleticism wins out. I think these “upset” teams have learned the game a lot better than some of the big guys, because they HAVE to know the subtleties of basketball to survive.
For my money, more and more, despite what it does to my brackets, it’s pretty exciting and inspiring to see these smaller schools and unknowns come out of nowhere to knock off the big teams. I think it makes for a much better, more exciting tournament to watch the Northern Iowas of the world instead of some ho-hum, mundane, 19-11 team from a power conference.
It’s been a great tourney so far… can’t wait for next weekend!
Technophobia
March 21st, 2010
9:04 pm
Thanks Mark, I’d forgotten about Holsey. That makes me even more optimistic about next year. We’ve got that 4 star shooting guard coming in too.
Ross
March 21st, 2010
9:05 pm
There is nothing to wonder about – this is the worst Tech team I have ever seen, for sheer stupidity, lack of heart, lack of basic understanding of team play, lack of execution on all levels (execution? I’m in favor of it) – and above all lack of coaching skill. I like Paul Hewitt. I’d love to drink beer and BS with him. But as a coach, he’s a complete and utter failure. He’s got no stones, like his team. Color me disgusted.
-drl
Opinion
March 21st, 2010
9:05 pm
why is there always at least one idiot that blames the critics that are hating on Paul Hewitt saying that we want Hewitt gone because he’s black?????????????
Must be why everyone who wants Bobby Cox fired because he is white…..right?????
Get off this blog “Great Year for Hewitt”
Stop bringing up the color card, its not about his race its about his one winning season out of 10 in the ACC, its about his 95-87 record since going to the national championship game….get over his color you racist, its about his performance and wins and losses !!!!!
Fire Bobby Cox……..because he’s white…..do you know how ridiculous you sound???
neil marlowe
March 21st, 2010
9:07 pm
well, its all over for the techies – and good riddance to this bunch. I’m sick of all the comments about how talented this team was. My god, they lost 13 games!!! I hate to see Schumpert go, because the guy knows a little something about playing defense, but Lawal and Favors ? Goodby. If Hewitt had any pride and sense, he would resign. I am so embarrassed to be a Tech grad after some idiot in the athletic dept.
gave Hewitt the contract he has. What have all of his one and done players done for us? Favors played all year like he wanted to get this nonsense over with and get on to the NBA. He is very fortunate to be 6′10″ and 250 lbs, because he will be able to make a lot of money playing basketball, probably the only way he could make a living for the rest of his life. The only good thing about our season being over is that
we won’t have to read alll the AJC sports writers saying how talented this bunch was. Talented teams don’t lose 13 games. I’ve lost a lot of respect for the sports writers at the AJC, who apparently don’t know what they are talking about. now, what am I going to do next winter, with the returnees on this team? Another 2 and 14. I wish I didn’t care but I do. I’ve cared every year since 1955, and I hope I’m around to care for a few more years. The problem is that I will have to put up with Paul Hewitt for the rest of my life.
I can only hope that a lot of us will continue to complain to the administration in the hopes that Hewitt will see light and get a job elsewhere.
Jeff
March 21st, 2010
9:08 pm
Oh, and by the way, as a Georgia fan, I can only imagine the frustration of Tech’s fans — all that talent, a team that almost won the ACC tourney, a team that beat Oklahoma State and probably SHOULD have beaten Ohio State… yet you’re going home. I agree with most of you that talent-wise, your Jackets should have gone farther… yet coaching probably held you back.
A few years ago, I wished that Tech and Georgia could trade coaches (when we had Jirsa, Harrick, Felton)…. but now, with Mark Fox proving he’s and up-and-coming coach, I wouldn’t trade for anything. Good luck next year ‘Dawgs, let’s beat Tech again!
Opinion
March 21st, 2010
9:08 pm
we want Hewitt gone because he’s black????
Next thing you’ll tell me is all the people calling for Bobby Cox to quit are wanting him to quit because he is white……stop pulling the race card and making yourself sound like an idiot…its about results or lack there of (1 winning record out of 10 in ACC play)
Technophobia
March 21st, 2010
9:09 pm
John, if a C is 2 points, how can 2.3 be a C minus?
hater of weak columns
March 21st, 2010
9:12 pm
what a weak column. dude knows nothing about hoops.
can’t believe a major-circulation newspaper columnist would whine about the calls. that’s weak. the calls against osu in the 2nd half made it look like GT had the refs in their pocket. osu had two starters that played with 4 fouls for the majority of the send half. those two still combined for 38 points.
what was that you were saying about how many minutes GT’s bench guys played? what? that makes them more talented? huh? whatever dude.
osu was in command the whole game. even the first half. they could have run all those supposed better athletes all day and won by 30. even with all those 2nd-half calls going GT’s way.
