ATLANTA — Josh Pastner faces an uncertain future as Georgia Tech men's basketball coach after another losing season and few signs of progress for the Atlantic Coast Conference program.
The Yellow Jackets finished 15-18 with Wednesday's 89-81 loss to Pittsburgh in the second round of the ACC tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina. Afterward, Pastner was asked if he expected to be retained for an eighth season.
"I hope to be at Georgia Tech," he said. "I love Georgia Tech. I love my job. I have a real passion for it, and I believe in it."
In the end, school president Angel Cabrera and athletic director J Batt, who has been on the job only since October, will make the call.
"They're in charge, so whatever they say, they're in charge," Pastner said. "I hope I can continue to be at Georgia Tech."
His best season was a surprising run to the ACC tournament title during the pandemic-marred 2020-21 season, which also marked Tech's lone NCAA tournament appearance in the past 13 seasons. They were given a No. 9 seed and got knocked out in the first round by eighth-seeded Loyola of Chicago, which went on to reach the Sweet 16.
Once one of the ACC's top programs, Tech hasn't won an NCAA postseason game since 2010, when the 10th-seeded Jackets got past seventh-seeded Oklahoma State before losing to No. 2 seed Ohio State.
Pastner left Memphis to take over at Tech in 2016, following Brian Gregory's forgettable five-year tenure in Atlanta. Pastner's reputation as a high-level recruiter was supposed to raise the Jackets' talent level, but he has rarely landed a heralded prospect during his time in Atlanta.
His record at Tech is 109-114, including 53-78 in the ACC.
"Look, I would tell you that when I got the job, they told me when I came in and I met with everybody that it's going to be ... starting from ground zero," said the 45-year-old Pastner, clearly lobbying for his job. "And they said you're going to lose so much your first three or four years that you're going to — we've got to have someone that's going to be ultrapositive because you're going to lose so much."
Pastner was just 31 when he took over at Memphis in 2009 as John Calipari departed for national power Kentucky and the Southeastern Conference.
The Tigers kept right on winning, going 130-44 with four NCAA tourney appearances over Pastner's first five seasons. But the program dipped his final two years, posting a 37-29 mark while failing to make March Madness — and when Tech came looking for Gregory's successor, Pastner jumped at the chance.
"Initially they told me they didn't know if I could handle it because at Memphis, we had won a lot of games," Pastner recalled. "I said, 'No, I'm excited about the rebuild.'"
There were finally indications of progress in his fifth season, when the Jackets made that one-and-done NCAA appearance, but they slumped to 12-20 last season, including a 5-15 mark in conference play.
This season, Tech got off to dismal start in the ACC by dropping 12 of its first 13 league contests, including a nine-game losing streak.
Pastner's team rallied late in the schedule. The Jackets won six of their final eight regular-season games, though that was only good enough for a 6-14 mark in league play and a No. 13 seed in the 15-team bracket at the ACC tourney. They then knocked off 12th-seeded Florida State 61-60 in Greensboro on Tuesday before falling to Pitt for the third time this season.
With attendance for home games at McCamish Pavilion having also plummeted the past two seasons, will the strong finish be enough for Pastner to keep his job?
Pastner's tenure has also been marred by NCAA sanctions linked to a former friend who was accused of recruiting violations. Tech accepted a postseason ban in 2020, when the season shut down early in the postseason anyway because of COVID-19, and some of its sanctions were overturned on appeal.
Potentially working in Pastner's favor: The athletic program has struggled financially and is paying a hefty buyout to Geoff Collins, who was fired early last season in just his fourth year as football coach. Then again, Cabrera showed he was willing to dump a coach who wasn't getting the job done.
Pastner hopes to get one more year to build on the success of the past month.
"We've really finished really well this year," he said. "I wish we started better."