Jose Alvarado and Moses Wright came to Georgia Tech in the first full signing class under Josh Pastner and on Monday they each earned two of the biggest honors any player can receive in the ACC. Wright was named the ACC Player of the Year while Alvarado earned the ACC Defensive Player of the Year Award.
Wright ended his regular season averaging 18 points per game, 8.1 rebounds per game, 2.3 assists per game, and 1.7 blocks and 1.7 steals per game. He did all of that while shooting 54.4-percent from the floor.
A surprise call from coach Pastner woke Wright up in his hotel room in Greensboro on Monday with the news.
"He woke me up from my sleep and told me I need to go meet with Moose (Mike Stamus) at nine. I was so surprised and they were telling me congratulations on winning ACC Player of the Year. I told coach I don't have a ton of time to put on my makeup," said Wright with a laugh.
Wright has expanded his production each year going from 3.6 points per game as a freshman to 6.7 as a sophomore and then 13 last year. Each year his shooting and three-point shooting percentages went up and his free throw shooting improved dramatically the last two years as well.
Wright is only the second Jacket to win the All-ACC Player of the Year Award from the league media joining Dennis Scott in 1990. Mark Price won the AP ACC Player of the Year Award in 1985 ahead of Maryland's Len Bias who took the ACC media award.
"I was so excited about Moses," Alvarado said. "I tweeted it to everybody. He deserved to win and it's not like they gave it to him. No, he deserved it. He did his thing this year. I'm so happy for him. His story is just like crazy and that's what college sports are about. His history is coming from a zero-star recruit. I told him from the beginning if you work hard freshman year because you know, he just has to grow. But I was telling him in the gym, Moses, you could change your life. It's just so crazy that. I've seen how Moses came up."
Alvarado the heart of the Tech program, earned his defensive award through hard work as he once again leads the conference in steals with 2.9 per game and boasts a 15.5 points per game average that dipped a little in the final weeks of the regular season as he dealt with a leg injury.
"I wanted this award from the beginning of the year," Alvarado said of his Defensive Player of the Year title. "I know Trey Jones (Duke) won last year and I was not upset because I think he deserved to win. I'm just so proud of our defense and me having to coach Pastner telling me, 'hey you won Defensive Player of the Year,' It's such an amazing feeling. I'm just so happy man. I can't believe it and I can say later on in the future that hey, I won ACC Defense Player of the Year one time."
Ben Lammers took home the award in 2017 making Alvarado the second player in Pastner's five-year tenure to win that award.
Pastner said Alvarado's penchant for taking on the toughest assignment each game on defense turned a lot of heads helping him win the award.
"He'll end up being the first time since Chris Paul who was his favorite player to have two years in a row of leading in steals in the league and he wants to guard the best guy," Pastner said. "When his knee and groin or knee and hamstring have been bothering him and he says, 'coach unless you're going to cut my hamstring off I'm playing so don't even ask me,' I mean you're gonna literally have to hold me down and cut my hamstring off to for me not to play. He has just that type of mentality. He's that guy who's just tough and he's just so hard-nosed and I'm just so proud of him and he loves to defend."
Both Alvarado and Wright made the All-ACC Defensive team as well.
Wright also earned first-team All-ACC honors while Alvarado was named to the 2nd team. Mike Devoe the third of the Jackets' key trio got an honorable mention nod. The first team All-ACC nod is the first for a Georgia Tech player since Alvin Jones in 2001.
Pastner finished third in the ACC Coach of the Year balloting behind Virginia Tech's Mike Young and FSU's Leonard Hamilton.
"For the individual awards, which are really team awards, the way I look at it, because basketball is not golf or tennis, which can be very individualized, basketball is team-oriented. This is our fifth straight year, we've had somebody, at least one player on the all-defensive team and it is the second time in the history of Georgia Tech, to have the Defensive Player of the Year and two in the last five years of those two players in the history of Georgia Tech and Ben Lammers now Jose Alvarado. For the first time since 2001, to have somebody on the first-team All-ACC, at Georgia Tech and the third time in the history of Georgia Tech to have a player of the year. Think about how hard it is to win the Player of the Year in this league. There's that tradition, that heritage in the best basketball league in all of college basketball to have Player of the Year the third time in Georgia Tech's history and the last since 1990, Jose Alvarado getting second-team All-leagues is a great accomplishment. Here he is back-to-back years and an all-conference selection. Michael Devoe an honorable mention, I mean, that's hard to do. I believe he was good enough and played well enough to be on one of the three teams but just even being considered and he was the next guy in line to be the third team. I really believe he deserved to be a one to three teams."
