Josh Pastner hates to lose. And by any objective measure, he hasn’t done much of it. Since his high-school hoops days in Texas and throughout his collegiate career as a player and coach at Arizona and Memphis, he’s never won fewer than 18 games in a season. Pastner even says that he’s never lost more than three basketball games in a row. And as a head coach, he holds a stellar winning percentage near 70 percent.
The Tech faithful hate to lose, too. They want their men’s basketball team to compete in the postseason year in, year out, and maybe even win an ACC championship now and again.
So don’t let Pastner’s baby-faced, Peter Brady-like good looks fool you. Though young, he has the championship pedigree and coaching experience to take the team to great heights—eventually. As the head coach of the Memphis Tigers, he guided the men’s basketball team to dance in four March Madness tournaments in seven seasons. The Yellow Jackets haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2011.
Pastner’s loathing of losing has given him intense focus and drive since he was a kid. By the age of 10, he knew he wanted to grow up to be a basketball coach (like his father). And, as a teenager, not only did he start self-publishing the Josh Pastner Scouting Report that rated local high-school talent in Houston, but also he coached a top AAU hoops team.
As a freshman walk-on for the University of Arizona Wildcats, he won a 1997 NCAA championship playing for legendary coach Lute Olson. Though Pastner primarily rode the pine all four years he was on the team, he was regarded as essential to the Wildcats’ success because he served as something of a player-coach, constantly working to help his teammates get better. And as a student, he earned his bachelor’s degree in just two-and-a-half years at Arizona—once taking 33 credit hours in a single semester—and his master’s degree the year after.
If that’s not focus enough, outside of basketball, Pastner today claims no real hobbies, except for spending quality time with his wife and three kids. He refuses to use profanity on or off the court. And he’s never touched a drop of alcohol or even carbonated soda in his life.
Pastner made time in his busy schedule to sit down with the Alumni Magazine to let Tech’s basketball fans get to know him and his approach to the game a little better.
What has most impressed you this first several months at Georgia Tech?
Josh Pastner: To me, the Georgia Tech way is not just about the strength of the academics, but also about the strength of its work ethic. Whether you’re a student or a member of the faculty or staff, you’re going to struggle to succeed if you’re not properly motivated—no matter how smart you are. And it’s this motor that will get you through Tech’s toughest challenges and drive you to excel at one of the world’s premier institutions.
How have you been received by Tech alumni, students and fans so far?
Pastner: There’s no doubt that Tech alumni and students love their sports, especially basketball. There is an amazing thirst for the men’s basketball program to be successful again. It’s been a long time and there’s an extreme desire to get the program back to where it was in the days of Coach [Bobby] Cremins when the team regularly danced during March Madness. For me, that’s exciting.
And how long do you think it will take for their thirst to be quenched?
Pastner: I think people recognize it’s going to take some time. When I was hired, they told me it was going to be like launching a startup company—starting from scratch, blowing the whole thing up. And because we’re hitting that reset button, almost every publication has us picked to wind up in last place in the ACC. Some publications even say that we’re not going to win a single game in conference play this season.
But you hate losing.
Pastner: My hope for this year is that we’ll undersell and over-perform. There’s tremendous potential already with the team I’ve inherited, and we’re going to fight and scrap and play as hard as anyone. We’re going to do all we can to win every time we step on the floor this season.
Still, I’m here to build a sustainable, championship-level program. It’s going to take multiple recruiting classes to get there. The great thing in college basketball, however, is that you don’t need to sign 18 to 20 athletes every year like you do in football. You just need to sign a couple of talented and complementary players each season to build your program.
That said, I’ve never been part of something that’s been picked last place, ever. So I’m going to hold myself to the highest standard and put pressure on myself to find ways to win despite the external expectations for us to struggle. And as a team, we’re going to fight to try to prove everyone wrong. We’re going to play with an edge and a chip on our shoulders.
I believe that we’ll be a much better team by the end of the season, and we’ll surprise a lot of people. Will we win 18 games? I can’t predict that but I know that we will try our hardest.
How have you gone about changing the men’s basketball program culture and approach?
Pastner: I started by looking outside the box and consulting with people in the private sector—leaders in the business world and from startup companies—to examine how they’ve been able to achieve success quickly and sustain it. Based on this and my own experiences in the coaching arena, I believe there are three important things to build a program from the ground up.
First off, you need to start by hiring a great staff, and I think I’ve done that. I looked to find people who knew Georgia Tech well or who have worked at institutions with both strong academic and athletic track records. And just like I do in recruiting student-athletes, I looked for assistants and staff with strong motors. If I have to motivate you to be driven, then we’re not aligned and you’re not a good fit. I don’t want entitlement—I want appreciation.
