Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner’s magical mystery tour of ACC tournament adds new dates

Going to see “Creed III” after arriving in Greensboro on Sunday may have extended Georgia Tech’s stay here. Josh Pastner’s team keeps fighting, and not just Tuesday.

The Yellow Jackets were 1-12 in the ACC in January before ripping off wins in seven of their next nine, the seventh coming Tuesday in a tournament opener they trailed by as many as 11 in the second half before beating 12th-seeded Florida State, 61-60.

Ja’von Franklin made one free throw with 0.3 seconds left, missed the second deliberately and ensured the Pastner Magical Mystery Tour would be extended for at least one more day.

After the game, the ACC’s resident pop philosopher nominated four different people in the room for various halls of fame, talked in detail about Georgia Tech’s 35-year history of turnover statistics, and credited his team’s victory Tuesday to a team outing to watch “Creed III.”

“We saw ‘Creed’ the other day, and this is what we watched the movie for,” Georgia Tech guard Kyle Sturdivant said. “We knew we were going to be down, but it’s never over until the game is over, and that’s why we fought.”

Pastner jumped in immediately: “We watched the movie, and I was using that analogy to the guys, and we talked about it, and that is a great movie. If you haven’t seen the movie, unbelievable job. Michael — did he direct it? What a great job by Michael B. Jordan, incredible actor, and that was an incredible movie. It was just awesome.”

Michael B. Jordan, Hall of Famer.

Which, by Pastner standards, barely even qualifies as loopy. Everyone’s a Hall of Famer in his book. He once said after a loss at Duke that he planned to live to 120: “I never want to die. I want to live forever. I love life.” After Georgia Tech was eliminated from the ACC tournament in Brooklyn last year with a Tuesday loss to Louisville, Pastner stuck around to watch basketball for two days, until his wife made him come home.

There’s no tangent he won’t pursue, and just as there’s no question that he’s earnest about this stuff, but there’s equally no question he’s in on the joke. He admitted as much about the dented, scratched and battered face shield he wore throughout the COVID year, even during the celebration in the aftermath of the Yellow Jackets’ ACC championship.

That face shield, genuinely, ought to be in the Hall of Fame.

But it’s easy to lose sight, in all the words, that Pastner can coach a little bit. He’s willing to use just about any junk defense if it might give his team an advantage, and as impressive as the ACC title in 2021 was, he might have done better work with this group — left for dead in January, but still alive in March.

“We were on the ropes, not only in this game at halftime but we were on the ropes at the end of January,” Pastner said. “And when you’re on the ropes, you have two options. You either get in a fetal position and you lay down and just take it, or you’re going to fight, kick, claw, eye gouge, scrap your way off of that rope and find a way to keep fighting and doing what you’ve got to do.”

Tuesday’s victory means Pastner will stick around for another day, setting the stage for a Wednesday soliloquy on how the ACC ought to have 10 teams in the NCAA tournament, or how life exists on other planets or something. But it might not buy Pastner much time in the big picture. Georgia Tech is 27-37 since winning the ACC title and has a new athletic director who took over in October. In seven seasons under Pastner, the Yellow Jackets have made the NCAA tournament only once after going to the championship game of the NIT in his first.

The question remains who would want to take a job with difficult academic standards and no NIL support to speak of should Georgia Tech make a change, but on the merits it’s not a hard argument to make.

Whatever that means for Georgia Tech basketball, it would be a loss for the ACC, which needs a wild card or two like Pastner, someone unafraid to speak his mind, no matter how outrageous it may sound. And if he does end up looking for work, he might already have his next gig in mind.

“If you haven’t seen “Creed III,” I would recommend it,” Pastner said. ‘And I’m not Michael B. Jordan’s agent, even though I wish I was. But that was a heck of a movie.”

Never miss a Luke DeCock column. Sign up at tinyurl.com/lukeslatest to have them delivered directly to your email inbox as soon as they post.

Luke DeCock’s Latest: Never miss a column on the Canes, ACC or other Triangle sports