It is year two, which means the excuse of it being year one no longer applies.
Such is the case for Damon Stoudamire less than one month out from his second season at the helm of Georgia Tech basketball. The same can be said for many of his key contributors, players such as Nait George, Baye Ndongo, Kowacie Reeves and Lance Terry.
They are all back for another go-round with the Yellow Jackets. The expectations for them to perform at a higher level, and to get Tech back to the NCAA Tournament, are very real.
“I’m excited about coming into year two because I think the biggest thing, as I’ve been telling these guys from day one, and this is just me personally, I don’t believe sports are played from the neck down. I think it’s played from the neck up, and I think that the smartest teams are the best teams,” Stoudamire said. “For me, mentally we have to be better. We have to be more consistent. We showed all last season that we can win big games, but we also showed our immaturity by losing some games that we felt we should have won.
“If we can make the growth in that area and be more consistent, I think that will lead to a lot of victories. It’s on all of us and I’m holding them accountable and we’re not going to skip no steps. That attention to detail has to be on point this year. I’m not going to settle for less.”
Stoudamire went 14-18 in his first season in Atlanta, a mark which included a 7-13 record and 12th-place finish in the 15-team ACC. There were moments of brilliance and hope, like a win over a ranked Mississippi State team, a thrilling victory over Penn State at Madison Square Garden in New York and league triumphs over Duke, North Carolina, Clemson and Wake Forest.
But there also were losses to Massachusetts-Lowell, Louisville and Notre Dame (thrice).
Tech also ranked at or near the bottom of the ACC in steals, turnover margin, turnovers forced, turnovers, steals, 3-point shooting, scoring and scoring defense, free throw shooting and overall shooting. Thus, there was no shortage of things for Stoudamire to address, study and look to improve ahead of the 2024-25 season.
“I’m not gonna be as tolerable for certain things,” Stoudamire said. “I’m not gonna be as tolerable for the lack of attention to detail and all the things that just didn’t go our way from that standpoint. I’m just not gonna do that. We gotta create good habits and there was just a lot of times that we lost because we had bad habits.”
Credit: Nell Redmond/ACC
Credit: Nell Redmond/ACC
Part of the first edition of the Stoudamire tenure included the bursting onto the scene of Ndongo and George, both of whom are sophomores now. Ndongo ranked second among ACC players by shooting 55.8% from the field and George was second among ACC players with 4.7 assists per game.
George, 6-foot-3, 185-pound point guard from Canada, and Ndongo, a 6-foot-9, 240-pound center from Senegal, will be at the crux of Tech’s success over the next six months. Stoudamire doesn’t expect that success to be easy.
“I always say this, to make that jump freshman to sophomore year, that’s a hard jump. You’re not on the back of scouting reports, you’re on the front of scouting reports,” Stoudamire said Friday at McCamish Pavilion. “You’re gonna be at the top, you’re gonna be at the forefront of it. ‘How do we stop him? How do we limit him to his effectiveness in the game?’ That’s the biggest thing that I’ve been preaching to (Ndongo). The attention to detail, taking care of the basketball, not getting a silly foul because we need you on the floor. I look forward to seeing that growth. He’s done a great job so far, and I think he’ll only get better with that.”
“(For George), no different than (Ndongo). I’m telling you it’s hard to make a jump from your freshman to sophomore season. You have to come in and you have to work, which he’s done. I feel like he’ll be better off. I feel like he’s in better shape. He’s worked on his body. He’s shooting the ball better. He has to become a better leader, he has to be able to put guys in place, he has to do the thinking for a lot of guys. I’m big on those things.”
In his efforts to boost Tech’s position in the ACC standings, Stoudamire boosted the overall talent of the roster.
The signing of guard Jaeden Mustaf, forward Darrion Sutton and center Doryan Onwuchekwa gave Tech the fourth-best recruiting class in the ACC, according to the 247Sports Composite. Stoudamire also added point guard Javian McCollum from Oklahoma, shooting forward Luke O’Brien from Colorado, center Ryan Mutombo from Georgetown and power forward Duncan Powell from Sacramento State.
Getting Terry back on the court cannot be undersold, either. The 6-foot-3, 200-pound senior guard missed the 2023-24 season with a calf injury. Terry and walk-on Emmer Nichols are the lone remaining players in the program from the Josh Pastner Era.
There’s no question that Stoudamire now has a roster full of his own hand-picked players.
“Super competitive dude. What I always see when I see Coach is I see a leader,” Reeves said of Stoudamire. “The leadership skills that he displays day in and day out, I’ve never seen that from a man, especially someone that has to manage, essentially, kids. We’re young adults, but a lot of us still have immature minds, and we still delve into the things children would delve into. Him being able to navigate those personas, those egos and those personalities as an adult man and take his personal things out of it, he’s been the same.”
Tech begins its 2024-25 journey against Division I newcomer West Georgia on Nov. 6 at McCamish Pavilion. Its nonconference slate includes tests against Georgia, Cincinnati, Oklahoma and Northwestern. The Jackets then have ACC trips to North Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia and Wake Forest.
Navigating that in a positive manner will be crucial if the Jackets are to avoid a fourth consecutive losing season — something that hasn’t happened for the program since 1979-83.
“I don’t believe we’re that far off. We had some great opportunities to capitalize on it last year – we didn’t,” Stoudamire added. “But this year, the way I see it, what I’m preparing for, and I keep talking about mentality because 12 of our first 15 games are at home. If you get to Christmas break and you got that momentum going into the league, anything’s possible. I do believe we’re right there. Now, we gotta put it together. We gotta play games. But I do believe we’re close.”
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