GT was all arms and elbows. what was that throw-down of Lighty all about? Thought GT had a class basketball program.
Technophobia
March 21st, 2010
9:12 pm
Another thing John, I never intended a “formal grade”. It’s just a rough assessment. Why are you so retentive?
Sweet16Buckeye
March 21st, 2010
9:13 pm
Wow. Looks like somebody is in denial. The best team is determined by the scoreboard at the end of the game. Maybe you were thinking about…
season record OSU 29-7 GT 23-13
record last 10 games OSU 9-1 GT 5-5
placing in conference first seventh
won conference tourny yes no
strength of conference 3 in sweet 16 1 in sweet 16
If you are looking for someone to agree with you that GT is the better team, call your mother. Otherwise, get with reality and realize the OSU and the Big Ten are better, just like in football.
BBall fan
March 21st, 2010
9:13 pm
Very well stated, Mr. Bradley — that column sums up the season nicely.
(I optimistically had GT winning in this round, but then again, after picking Kansas to win it all, that doesn’t even qualify as a minor hole in my already majorly-busted bracket).
col foot
March 21st, 2010
9:14 pm
ga tech BOWFLYS drubbed, ousted…SWEET BABY SWEET!!!
Tina Whitfield
March 21st, 2010
9:17 pm
I for one, am tired of all the negativity and crying for Paul Hewitt’s head. For those with the short term memories, I remember a lot of years toward the end of Cremins’ career, where GT wasn’t even in the mix. I think Cremins recruited well, but couldn’t coach as well as Hewitt. IMHO, it’s not his coaching that’s the issue – it’s finding the right chemistry of players on the court – players that have the good fundamentals and the passion to play the game the way it should be made.
I think Hewitt has some things to improve on, but all of this calling for him to be fired is absolutely ridiculous. You armchair quarterbacks need to quit the voyeurism and get off your butts and do something productive. Your rants here are neither helping the problem nor finding a solution. And frankly we’re all tired of hearing them.
hater of weak columns
March 21st, 2010
9:17 pm
Lighty (6′5″, phenomenal athlete) was on Favors. Brutus was right.
WW
March 21st, 2010
9:19 pm
Wow…if I re-did my brackets, I would probably go with Kentucky and Ohio State at this point. At least we lost to a really good team.
Jim
March 21st, 2010
9:19 pm
GT’s 1 through10 might be better, but only 5 play at a time idiot. Sore loser.
David Scott
March 21st, 2010
9:21 pm
“Milwaukee – Elbows on knees, a scowling Iman Shumpert bent forward in his chair. Someone asked if Ohio State was better than Georgia Tech. “Not at all,” Shumpert said.
So: Was Tech better than Ohio State? Said Shumpert, almost spitting the words: “A lot better.”
No class at all. Who won, Tech fans? Who lost? Over the last two months, Ohio State has found a way to win in a conference that’s sending 3 teams to the Sweet 16. How many is your conference sending, no-class whiners? You had no answer for Evan Turner, Jon Diebler, or Ohio State’s fast break. You got beat by a better team. You could at least show some hint of class about losing.
Axtionjaxon
March 21st, 2010
9:23 pm
Hey guys, there can only be one champion. Does every other coach get fired!!! Gosh, it’s a game. Tomorrow will come. Enjoy the game and look forward to next season.
David Scott
March 21st, 2010
9:24 pm
“As strange as it sounds, there was a clear imbalance of talent between the No. 2 seed and the No. 10.”
Rubbish. I didnt expect such a homer reporter from a real paper like the Constitution.
WordofMouth
March 21st, 2010
9:26 pm
Phobe: All those C’s, C-minuses, and d’s you give means that you cannot give the coaching a “B”. I don’t know why you are such a Hewitt supporter. Coaching gets at best a D-minus, maybe an “F”.
WordofMouth
March 21st, 2010
9:27 pm
I’m not caring what the overall GPA was for your scoring, but no one could look at this game or this season, and not realize how inferior our coaching is.
Satan's Dawg
March 21st, 2010
9:29 pm
Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. Woo hoo. Ahhhh let the infighting commence!
