Yellow Jackets continue without Favors, Lawal

With the help of Derrick Favors and Gani Lawal, Georgia Tech streaked through the ACC tournament last year, falling just four points short of taking down eventual NCAA champion Duke in the tournament final.

As a No. 10 seed in the NCAA tournament, the Yellow Jackets upset Oklahoma State 64-59 before being outmatched by Ohio State in the second round.

Now, Lawal and Favors are in the NBA — Favors as the third overall pick — and college basketball prognosticators aren’t overly impressed with the team they left behind. The Jackets have found themselves in the bottom half of most ACC preseason polls.

“We’re going to be different this year,” coach Paul Hewitt said at ACC Media Day. “I think if we tried to play the style we played last year, it would be tough.”

Georgia Tech enters the season with just three true post players. Nate Hicks, a true freshman from Panama City Beach, Fla., joins redshirt freshmen Kammeon Holsey and Daniel Miller to form the Yellow Jackets’ thin frontcourt.

Rather than lamenting the loss of the team’s big men, Hewitt is salivating over the new dynamic of his roster.

“You just see with the more space to operate how tough we’re going to be to guard,” he said. “It should make us much more difficult to defend than last year.”

The Yellow Jackets’ roster lists 11 guards compared to two forwards and centers each.

Still, the hole left by the departed big men is undeniable. Last year, with Lawal and Favors under the basket, Georgia Tech finished the season ranked third in the ACC in rebounding offense and third in blocked shots.

Hewitt’s players know that even if they can manage a high-octane attack, the absence of Lawal and Favors in the paint will make defense and rebounding areas of concern.

“Last year was just pressure, pressure, pressure, and if a guy gets by you, you’ve got shot blockers,” junior point guard Iman Shumpert said. “Now it’s more pressure, pressure, pressure, if he gets beat, help him. We don’t have that shot blocker to come across the lane.”

Senior guard Maurice Miller echoed his teammate.

“It’s a team effort, now,” Miller said. “We don’t have them big guys down there where you can just send the guards down there, they block it and then we take off running.”

Hewitt said that an experienced team will key Georgia Tech’s success this year — Shumpert, Miller, Mfon Udofia, Glen Rice Jr. and Brian Oliver all return after playing significant minutes for GT last year — and will help overcome the loss of playmakers.

“(The returning players) have tangible knowledge,” Hewitt said. “It’s not about me telling them something. They know. They have experience that some teams don’t.”

As Hewitt tries to perfect the Xs and Os of his new-look roster, Shumpert emphasized the importance of approaching the season with the right mind-set.

“The key to improving is not trying to make up for the loss of Gani Lawal and Derrick Favors,” he said. “What we need to do is just embrace our new game plan, embrace our new team, embrace what Coach is preaching to us and we’ll be fine.”