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Posted: Wednesday October 16, 2002 2:37 PM Updated: Monday October 28, 2002 11:34 AM Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
The following preview is provided by Blue Ribbon. For the most thorough preview available of the upcoming season, order the 2002-03 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, on sale now at 1-800-775-2518. Team Preview | Blue Ribbon Analysis
Probably no school was hurt more by the NCAA's ill-conceived 5/8 scholarship rule than Georgia Tech last season. "I think the rule really damaged us," coach Paul Hewitt said. "In the appeal we made to the NCAA, we talked about what injuries could do to us. Guess what happened? We lost two players and were down to just eight players." Georgia Tech's roster was thinned by the attrition associated with a coaching change. The scholarship restrictions not only put the Jackets in a hole early last season, but also prevented Hewitt from signing a big man from Texas who was eager to join his program. Instead, Emeka Okafor, who at one point wanted to sign with Georgia Tech, ended up at Connecticut, where he turned out to be one of the nation's top freshmen. As much as Hewitt would have loved to see Okafor wearing the Gold and Black, he's not complaining about the talent he has collected since succeeding Bobby Cremins after the 2000 season. Hewitt's first full recruiting class produced an ACC Rookie of the Year, another freshman who earned first-team all-rookie honors in the league and three other promising young players. His most recent class includes one of the nation's top big-man prospects and a point guard with impeccable credentials.
The downside is that nine of the 11 scholarship players on the roster are underclassmen. "From a depth standpoint and a talent standpoint, we've made progress," Hewitt said. "Obviously, we're concerned about the lack of leadership and the experience factor this season." Hewitt would be even more concerned if his youngsters hadn't tasted success late last season. The 2001-02 Yellow Jackets got off to a terrible start, losing early-season games to Tulane, IUPUI, Penn and Saint Louis. Georgia Tech was 7-13 in late January, including a 1-7 ACC mark. Then a funny thing happened. "Once we got healthy, we came together," Hewitt said. The return of injured center Luke Schenscher (4.8 ppg, 3.2 rpg), who missed 12 games with a broken foot, and wing forward Isma'il Muhammad (7.1 ppg, 3.1 rpg), who was sidelined with a hip pointer, coincided with a turnaround that saw the Jackets finish with eight ACC wins in their last 10 regular-season games. The two losses were to No. 1 Duke and eventual national champion Maryland. Down the stretch, Georgia Tech might have been the ACC's third best team. Of course, most of the credit for the turnaround should go to senior point guard Tony Akins, who rallied the team around him and showed the freshmen how to win. That leadership, the Georgia Tech coach suggested, will be missed more than Akins' 17.0 points and 5.7 assists a game. But the late-season surge he engineered will make Hewitt's job a lot easier this season. "Finishing the way we finished did an awful lot to help the team's confidence and their belief in the coaching staff and what we were telling them," Hewitt said. "Tony deserves credit for helping them hang in there. And as they started winning, you could just see the confidence level go up." Hewitt is hoping that 6-foot-4 junior guard Marvin Lewis (10.9 ppg, 4.5 rpg) can help replace some of the leadership Akins' provided. The Maryland native has established himself as a dependable marksman in his first two seasons at Georgia Tech. A year ago, he hit .391 from 3-point range (fifth best in the ACC) and .875 from the foul line (third best in the league). He made what may have been Georgia Tech's biggest shot all season, a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to beat Virginia in Charlottesville. "He's a very consistent, bright player," Hewitt said. "We're going to put a lot on his shoulders. We want him to not only make 3s, but also to hold the guys together ... to be a leader." Hewitt will not ask Lewis, a natural wing player, to assume Akins' playmaking role, except on a limited basis. Instead, he has penciled in 6-foot-3 freshman Jarrett Jack (20.2 ppg, 10.5 apg at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts) as his starting point guard. "We want to go up and down the court, and he's very good at creating tempo," Hewitt said. "He's also an outstanding passer. He looks to pass first and shoot second. That's a change for us -- Tony looked to shoot first." Jack is really Hewitt's only option at the point, unless 6-foot-6 sophomore Anthony McHenry (1.8 ppg, 1.3 rpg) finally displays the skills Hewitt and his staff didn't extract from the former Alabama prep star last season. "If you sat down and talked to my staff, they'd tell you that Anthony McHenry was the most talented of our freshmen," Hewitt said. "He did not have a very easy adjustment to college basketball. There may have been times when my expectations shaped his progress. He is so talented and there is so much he is capable of doing, instead of just letting him develop, I maybe have been too rough. "All I can say is, we haven't given up on the kid. If we can be patient and tap into what he does, he could be the surprise player in the ACC this year." Georgia Tech would be well off if McHenry could just catch up with his classmates. As freshmen, 6-foot-7, 250-pound Ed Nelson (8.5 ppg, 6.9 rpg) and 6-foot-3 B.J. Elder (9.9 ppg, 2.1 rpg) each earned spots on the ACC's All-Rookie team. The burly Nelson, who finished strong after a very slow start, ended up edging N.C. State's Julius Hodge for ACC Rookie of the Year honors. "Early on, he had to adjust," Hewitt said. "In high school, he relied on his size and strength. We had to convince him to move without the ball and find his spots to be effective." Hewitt expects Nelson to be even better as a sophomore -- to be better conditioned and to expand his shooting range out to the 3-point arc. "We told him that we don't want him to become a 3-point shooter, but he needs to be a threat out there," Hewitt said. Shooting is not a problem for Elder, a