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Pastner hopes for a return of Tech hoops in July

Georgia Tech basketball coach Josh Pastner hopes to have his team together by July and hopes the NCAA will allow them to workout as a team. The Jackets will bring six men’s basketball players back next week in the phase one voluntary workouts with the rest hopefully returning in phase two or three. The voluntary workouts are strength and conditioning based and not actual basketball practice though.

“We have not been around each other since mid-March both with our current guys and with recruiting. Everything has been new. We’ve had to adjust a lot due to COVID-19, I’ve used the word nimble with our scheduling and what we have to do due to COVID-19. I had to change my philosophy scheduling wise due to COVID-19 and budget,” Pastner said.

Pastner at the ACC Operation Basketball
Pastner at the ACC Operation Basketball (Jeremy Brevard/USAToday)
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Pastner made sure to point out that the June workouts are hands-off for the staff.

“Voluntary workouts means there is nothing that we as coaches can do. The only thing that's allowed to happen is Dan Taylor our strength coach is allowed to supervise, he can’t instruct, he can only supervise. Richard Stewart our trainer will obviously be there as well too. They can't report anything back to me nor are the guys required to work out so everything's a voluntary basis. That will only involve our returnees that are in the locale,” Pastner said.

The NCAA will vote this month on when to allow basketball practices again. The Jackets’ have not practiced since the first week of March before the regular-season finale at Clemson.

“I am hoping in July and every Wednesday we've had an ACC head coaches call, and we've all said we're hoping the NCAA in July allows the coaches to work with the players because our feeling is, why have the guys back if the guys can't work with the coaches in the gym. We'll leave it up to each school to determine the mechanisms with health safety and wellness. But I'm hoping that happens in July, but again that's going to be up to the NCAA to decide that if we're allowed to,” he said.

Pastner said having a junior and senior-laden team is a blessing in a situation like this where the team has had more time away from the court than ever in recent history.

“If there's ever a time to have a team that's older, this is the year to have it,” he said. “That's what I would tell you we are obviously a more experienced team. We're going to have to do our part I'm really excited about our group I think we can have a chance to have a great year. We’ve got to stay healthy as we are not we're not big on the frontcourt and, depending on what happens with Rodney. That is a benefit to towards us because we'll have more experience of guys that they have been able to play and whenever that's thrown in whenever we're allowed to get back at it, we'll just get back at it, and if it is not going to happen in July, my assumption is that we will be able to start going on August, 17 when school starts.”

With some movement still going on with transfers, Pastner said he plans to stand pat at 12 scholarship players for the 2021-22 season. That would help if the Jackets lose their appeal of NCAA sanctions that also forced them to sit out the aborted 2019-20 postseason. The NCAA ruled the Jackets could not compete in the 2019-20 postseason and that they would lose a scholarship for each of the next three seasons.

“We've got 12 scholarship guys and I don't expect us to sign anybody else at this point for this year,” he said. “We've got the seven returning scholarship guys, three incoming freshmen and we've gotten two transfers in Rodney Howard and Kyle Sturdivant. Will they be eligible, you know, obviously the one-time transfer would have passed this year if it wasn't for COVID-19. They vote again in 2021 which I think will pass, but that will go into effect until August 1 of 2021. Regarding those two young men Sturdivant and Rodney Howard, you know all that regarding waivers or being able to play will all have to be through compliance through Shoshanna Engel and her team,” Pastner said.

With things shutdown, Pastner said he has turned to FaceTime and other technology to meet with his players virtually to keep them motivated and focused.

“I have constantly called our guys FaceTime them like never before and we just FaceTime all the time,” Pastner said. “On Monday we had a Microsoft Teams meeting to discuss the recent events with Mr. Floyd, so we had that meeting as a team, but before that. and we've obviously talked to our guys. I never talked to them about basketball, it was just talking a little about you know about their health and wellness and safety and making sure they're doing their job academically and finishing strong.”

VOTER MOVEMENT

Jackets’ assistant coach Eric Reveno became a sudden vocal leader of a movement to get student-athletes Election Day off to vote over the last week. Georgia Tech coaches joined with the women’s basketball and football programs leading the way. Pastner said the whole thing started from a comment from walk-on Malachi Rice during a virtual team meeting.

“A lot of times, probably in the years past, you know you practice, you have weightlifting, you got class and it is a very busy day and not everybody has the opportunity (to vote), especially for student-athletes. So we tried to set an initiative which was kind of led by Malachi Rice and then coach Rev kind of took it to another level. The GTAA said we're going to take that day off on November 3rd and then hopefully it spreads throughout. Now, taking off doesn't do anything if you're not registered to vote so we're going to do our part in conjunction with that with help from Mr. Stansbury,” Pastner said.

Pastner was particularly impressed with Nell Fortner, Tech’s women’s basketball coach, and Geoff Collins the Jackets’ football coach for their willingness to embrace the campaign for student-athletes to vote.

“Coach Fortner was obviously on board and everything but I got to give her credit and she's awesome. Coach Fortner is amazing and what an incredible human being and an incredible coach. She's awesome and she was first onboard on it but I want to give an amazing shout out to coach Collins our Georgia Tech football coach because he obviously got behind the initiative of taking the day off on November 3. That's not easy to do when, you know, they're playing Duke that Saturday of that week. That is unheard of for our football coach taking a Tuesday off and not practicing in preparation for a game day on Saturday so coach Collins deserves so much praise and recognition on that and obviously like I said from the start, Mr. Stansbury and President Cabrera,” Pastner said.

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