Gani Lawal comes back to Georgia Tech

One more year...

This weekend was a pretty big weekend for Georgia Tech as Gani made an unprecedented move and actually decided to come back for another year of college basketball.

Gani's return will likely raise the already above-average potential next year for the basketball team. He will certainly raise the expectations for Paul Hewitt solidifying 2009-2010 is a "Do or Die" season.

Post your thoughts in the comments!

Gani Lawal Thinking About Going Pro

Gani Lawal has announced that he will be entering the NBA Draft. He has not hired an agent.

For a little while we all thought that with the combination of him and Derrick Favors, the season next year could be a good one. We could be back to being a young team in desperate need of development.

What are your thoughts?

Christmas in California continues today

On Saturday, our Yellow Jackets visited beautiful Malibu, California to face-off against the Pepperdine Waves. Alade Aminu stepped up and turned the momentum to the Jackets side as he led the stats with a double-double in the form of 18 points and 11 rebounds. Gani Lawal had his ACC leading 6th double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Click here for a box score

Monday proves to be a test of a different difficulty as the basketball team travels to Los Angeles to play againt the Trojans of Southern Cal. The Trojans are 6-0 at home this year with wins over powerhouses such as New Mexico and North Dakota State University.

The game will be televised on Fox Sports at 10:30 PM EST

ATL midtown beat down

GT beats GSU by 20 to improve to 6-2 on the season. Gani takes care of business, as usual, and Iman adds 11 assists. Sweet. A nice little shining star in the stat lines is Brad Sheehan contributing 16 points. Do not underestimate the power of the 7' center. Tech now leads the series in the Midtown vs. Downtown Series 17-2 with the only losses being decided away from Georgia Tech before the dark times. Before the Empire.

I like seeing the games against instate teams. I know people that attended these schools and it gives a nice rivalry flavor to the game. It also gives you a challenge. These teams are stocked with kids that are jaded because they were "overlooked" by the big instate schools. So they're gonna play like they're in their conference tournament (see James Florence's performance for Mercer). They got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

You've also got the simple economics of the games. It's easy to attend a game in Macon. It's two hours right down 75 and a relatively nice campus to visit. It's really easy to attend a game at GSU being 10 minutes from GT's campus and right off 85. You assert your instate dominance and leave. Simple. Now, we must take care of business against the Cesspool. To Hell With Georgia.

Do you have any comments on pre-ACC bball action or just want to vent about the futilities in life? Post in the comments section.

UIC 66 GT 60

The UIC Flames continue to be a thorn in our side no matter the quality of either team. In a rather empty Alexander Memorial Coliseum, our Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets lost another close one. The time came for Mo Miller to close a 3-point gap down to 1 at the free throw line and he just couldn't hit a shot. We didn't come within 1 point again.

The Flames shot 28% from the 3-point line and it seemed as if we defended the perimeter much better. Unfortunately, the UIC's big man Scott VanderMeer, had his way on the inside, scoring a game high 17 points.

Lowlights: From my view, we struggle with a complete defense. If we defend the 3, we allow the 2. If we defend the inside, we open up the perimeter. Free-throw shooting is absymal. When we need clutch free-throws (see also Mercer) we can't seem to hit get them.

Positives: Once again, flashes of brilliance are shown in Gani and Iman. We just can't seem to catch those flashes and harness it into something cohesive. Nick Foreman is becoming a fairly solid asset for us. A walk-on, Foreman is showing hustle, grit and determination. Every game I watch him play, there improvement and I am impressed. Lewis Clinch should be back on Wednesday as long as he passes all classes which are released on Tuesday

In the end, we have good individuals. Maybe even some good duos, but we don't seem to have the solid team that we need to make that run that is so desperately needed. The potential is there, but the results not so much.

Upcoming Games this Week:

12/17: vs. Georgia State

12/20: @ Pepperdine

12/22: @ USC

Jackets Fall to Penn State

In the land of the 2-point shot, the 3 point shooter shall rule the world.

That is what happened to us last night. Penn State actually seemed to have an off night from behind the arc in the fact that the only shot 42% from that distance. The problem is that we can't shoot 3's. We have big guys who can dominate the inside both offensively and defensively but when you shoot 3 of 16 (18%) for 3's. You aren't going to win the game.

Negatives from last night:

3-point shooting: Gross, just gross and disgusting.

Perimeter Defense: We seemed to be collapsing to the interior all game which left the perimeter wide open for the Nittany Lions to take all their shots.

Mo Miller: 26 minutes, 8 points, 2 Field Goals

Positives:
Gani Lawal and Iman Shumpert. There is a reason they were McDonald's All-Americans back in high school. Schumper has the the moves needed to allude the defense, passes coming from nowhere and not afraid to take a shot when the game was on the line. He impressed me quite a bit. I wish I could go back and see how many of Iman's 12 assists were to Gani who simply domintated. He put up 34 points and 10 rebounds in 38 minutes of play. You know the best thing about Gani last nigh? 4-5 from the Free Throw line!

Thought Process:
We currently have no depth. Who will step up? We must defend the 3-ball. That is how Mercer took it to us.

Next Game: This Saturday vs. Vanderbilt at 2:00 PM

What were your thoughts on last nights game? Post in the comments.