Georgia native with a sweet stroke from long range. He hit a solid .360 on his three-point tries as a freshman and appears to have elevated his game in the offseason. "He's the guy most people were talking about this summer," Hewitt said. "He's up to about 220 pounds now, and that should help him post up. If he just makes normal progress, he could be a guy who could vie to be one of the top players in the ACC." So could his classmate and former AAU teammate Muhammad, although in a different way. The 6-foot-5, 218-pounder isn't a regarded as a great shooter (he did hit 47 percent of his 3-pointers, but on just 17 attempts), but he does everything else well. "He's a big-time athlete," Hewitt said. "And he's a tremendous leader. He's relentless defensively and on the boards. At times he does things by sheer will. That's what makes him a leader." Muhammad's athletic gifts became even more valuable when 6-6 Halston Lane elected to transfer to UNC Wilmington and versatile wing man Clarence Moore decided to give up basketball rather than return for his junior season. That also created a void in the roster that Hewitt was able to fill with the late addition of 6-foot-5 Jim Nystrom, a 19-year-old Swedish player. "When we lost Clarence Moore, I thought we needed to add a guy," Hewitt said. "That dropped us down to 10 guys -- the same as last year. That scared me." Nystrom, who will have to sit out Georgia Tech's first eight games because of his experience in a semi-pro league, averaged 11.2 points and 4.0 rebounds last season for the Solna Vikings of the Swedish League. Hewitt can only hope that Nystrom can contribute as much as Schenscher did last season as a 19-year-old newcomer from Australia. The 7-footer didn't put up big numbers, but it's no coincidence that Georgia Tech was better when he was in the lineup (11-8) than when he was out (4-8). "He definitely made an impact," Hewitt said. "He's a very bright player, one of the most astute post players I've ever coached. When you've got a 7-footer who knows how to play, it makes a difference. And even when he didn't make a significant contribution, he helped, just by being out there and giving Ed Nelson a breather from time to time." Indeed, Nelson's game picked up significantly after Schenscher returned and allowed the big freshman to move from center to his natural position of power forward. The two newcomers didn't have a lot of help in the middle last year. The only other big man was 6-foot-8 junior Robert Brooks (3.4 ppg, 4.3 rpg), who endured "an up-and-down" sophomore year, Hewitt said. "He showed some flashes -- like 17 points and 8 rebounds when we beat Syracuse," Hewitt said. "But he was erratic. He had some personal issues like a lot of college kids. He's had the best summer he's had since he's been here, and I think he'll be more focused this year." Brooks had better step up his game if he wants to retain some playing time. He'll be challenged in the post by 6-foot-10 freshman Chris Bosh (21.8 ppg, 12.8 rpg at Lincoln High School in Lancaster, Texas), who is the most heralded recruit Hewitt has landed at Georgia Tech. PrepStars ranked Bosh No. 8 on its list of the country’s Top 2002 seniors. Bosh, a McDonald's All-American and the star on the U.S. Junior National team last summer, is a natural power forward with the shot-blocking skills of a center and the speed and athleticism of a small forward. "I think he's better from 15 feet than people think," Hewitt said of his prize recruit. "Still, his strength is his rebounding and his shot blocking. He can be dominant in those areas." The prospect of playing shot blockers Schenscher and Bosh together, along with perimeter defenders such as Muhammad, has Hewitt excited. "If there's one area I think we will see the most improvement in, it will be the defensive end of the floor," he said. Freshman Theodis Tarver (20.8 ppg, 13.8 rpg at Carroll High School in Monroe, La.) also could contribute in that area. The 6-foot-9, 220-pounder averaged almost six blocks a game and has unusually long arms. "He's got a great body," Hewitt said. "He's got good lower body strength, which should allow him to hang in there inside. He's got some work to do on the offensive end. I'm fairly confident he'll be an outstanding player, but his best basketball is probably somewhere down the road." The same could be said of this Georgia Tech team. With no seniors and just two juniors (one a reserve), it's likely that Hewitt's program will be even better a year from now ... and better still two years from now. That doesn't mean the Jackets are writing off this season. "The ACC is wide open," Hewitt said. "There are a lot of really good young players coming into the league. If our point guard play is solid, we can be in the upper echelon. If not, we'll be in the lower part of the league. I don't want to put that all on Jarrett Jack. We've got to share the burden." Hewitt will carry at least two walk-ons this season. Both 6-foot-4 senior David Ewing (0.3 rpg) and 5-foot-9 junior David Nelson (0.6 ppg) are strictly practice players. No team in the ACC, save perhaps Duke, has more young talent than Hewitt has assembled at Georgia Tech. His last two classes have everything --powerful post players, athletic wings, shooters, defenders and ball handlers. The only thing keeping Georgia Tech out of the preseason top 25 is the total reliance on a freshman point guard. That might not turn out to be as big a problem as it looks on the surface -- Jack is the most physically mature playmaker in a celebrated class of point guards. He won't have to score a lot, but if he can protect the ball, play defense and ignite the Jackets' running game, Hewitt's youngsters should continue the surge that ended last season. Even if Jack suffers normal growing pains, there's enough talent surrounding him to help prevent the kind of early season troubles that cost Georgia Tech a postseason trip in 2001. Normal progress by Nelson, Elder, Schenscher and Muhammad will make the Jackets formidable. And the untapped talents of McHenry and the newcomers offer Hewitt the chance to build something special in Atlanta. The only real question is whether his program will take off this year or next.
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