Damon Stoudamire Talks About What a Successful First Season Will Look Like

Stoudamire is in his first season as the head coach at Georgia Tech

Jackson Caudell | Oct 26, 2023

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Damon Stoudamire had a successful collegiate and professional career as a player and was also viewed as one of the best assistant coaches in the NBA. Now that he is taking over Georgia Tech, a program trying to get back to competing for ACC Championships.

Yesterday, Stoudamire experienced his first ACC media day as the head coach of the program and he was asked what his goals were for this team this season:

"You know what, I haven't made any goals. Honestly, I don't know what a successful season looks like, but I do know this, I think this team is just going to keep getting better and better. I can see it. It's probably the first team that I've ever been a part of where the offense is ahead of the defense.

I've promised myself, but more importantly I've adhered to it with the guys. They've got to share the basketball. Like one of the first things I looked at with last year's team was last in the conference in assists, and for me, I just came from a place where we were one of the best assisting teams. We had a lot of good players, so you've got to be able to share the ball.

Like I said, I do believe we're a team that'll just keep getting better and better and better, and by the time -- I know conference play is weird because as I look at these schedules, now I'm going back to when I was in college just two years ago and I know we didn't have as many teams where I was at in the league.

I looked at our schedule, and I was like, damn, we play Duke on December 2nd. The conference starts quick around here.

By the time we get into the meat of that conference schedule, I look for us to start going this way. What does that look like, wins and losses, I don't know, but I definitely know we're going to be competitive as hell. We're going to play hard and we're going to be competitive."

Damon Stoudamire is entering his first season as the head coach at Georgia Tech / Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

While he might not have stated goals for his team this season, Stoudamire knows the things he wants to see out of his team as the year progresses:

"You know, I'm just most looking forward to the way we gel together. When you bring in a new coach, it doesn't matter what level you're on. You know there tends to be a little bit of resistance. I always tell guys, it's nothing personal, but it just happens that way. I've been a part of coaching change before, never in college, always in the pros, but I think as we've been together more and more, they kind of see my vision.

The only thing I have in terms of my vision is us playing together on both ends of the floor. If we lose, we lose as a team. If we win, we win as a team. There is no I in that.

I just want guys to be connected. That's the biggest thing for me.

Then I'll say this just like with anybody else, I don't know what our margin of error will be as of yet, but I do know we can't have injuries. I can't have injuries. We can't afford to have our best guys and our key guys sitting out for long periods of time.

Right now -- we had a couple injuries, luckily for us, it's not injuries that's going to take its toll deep down the road, but we've got to stay healthy."

Georgia Tech begins its season on November 6th at home against Georgia Southern.

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