Hardy building his program

Tavaras Hardy is no longer a Georgia Tech assistant coach, a reality that has been made clear to himin a number of ways.

“I’ve already been kicked off the group chat,” said the new coach at Loyola-Maryland.

Hardy, who served two years on coach Josh Pastner’s staff, was announced as the Greyhounds coach last Wednesday. He’s taking over a team that has had a winning league record five times in the past 21 seasons and has made the NCAA Tournament twice in school history. As a first- time head coach, he’ll take lessons he learned from Pastner with him, starting with his optimism and belief.

“When we first got the job, coach Pastner was always talking about, ‘How do we get to 20wins?’” Hardy said. “Based off watching film, and the guys didn’t have a lot of experience, knowing how good the ACC was, we were like, ‘That’s unrealistic, coach.’ He stayed on us. ‘Let’s come up with a way. We’ll fifigure it out together.’ And obviously it worked with the season we were able to have last year.”

Picked to finish at or near the bottom of the ACC, Tech challenged for an NCAA Tournament berth before making a run to the NIT finals and finishing at 21-16.

Hardy goes with Pastner’s blessing and encouragement.

“I just thought the job was a good one for him,” Pastner said, citing the location and the academic strength of the school. “I just think he’s going to do really well there.”

The values Hardy helped teach to the Jackets — such as playing with effort and sharing the ball— will be imparted to the Greyhounds, too.

“I’m going to be in charge with building a successful program,” he said. “We’ll be judged of wins and losses, no doubt about that, but how we get to those wins is going to be based on howwe build the program, how we build the culture.”

Football

Stephenson High linebacker Tra Wilkins reportedly has scholarship offers from Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Michigan and other powerhouses. On Monday, he was at Georgia Tech paying an unofficial visit.

“I liked it,” Wilkins said. “It’s different. It’s in the city. It’s not too far from my house, so that’s what I like about it.”

It was Wilkins’ fifirst visit to Tech. Wilkins, who tweeted out his offer from Tech on Feb. 24, took a tour of campus and the football facilities Monday and watched the Yellow Jackets’ fififth workout of spring practice. He also learned more about Tech’s defense and where he might fifit.

“They’re going to a 3-4, so they’re really looking for linebackers right now,” Wilkins said. “They think I’m the type that they need.”

While some recruits seem to be enamored by the idea of playing in the SEC and in larger stadiums, Wilkins can see beyond that. “Georgia Tech, it’s still a big school,” he said. “It’s in the ACC. It’s just a different conference name, really, but they can compete for the same thing the SEC competes for, a national championship.”

Wilkins said he would like to make a decision on a school before Stephenson’s spring game, which he said is May 18. He said he planned to come back next Wednesday for a second unofficial visit to Tech.

Baseball

One big inning for Georgia and a complete shutdown at the plate for GeorgiaTech led to an increasingly familiar result. The No. 17 Bulldogs beat the Yellow Jackets 4-0 Tuesday night at Foley Field in Athens, the fourth consecutive win for UGA in the series and the seventh win in the past eight meetings.

Georgia struck for three runs in the seventh to push the lead to the final 4-0. Short three starters because of injuries, the Jackets were able to manage just four hits and two walks despite entering the game with a .393 on-base percentage.

Georgia’s pitchers had 14 strikeouts, whichwas Tech’s season high. UGA reliever Kevin Smith picked up a career-high nine in only 4⅓ innings, often baiting Jackets batters into waving at pitches out of the strike zone. Tech was shut out for the first time this season, this on the heels of a threegame sweep of Miami this past weekend when the Jackets had 23 runs.

Freshman pitcher Brant Hurter kept Tech (17-13) in the game, giving up one run through six innings before the defense wobbled behind him in the seventh. After L.J. Talley singled to open the bottom of the seventh, Mason Meadows and Tucker Maxwell reached base after trying to put down sacrifice bunts, loading the bases. After a force-out at the plate for Georgia’s first out, Tech coach Danny Hall removed Hurter for Jared Datoc, who gave up three singles to score three runs.