With Okogie gone, year 3 of Pastner rebuild could be tough (again)

Is there any truth to the rumor that the movie classic Young Frankenstein is being remade with Georgia Tech Coach Josh Pastner taking Gene Wilder’s classic role? Likely not, but improbable events have been haunting this team just about since the end of a very successful year one under Pastner. The rumor may have arisen from the scene in which Wilder’s character asks how things could possibly be any worse. His helper, played by Marty Feldman, asserts that things could indeed be worse – “it could be raining”. Then there’s an immediate clap of thunder with a torrential downpour.

This scene neatly captures the state of Tech basketball circa spring 2018. In the remake, the rain storm would be played by the recent announcement by the Yellow Jackets’ best returning player Josh Okogie that he is leaving Tech early, hoping to be chosen in the NBA draft.

While no one can fault Okogie, this last blow might dampen the spirit of even the ever-buoyant Pastner. He had just endured an almost unbelievably tough season, his second at Tech. His top 2 scorers (Okogie and Tadric Jackson) were suspended to start the season. His stellar senior center, Ben Lammers, sprained an ankle early on and never regained his effectiveness from a year prior. Okogie’s early season absence was lengthened by a finger injury.

With all of that going on, Tech stumbled badly out of the gate, including a miserable 2-6 record in December featuring losses to Wofford, Grambling State, and Wright State.

Pastner’s two top newcomers, José Alvarado and Curtis Haywood, both were lost to season-ending injuries. In the midst of all that, Tech learned that assistant coach Darryl Labarrie was being investigated by the NCAA in connection with recruiting questions, leading to his resignation in early February.

The Yellow Jackets finished 13th in the 16-team ACC regular season before losing to Boston College in the first round of the conference tournament in Brooklyn. No one had expected immediate greatness for Tech, but this 2017-18 work product was quite a drop for the reigning ACC coach of the year.

And all the while, Pastner himself was – and still is – embroiled in a complicated situation with a former friend Ron Bell who has accused Pastner of being aware of recruiting missteps. Bell’s wife’s accusation of assault by Pastner has also been part of the ongoing legal strife.

So this was the setting in which Okogie made his announcement. The would-be junior reportedly got good reviews from several NBA teams following workouts and he hopes to be a second-round pick. No less an authority than Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski noted last year that Okogie brought energy and confidence to the Tech team.

It’s hard to be out-loud optimistic about Tech’s upcoming season, and Pastner himself has repeatedly advised any available audience that year 3 of his rebuild likely would be more difficult. That said, he does have some good prospects headed in to join Alvarado and Haywood and mates in the upcoming Okogie-less lineup. Although Pastner has yet to land that (those?) big name/big splash “get” in his recruiting, the hope remains that he can build Tech back to respectability and beyond.

Doubters can reflect on the fact that Okogie himself was a relatively unheralded 3-star recruit from Gwinnett County who quickly blossomed into his team’s featured star. After all, that too seemed improbable at the time. Perhaps that kind of awareness is what keeps the ebullient Pastner aiming for the stars.