By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Georgia Tech used to be one of the better Men’s basketball programs in the ACC in the 80’s and 90’s. They were still pretty good in the early 2000’s. They advanced to the Final Four in 2004 and played in the national championship game. They have been pretty inconsistent since then.

The Yellow Jackets hired former NBA player Damon Stoudamire as head coach in March of 2023. He was a consensus first-team All-American in 1995 when he played for Arizona.

Stoudamire was the seventh pick by the Toronto Raptors in the legendary 1996 NBA Draft. He was also named NBA Rookie of the Year.

His resume as a player is impressive. As a coach, not so much. He was the head coach at University of the Pacific from 2016-2021. His overall record was 71-77. In his five seasons with the Tigers, he had one winning season.

I’m not sure why Tech hired him with that as his only head coaching experience. His record since taking over in Atlanta is 42-48.

In the 2023-24 season, they finished 14-18. They did show some promise that first year by beating Duke and North Carolina, who were both ranked in the top ten.

Last season they finished 17-17. Not great but the team did improve. They are currently 11-13 and 2-9 in ACC play. Tech is currently on a five-game losing streak and they have not won a game since January 17^th.

They played their last two games on the road against Cal and Stanford. Isn’t it ridiculous that those are conference games?

They lost 95-72 against the Cardinal, who ended their five-game losing streak. Ebuka Okorie scored a career high 40 points to lead Stanford.

Freshman guard Akai Fleming lead the Yellow Jackets with 19 points. This was his 12^th game in double-figures.

Coach Stoudamire spoke about struggling in the second half.

“I just didn’t think we executed well on either end of the floor in the second half. Defensively, we didn’t do a good job of containing (Ebuka) Okorie. We know he’s the best player on the floor. So, you’ve got to account for him. We didn’t do a great job on that end, and it makes it hard when he hits three as well. He made free throws as well. He is great at drawing fouls, and he did that all game long. He just put so much pressure on us. Again, it was just the most disappointing thing about us on the defensive end was that we did not do a good job of containing him and giving the ball handler cushion to know where his help was. These are things that, you know, you go over, and you know, we didn’t have any game carryover in the second half. In terms of, you know, our shooting, you know, it speaks for itself. We shot 51 in the first half. and we shot 35 in the second, you know, so that’s a recipe for disaster when you can’t get stops, you know, then you’re not shooting the ball well.”

There are seven regular season games left, The remaining games are Wake Forest, at Notre Dame, #18 Virginia, at #24 Louisville, Florida State, Cal and at #20 Clemson.