ATLANTA — A four-game losing streak has left the Georgia Tech men’s basketball team one spot from the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings.
Unfortunately for coach Josh Pastner, that’s familiar territory for the Yellow Jackets under his direction.
They finished 14th in the 15-team ACC last season, his sixth leading the program. Tech has finished 10th or lower in the league four times with Pastner as head coach.
The Jackets fell to 8-10 overall this season and 1-7 in the ACC with Tuesday night’s 78-66 loss to North Carolina State in Atlanta, their second straight defeat at home. Tech is home again for its next game, against Syracuse on Saturday.
With the Jackets having lost six of their past seven games, Pastner needs to direct a dramatic turnaround to avoid another finish near the bottom of the ACC. Tech was 12-20 overall and 5-15 in the ACC last season, then lost its opener at the league tournament to Louisville.
Thus far, Pastner has been unable to find a fix for his team’s dismal shooting. Tuesday’s 12-point loss to the Wolfpack was perplexing because it came despite Tech holding advantages in points off turnovers, points in the paint and bench scoring.
“There was a lot of good we did, a lot of good, it’s just we missed a lot of open shots,” Pastner said. “We just could not score.”
The Jackets were 2-of-21 from 3-point range and 8-for-19 on free throws Tuesday. In ACC games this season, Tech ranks next to last with its averages of 64.88 points per game and 40.6% shooting from the field.
“I believe in our young men,” Pastner said. “We’ve got great guys. It’s a player’s game. The players, when they’re open, they’ve got to put it in.”
Former athletic director Todd Stansbury gave Pastner a three-year extension in 2021 that carries through the 2025-26 season. Stansbury and football coach Geoff Collins were fired on Sept. 26, and J Batt was hired as athletic director on Oct. 14.
When announcing the new contract for Pastner, Stansbury gave women’s coach Nell Fortner a two-year extension through the 2026-27 season. In Batt’s first winter on the job, the men’s and women’s coaches with new extensions have combined for one ACC win. Fortner’s team is 9-9 overall and last in the ACC at 0-7 this season.
Pastner is 102-106 overall and 48-71 in ACC games in his seven seasons at Tech. He was 167-73 in seven seasons at Memphis, which made four NCAA tournament trips during that time.
The Jackets won the 2021 ACC tournament before losing in the first round of their only NCAA tourney appearance with Pastner. They were runners-up at the National Invitation Tournament in 2017 to cap his first season at Tech.
In a statement released to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Batt said he continues to evaluate all of Tech’s teams.
“Since I arrived here in October, one of my top priorities has been evaluating all of our programs and learning how we can support the success of our coaches and student-athletes across the board,” Batt said.
Pastner is having to take another look at his own evaluation of his team. He acknowledged he misjudged his shooters before the season.
“Coming into the year I thought we were one of our better shooting teams in my time here as a head coach,” Pastner said, adding that the Jackets “shot the daylights out of it in the summer and the fall.”
Consistency has been lacking in actual games.
“We’ve just got to learn how to really put 40 minutes together and play 40 minutes where we can just be a team,” center Rodney Howard said. “… I feel like in the second half, teams kind of just blow up on us.”
Pastner said his players shot as if “there was a lid on the hoop” against N.C. State and added: “If we were standing on the pier, we wouldn’t be able to shoot in the ocean tonight. Just unexplainable.”
Having some shots fall — and picking up a win or two — could only help.
“Nobody likes losing, and it can wear on you and your confidence can get shaken,” Pastner said. “It is confidence — so much of everything is between the ears. We’ve just got to see the ball go through the hoop.”