Reality
March 21st, 2010
9:32 pm
Shocking about ugag fans think that they have any right to say anything at all when their team didn’t even make the tourney. Shut up until your team actually DOES something!
WordofMouth
March 21st, 2010
9:32 pm
All of you Buckeye folks…none of this is a slight to you or your team. Your team is a team, a well-coached team with a very special player in Turner. No one is trying to put you guys down.
GT has UNDERACHIEVED the entire season. Almost every new set of announcers can obviously see the tremendous talent GT had this year. They mention it over and over and over again. Unfortunately, our coaching staff is at the bottom of Division 1 at developing talent and a team chemistry. We turn the ball over, have trouble in-bounding the ball, cannot shoot free throws (this was better in tourney), forget and leave 3 point shooters open (many times today), shoot stupid outside shots without going inside to our studs, etc, etc, etc
Who knows if we would have beaten you guys if we had a great coach, but I would bet most analysts would say “yes” if they were asked that question. I would bet that Thad Motta would have beaten your team if he had been GT’s coach today. Just my opinion.
John
March 21st, 2010
9:32 pm
Wow. You are stupid techno.
Anything in the 2’s is a C. Low 2’s is a c minus. High 2’s is a c plus. You gave him a b-. My god you are dense. You give tech fans a low IQ.
Reality
March 21st, 2010
9:33 pm
You ugag fans have all the right to discuss your women’s sports – at least they win. But come on! Your men’s sports are just embarrassing and the fact that you (the fans) want to discuss ANY other men’s sports is just too funny!
John
March 21st, 2010
9:34 pm
Techno
Why are you so stupid?
Technophobia
March 21st, 2010
9:35 pm
Word of mouth, you’re entitled to your opinion and so am I. If you cannot respect the fact that others may see things differently than you do, that you are not absolutely and completely correct, that is YOUR PROBLEM.
Herschel Talker
March 21st, 2010
9:35 pm
GTMan:
“The Gators own you”
Ummm…yeah about as much as we own you. Try worrying about your own team. Our worst team in years beat your best team in years in your building, and it wasn’t even as close as the score shows. And then we beat you in basketball. Yet again.
Mark Fox > Paul Hewitt
Have fun with the rollover contract and perpetual Hewitt
CHAMPS
March 21st, 2010
9:36 pm
Disappointing loss today, felt bad for the players and coaches, but frankly Ohio State is a better team. A win by Tech would have been a huge upset.
With trolls like Mark Bradley covering our team, you’ll never see a positive article at the end of the season. He lives to stir the pot, demean players, second-guess coaches, and play to the peanut gallery.
All Cupcakes Conference
March 21st, 2010
9:40 pm
“You ugag fans have all the right to discuss your women’s sports – at least they win”
ORLY
30-24
73-66
8-1
etc
etc
yawn
Paul Hewitt
March 21st, 2010
9:41 pm
I hope Chan Gailey doesn’t try to take my job. Oh wait, he doesn’t coach basketball does he? I’ll be glad when I sign that extension. Then I can go work on my golf game for summer. Wheeeeeeeeee.
Technophobia
March 21st, 2010
9:41 pm
John, as I’ve said repeatedly this was not a scientific study, lol. The overall grade, just like the individual grades was based on subjective opinion. You ASS-U-ME-d that the overall had to be a mathematical derivation of the individual grades. What the hell is wrong with you?
Finally, a C is rewarded for anything from 1.5 to 2.49 in any grading system I’ve ever seen. So even by your obsessive/compulsive retentive world it’s still not a C minus! It would be a C. Now quit obsessing about it and get a life.
Dick
March 21st, 2010
9:43 pm
I don’t care how old he is, a player ought to show more class than that. Maybe if he — and his teammates — ever showed anything close to the cohesion that Ohio State showed, they wouldn’t lose 13 games with that much talent. Whining after losing is ridiculous, when they’ve been whining all year. Face it: Tech isn’t a team in any important sense of the word.
not a "turnover" fan
March 21st, 2010
9:45 pm
Start the game feeding Law and make about five straight to’s…and still go up 10/2.????
If Tech could just cut down some of the foolish non forced to’s and eliminate some of the foolish fouls, they surely could have won this game. But the team that won was most definitely the better team at the end. CBS thought the game was so bad they pulled away so I did not see the 11/0 Tech run to cut it to four.
If both Fav and Law to pro…so be it. But I hope both do not come back…they do not play well together. Either one coming back would be good news.
