Georgia Tech Basketball: 8 candidates to replace Josh Pastner as head coach
By Joey Loose
After seven years as the head coach of Georgia Tech Basketball, Josh Pastner has been fired by the Yellow Jackets, opening up an intriguing job in the ACC. Pastner’s time Georgia Tech was a mixture of good and bad, but these last few seasons were a significant struggle and the Yellow Jackets will move forward in a different direction.
Pastner played his collegiate ball under Lute Olson at Arizona and won the national championship as a freshman way back in 1997. He joined Olson’s staff to begin his coaching career and would later work under John Calipari at Memphis. When Calipari departed for Kentucky in 2009, Pastner was promoted to the top job and began his head coaching career with the Tigers.
He’d spent seven years leading Memphis, taking them to four NCAA Tournaments and decent success in both the CUSA and the AAC, including a 31-5 season in 2013. In 2016, he was brought to Georgia Tech to succeed Brian Gregory and lead the Yellow Jackets back into a position of prominence in the ACC. While this end goal did come to fruition, it wasn’t all bad for his time in Atlanta.
What doomed Pastner was finishing below .500 in four of his seven seasons, including the last two years. However, he did lead the Yellow Jackets to the ACC Tournament championship in 2021, though that was his only trip to the Big Dance at Georgia Tech. In all, Georgia Tech just didn’t do enough under his leadership these last seven years and this program will look for someone who can make them an actual threat in the ACC. They finished better than 10th in the conference just twice under Pastner.
Georgia Tech begins anew with their head coaching search and we’ll be looking at a number of candidates for their open job. The Yellow Jackets know that this program can win important games again, but it’ll take the right leader to get them back to being a consistent contender. There are a few names that really float to the top of today’s list, but we’re going to dive deeply into each of these coaches, proceeding alphabetically.