Intense practices return for Jackets

Business was slow last week for Dan Taylor.

Listening to his staff ’s concerns about saving the players’ legs for two road games in a five-day period, Georgia Tech coach Josh Pastner turned down the practice intensity he has had cranked up since the start of the preseason.

Pastner even refrained from booting players out of practice when they weren’t giving enough effort for one-minute torture sessions with Taylor, the team’s strength and conditioning coach. The result, in Pastner’s opinion? After an acceptable effort in a loss at Penn State last Tuesday, a low-energy performance in an 81-58 loss at Tennessee on Saturday to drop to 4-3.

“That won’t ever happen again as long as I’m head coach at Georgia Tech,” Pastner said. “I don’t care if I’m the head coach for 25 years. I will not practice like that again.”

The Yellow Jackets will find out how the return to high-intensity, fast-paced practices will serve them tonight, when they play at VCU. It’s probably Tech’s most rigorous test of the nonconference schedule. The Rams have made six consecutive NCAA Tournaments and are 73-9 at home since the start of the 201112 season. They’ve sold out raucous E.J. Wade Arena 86 consecutive games.

Should the Jackets bring the low-wattage energy that they did to Knoxville, defeat is almost a certainty. Tech won fewer 50-50 balls than the Volunteers, the first time this season that the Jackets didn’t win that team-charted statistic, all-important to Pastner.

Players made lackadaisical passes and didn’t show urgency in coming to meet passes, factors that led to a season-high 19 turnovers. The Jackets’ energy shortage was exacerbated by several ill-advised layup attempts in heavy traffic.

“I take full responsibility,” Pastner said. “I backed off this past week and it backfired on Saturday. We might lose every game we play, but over my dead body are we not going to play to be the most energized team and play so darn hard.”

This past week, Pastner chose to do more game planning for Penn State and Tennessee and stopped practice much more frequently for teaching points. Particularly in Thursday and Friday practices before the trip to Knoxville, intensity lagged, Pastner said.

“I think we were a little tired, but I think overall, it’s more of a mindset, that we know that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to be the first one to punch ’em in the mouth,’ ” forward Quinton Stephens said. “That’s what Tennessee did to us.”

The Jackets will have another energy matter to handle. Final exams begin Thursday. Center Ben Lammers, a mechanical engineering major, has two finals scheduled for Thursday, as well as a computer project due Tuesday.

“It’s not going to be a fun next couple of days,” Lammers said Monday.

Further, Pastner was unsure Monday if point guard Justin Moore, who has a stomach virus, would be available to play.

“If he does, great,” Pastner said. “If not, the next guy’s got to be ready to get the job done.”