ATLANTA — Josh Pastner is going for a new look. He has lost weight, striving to mix in a salad once in a while and avoid getting home late after games and practices and then “eating like it’s my last meal.”
He is also back to wearing suits and ties during games for the first time in three seasons because the nice clothes have just been hanging in the closet and, “God bless my wife, but I don’t think she thinks I’m too good looking at times, so I need to start dressing up a little bit.”
Also: “I have a new boss. When you’re in my chair and a new boss comes in, you’re a little on edge. So I’m wearing a shirt and tie again. You want to make a good impression.”
Tech rewarded the coach with a three-year contract extension through 2025-26, and things were looking up. Until they weren’t.
“That’s on me,” he said.
Before getting to what went wrong, let’s start with this: The Jackets and Bulldogs met for their annual not-Duke-North Carolina showdown Tuesday night. There was a good atmosphere in McCamish Pavilion. Loud even. Tech won 79-77 in a game that featured 18 lead changes and 11 ties and went down to the final seconds. J Batt, Georgia Tech’s new athletic director, was among those in attendance. He witnessed both a win and his coach wearing a suit and a tie.
Jalon Moore and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets beat rival Georgia on Tuesday. (Brett Davis / USA Today)
Pastner slammed the scorer’s table early and often in the game when something didn’t go right — one time even picking up some papers and throwing them down, and that was when his team was winning. His comments immediately after the game represented his peak, excited, rambling self.
He started to share opening comments, then in the middle of his analysis turned to sports information director Mike Flynn and said, “You looked good in a tie yesterday,” referencing football coach Brent Key’s introductory news conference. Then Pastner praised Key and Batt, then he veered off into Georgia Tech’s academic standards, “You have to be at almost the genius level.” Then he said, “I think there’s been 14 people who’ve gone to outer space …” and he interrupted that thought when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Ken Sugiura walked into the room late, and when Pastner asked where he had been, Ken on cue said, “Outer space,” (and knowing Ken well, I can verify this). Then Pastner praised Ken for graduating from Michigan, which is a good academic school, although Pastner added, “Not as good as Georgia Tech,” and then he went into something about the discovery of water on Mars adding, “It’s mind-boggling.” And he concluded with, “Anyway, that’s that.”
“We’ll take questions now,” Flynn said. And at that point, I think nobody had any idea where to take the conversation.
But back on earth: The Jackets are 6-3 and open ACC play Saturday at North Carolina. In a preseason ACC media poll, the Tar Heels were picked to finish first and the Jackets last, but UNC has lost four straight games, so that’s all we need to know about preseason media polls.
Pastner is perpetually optimistic. A piano could be falling from the sky on his head, and he would say, “Oh good, I’ve always wanted to take lessons.”
But the story about why a program that won the conference only two years ago would be picked to finish last starts shortly after that season. Moses Wright and Jose Alvarado, the team’s two best players, were each debating whether to turn pro or come back for another season. Logic suggested they would cash in on their success, but they delayed their decision and Pastner started to believe they would return. He even teased himself with thoughts of having a Final Four team.
The coach made a huge mistake. He put off signing two potential transfer replacements, waiting on Wright and Alvarado to finalize their decisions. Pastner chose not to push them, saying he was “walking on eggshells” around them. When decisions came, they were late — Wright in late May, Alvarado in early July. Their losses, the lack of adequate replacements, an early season injury to Bubba Parham and a lack of depth crushed a team that finished 5-15 in the ACC and 12-20 overall.
“That backfired on me,” Pastner said. “We got left empty-handed. I didn’t prepare for them leaving. I didn’t do a good job on that. I thought they were coming back, and if they came back, who knows how far we could’ve gone?”
Winning the conference tournament should have provided a long-term boost for Georgia Tech basketball. But it was brief.
“It gave us a big boost because people were like, ‘That’s a big deal,’” he said. “Where we maybe didn’t get the pull we wanted is right after in recruiting, and that’s where if I could’ve done it over again … we didn’t take advantage of it that spring, with transfers. It was a decision based on me thinking those guys were coming back. If I could do it over again, I would say, ‘Hey man, you’ve got like two weeks. And if not, I’m going to sign other guys, and if you leave me, it is what it is, but I have to protect us.’ Our season last year was because I danced around and didn’t push a deadline on those guys. It worked out for them, and that’s great. But if I did it over again, I would’ve said, ‘I’ll give you until April 1.’”
This year’s team has some talent but no real stars, and it lacks size. Pastner tried to land a big in the transfer portal but whiffed. A winning 2021-22 season probably would’ve helped his chances.
So he has to do it the hard way again. He’s used to this. He is on his third athletic director. He has survived a bizarre scandal, NCAA probation and baseless litigation.
He has retold this story several times: When he was interviewing for the job in 2016, he was told by then-athletic director Mike Bobinski and others on the search committee that he would have to endure a few years of losing. Pastner didn’t care. He promised he would get the program back into the NCAA Tournament in five years. He delivered.
This may not be Georgia Tech’s best season, but Pastner doesn’t believe it will be the doom everybody projects. He believes the projections are based mostly on last season’s record.
“We’re going to keep improving,” he said. “I feel good about it.”
He always does.
(Top photo: Brett Davis / USA Today)
