Every Possession is Precious
By: Shelley Wunder-Smith | Categories: Sports
That was the late New York recruiting analyst Tom Konchalski describing Jose Alvarado as a high school basketball player. It was that drive to win that made Josh Pastner, coach of Georgia Tech men’s basketball, recruit Alvarado for his team in 2016.
Three years passed, and Alvarado was on and off the Yellow Jackets’ injury list. Going into the 2020-’21 season, Tech had not won an ACC title since 1993 and had not played in the NCAA Tournament since 2010. Pastner was counting on Alvarado, now a senior point guard, to be the linchpin of a long-hoped-for championship year.
But things began inauspiciously. During Operation Basketball, the ACC’s media day, Tech was picked to finish ninth out of the league’s 15 teams; the team opened their season by losing the first two games, at home, to Georgia State and Mercer University.
“We were just sick about it,” Pastner says. “And our next game was against Kentucky. So the coaching staff stayed in the office until 4 a.m. after both of those games, and we retooled everything, including changing our entire offense.”
This pivot revitalized the team, and they handily won the next two games against No. 20 Kentucky and Nebraska—which were then followed by an uneven string of wins and losses. By the time the Yellow Jackets arrived in Clemson, South Carolina, for their rematch against Clemson, they held a record of 9-7 overall and 5-5 in the ACC, and the opportunity for postseason play was in serious jeopardy. This was a game Tech needed to win.
Jackets fans will probably never forget how the Clemson game ended. With Tech up by one point—72–71—and eight seconds left in the game, Alvarado was fouled. Despite his 87.8% free-throw average, he missed both shots. The Tigers won the game when Clemson player Nick Honor heaved a Hail Mary 3-pointer that banked in at the final horn.
The two-hour bus ride back to Atlanta was silent.
“So we’re on the bus, and no one is saying anything. We get back at 1 or 2 in the morning, and Jose goes down to the arena and starts shooting free throws,” Pastner says. “He’s on the floor crying and shooting free throws, and he tells me he isn’t leaving there until he’s made 100 free throws.”
“The feeling that I felt when I missed those free throws, I didn’t want to feel like that ever again,” Alvarado said in a later interview. “I literally stood in the gym probably until 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning, and he [Coach Pastner] did not leave my side. I... shot free throws and just doubted myself. And he was there... and said, ‘I still want the ball in your hands.’”
A day later, the Yellow Jackets played Pittsburgh. The team had zero margin for error: One more loss, and the chances for making the NCAA Tournament would be next to none.
Pastner remembers Alvarado saying to him before the game, “Coach, I will forever regret this unless we win every single game from here on out.”
That’s exactly what Tech did, beginning with the game against Pitt. The team marched victoriously through all six of their remaining regular season match-ups. Then they won twice more, against Miami and Florida State, to take the ACC title and advance to play in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 11 years.
What caused this turnaround for the Jackets, you might ask?
Pastner has an axiom he instilled in his team: EPIP—Every Possession Is Precious. He coached his guys to fight for the ball every second of every game, the way Alvarado had always played, even in high school.
“That’s why Jose was in the gym after the Clemson game, shooting free throws. He just wins; that’s what he does, and he carried the team with him in that,” says Pastner. “We can’t take any possession for granted, and I really appreciated that they played with that mentality.”
Today, Alvarado, who graduated in 2021 with a degree in Literature, Media, and Communications, plays guard for the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans.
“[That whole season] was a beautiful journey that really fit into what the team and our program and Georgia Tech is all about,” says Pastner. “As a student—or a student-athlete—at Georgia Tech, you’ve got to be tough, you’ve got to be gritty, and you’ve got to have that internal drive. To get off the ropes and keep fighting back. That’s what you do at Tech, and Jose and our team mirrored that. And the rest is history.”