Second, you have to be relentless in recruiting talent. We need to go after players who are ACC caliber, but also look for guys who are underneath the radar a little bit. And we need student-athletes who want to be at Georgia Tech.
I would say the third thing is scheduling. It’s really important to be smart about our non-conference matches because we play in the best basketball league outside of the NBA. We need to build momentum early in the season so that when we reach conference play, we’re ready to compete for an ACC title or to do well in the conference tournament.
You won a national championship as a player at the University of Arizona and studied under Lute Olson and John Calipari as an assistant coach. What did you learn about program building from these legendary coaches?
Pastner: Both Coach Olson and Coach Calipari are in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and deservedly so. I worked for two elite guys and I learned a number of things from both. But I can’t be either one of them—I can’t even be a combination of the two of them. I have to be Josh Pastner. I have to be comfortable in my own skin.
I evolved under their tutelage, but I also grew tremendously during my time on my own as head coach at Memphis. I learned that the No. 1 thing in being a good leader—a good coach—is self-awareness. I know what my strengths are, and the good Lord knows the thousands of weaknesses that I have. When I hired my staff, I consciously brought in people with the strengths to help me with my weaknesses.
To be part of a team that’s won a national championship in college basketball is such rarefied air these days that only a few people know what’s involved with that achievement. I understand the blueprint of what it takes to get there. And as much as this is going to be a new and unprecedented journey for me—building a program from the ground up—I’m excited about the challenge.
You’re regarded as a savvy recruiter. What’s core to your recruiting process? What do you do differently than other coaches?
Pastner: The most important thing to succeeding in recruiting is that you have to enjoy it. You have to embrace it. I’ve been in attack mode since I was an assistant coach hitting the recruiting trail during my early days in Arizona. I believe in the word “attack” when it comes to recruiting. It means you’re owning it.
But it’s also important to know when to back off on recruiting a specific player, to know when to get out and move elsewhere. If you’re number five or six on the list for a top player, you’re often better off focusing on someone who’s almost as good whom you have a better chance of landing. There’s nothing good about finishing second place in recruiting a player.
The clincher is follow-up and follow-through. When I tell a recruit I’m going to do something, I’m really careful with the words I use and I make sure that I’m able to back them up. Otherwise, I’d lose all credibility.
What have been your biggest challenges in recruiting in the ACC and for Georgia Tech specifically?
Pastner: Being in the ACC, first of all, opens up a lot of doors. Kids want to play in the ACC, not only because it’s the best of the best, but also because of the sheer amount of media exposure.
As for Tech, we’re right smack dab in the middle of a major city like Atlanta which is as dynamic a place as there is in the entire country. There are tons of great players locally to go after. And Tech’s academics are a huge selling point for players who are serious about getting a great education. However, there are some challenges, too, because there are many great prospects who don’t fit the Georgia Tech mission or mold. That means we have to find the right fit both in terms of basketball and academics.
What traits do you look for first when recruiting student-athletes?
Pastner: Purely in terms of basketball skills, I look for guys who can play on the perimeter and flat out put the ball in the basket, shoot threes. As a coach, you can never have enough scorers.
But what I really want are guys who are driven—gym rats with a distinct distaste for losing. It’s a perfect fit with that Georgia Tech mentality and work ethic we first talked about. I want them to hurt inside when they lose in a practice drill to one of their teammates. I want them to be upset when they lose in a pickup game. I want them to want to win every time they play.
How do you expect your team to play this year?
Pastner: We’re going to run a lot, play up-tempo. My guys will be in great physical shape, and that can be the difference between winning and losing close games at the end. There’s also going to be a lot of ball movement—space and pace. The open man will be the go-to guy. We’ll fight to win every 50/50 ball battle. We’ll be full-throttle, competitive, leaving it all on the line. It will be a fun team to watch.
The athletic director who hired you is no longer at Tech. What does it mean for you and what have you done to build a relationship with new AD Todd Stansbury?
Pastner: I was obviously caught off guard big time when Mike Bobinski announced he was leaving [to be the AD at Purdue]. I love Mike and I’m so appreciative of the opportunity he gave me. However, Todd has an excellent reputation in the business and though I’d never met him before he came on board, I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about him from colleagues who worked with him at Central Florida and Oregon State.
We’ve now had the chance to get together several times and we’ve had excellent discussions about the program. I think he understands the situation that I was hired into, and he understands that it’s going to take some time to rebuild. But he was at Tech back in the day of Coach Cremins and, like me, he wants to see Yellow Jackets basketball get back to that level. We share the same vision and I’m excited to have an opportunity to work for him.