Dan
March 21st, 2010
9:45 pm
“Sad to say, this team of vast promise was done playing before it really got going.”
The team had 5 months to get going – you have to lay a signifucant portion of the accountbility for the team only going as far as it did on on the coach. “Vast promise” and “vast disappointment” are 2 sides of the same coin. When was this team really going to get going – June?
Based on talent alone I would have expected Tech to go deeper in the tournament than Duke. But coaching also counts, So I am not surprised which team is still playing even though Mark apparently is.
Given all that life in Atlanta has to offer to a major college basketball player in his late teens and early twenties, recruiting players would not appear to be a problem for Tech – it is coaching them once they arrive that is the problem. Hard to see how Paul Hewitt is the solution.
tell it like it is
March 21st, 2010
9:51 pm
We new going into this game that Ohio State transition game would win out.So whats the big deal? they lost,so deal with it.
Austin Fox
March 21st, 2010
9:54 pm
GT bet the farm on trying to stop Evan Turner. It didn’t work. Shallow bench or not, the Buckeyes outscored them. Stop crying about what might have been. GT had a great season.
chuck allison
March 21st, 2010
9:54 pm
I sure wish Coach Hewitt would just resign and go away. Then I would hope we never hear from him again.
STEINER
March 21st, 2010
9:54 pm
GTman and Holy Smoke: You Tech guys picked up a lot of Delta travel miles for nothing….Ohio State is a football school who beat you at basketball…AND HOLY SMOKE, IT LOOKED LIKE YOUR GUYS WERE PLAYING WITH THEMSELVES ALSO, CAUSE THEY SURE COULD HAVE WON THAT GAME…BY THE WAY BOYS, KEEP THAT MONEY COMING SO THAT WE CAN GIVE COACH BLEWITT HIS $100000 CHECK…WHAT A DEAL COACH BLEWITT CUT WITH YOU GUYS WHO CLAIM TO BE SO SMART…CAN’T HELP BUT LAUGH….
Al
March 21st, 2010
9:56 pm
This is a terrible column !! GT’s players did their best but, they lost to the better team. Perhaps not best strictly from a talent perspective, but OSU players are more experienced, more savvy, and have much better leadership. Tech has a young team that is somewhat immature and frankly, played in an inferior conference. The ACC is definitely down this year. Only 1 team in the Sweet 16 while, the Big Ten has 3. If Tech’s stars don’t bolt for the NBA, they will be much improved next year. So, MB,call like it is, OSU was simply the better team and it was proven on the court. By the way, IS should not be a hater.ET just kicked his but and he knows it. IS had his chance but, ET took him to school. The game stats speak for themselves !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Legend of Len Barker
March 21st, 2010
9:59 pm
I think Paul Hewitt should not only stay, but be given a raise. Lifetime contract, even.
Of course, I also wish that Chan Gailey wasn’t axed and Reggie Ball was working on his master’s degree.
acowa
March 21st, 2010
10:02 pm
Further proof that the paper and fans are with GT win or tie. The GT basketball team could have easily packed it in after the Virgina Tech loss at home. Unlike the fans, they didn’t quit and finished relatively strong. Losing to the #2 seed is disappointing but not a crime. Thank you seniors and good luck going forward.
Urine Nation
March 21st, 2010
10:03 pm
30-24!!!!! hahahahahaha
acowa
March 21st, 2010
10:04 pm
Steiner,
Is your caps lock key stuck or are you just a dumba$$?
Greg
March 21st, 2010
10:04 pm
The ACC sucked this year. If that wasn’t apparent to the ACC homer’s throughout the year, then it should have been when horrible Miami and NC State teams made the conference tourney semi’s. And now Duke is the only ACC team in the Sweet 16….has any team ever had an easier road to the final 4 than Duke does this year?
wesleywhatwhat
March 21st, 2010
10:06 pm
“you are what your record says you are.”
bill parcells
jojo sunshine
March 21st, 2010
10:07 pm
Does anyone share my enthusiasm for HIRING BRAD STEVENS? Even if he loses vs Syracuse his team is better coached than GT. He would make an immediate impact on this team. I think he is the best young coach in America and his record proves it. HIRE BRAD STEVENS BEFORE ITS TO LATE!
lee
March 21st, 2010
10:08 pm
tell that little crybaby shumpert that the game is played in between press conferences and his worthless post game is just that. hey iman, you had ‘em for 40 minutes, now you got a lifetime of regrets–deal with it!