IMG Academy
IMG Academy is a preparatory boarding school and sport training destination in Bradenton, United States. The boarding school offers an integrated academic and athletic college preparatory experience across eight sports – baseball, football, lacrosse, soccer and track & field and cross country. IMG Academy offers camp programs on a year-round basis and serves as a training and competition venue for amateur and professional teams and families and as a host site for a variety of events. Nick Bollettieri founded the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in 1978. Sports and entertainment company IMG purchased the academy in 1987. IMG acquired the youth division of the David Leadbetter Golf Academy in 1993 and added programs for soccer and baseball in 1994. Hockey and basketball programs were added in 2000 and 2001 and by 2002 the IMG campus had expanded to 190 acres. IMG Academy suspended its hockey program in 2003. Football was added in 2010, as well as lacrosse. Track & field and cross country were added in 2013.
IMG Academy sits on 450 acres of land, in 2011, IMG paid $7.5 million for an additional 110 acres adjacent to the current campus for future expansion. In 2014, IMG purchased an additional 24 acres; the land borders IMG's west campus, where the sports performance academy is undergoing a $198 million expansion. The IMG Pendleton School was founded in 1999 as a co-educational, college preparatory school for athletic students. In 2012, the school changed its name to "IMG Academy", it delivers both athletics. The Bollettieri tennis program offers year-round tennis camps ranging from one to five weeks in length and is led by director Rohan Goetzke; the campus has 35 outdoor hard courts, 5 indoor hard courts, 16 green clay courts. In 1987, thirty-two academy students or former students were in the Wimbledon draw and twenty-seven were in the U. S. Open; the famous students included Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, Jim Courier, Kei Nishikori, Anna Kournikova, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova. IMG announced the John Madden Football Academy in March 2010 and held its first camp from June 4–6, 2010.
The football program offers a residency program and year-round camps ranging from three days to five weeks in length and was led by former NFL quarterback Chris Weinke. The academy fielded a high school football team for the first time in 2013. In 2013, MaxPreps called IMG Academy the "nation's top high school football facility." IMG Academy named Kevin Wright the head coach in spring 2015 after Weinke accepted a position as quarterbacks coach with the Los Angeles Rams. Wright guided the program to its first undefeated regular season in 2015. Earnest Byner, the running backs coach is featured in NFL Undiscovered, which featured overseas prospects who have little or no prior knowledge of the game since 2016. IMG Academy offers year-round soccer camps. IMG Academy was home to U. S. Soccer's full-time residency program for the United States' U-16 and U-17 men's national teams. Started in 1999 and closed in 2017, it was an integral in developing the United States' top youth soccer prospects; the original idea of the residency program was to give elite players the opportunity to train in a professional environment as most MLS clubs did not have a substantial youth academy system in place prior to 2009.
The Bradenton Academy has grown from an initial 20 players to 30 in 2002 and to 40 in 2003. The program is now split into a U-17 squad. A typical day for the student-athlete at Bradenton consists of academic classes in the morning followed by sports training in the afternoon. Students at the academy take accelerated courses and graduate high school a year early, making the players who do not turn pro some of the most recruited prospects in college soccer; the academy can trace its roots back to Project 2010 which highlighted ways U. S. Soccer could make the senior men's national team a legitimate threat to win the World Cup by the end of the decade. Two programs that were born from Project 2010 were the Bradenton academy; the academy was started in January 1999 with the backing of IMG and Nike, but will be closed in 2017 due to the proliferation of U. S. Development Academy programs. IMG Academy has an Academy baseball program and year-round camps, in addition to summer Wood Bat Leagues. IMG Academy's post graduate program played in their only appearance in the 2016 National Prep Championship in New Haven, Connecticut.
Among the teams were Brewster Academy, DME Academy, Elev-8 Sports Institute, Fork Union Military Academy, Hargrave Military Academy, IMG Academy, Northfield Mount Hermon School, more. The head coach of IMG’s national high school team is Sean McAloon, the head coach at St. John’s College High School in Washington, D. C, its basketball alumni include Dallas Mavericks forward Dwight Powell and Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac, the 6th overall pick of the 2017 NBA draft. In 2017, IMG Academy had its first two selections to the McDonald's All American Game, Trevon Duval was selected to the boys game and Rellah Boothe was selected to the girls game. In 2018, Anfernee Simons would enter directly from the academy to the 2018 NBA Draft, being the second player in the academy's history to do so and the third overall player to be drafted directly out of the high school. During the preparation for the 2017 NBA Draft, the IMG Academy hosted their first draft combine; the Professional Basketball Combine would be held as an alternative to measure their abilities and give them the chance to enter the NBA, if not allow them the chance to play in the NBA G League or o
Auburn Tigers men's basketball
The Auburn Tigers men's basketball team is the intercollegiate men's basketball program that represents Auburn University. The school competes in the Southeastern Conference in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association; the Tigers play their home games at Auburn Arena in Alabama on the university campus. The program began in 1906, is coached by Bruce Pearl. Auburn has won three SEC two SEC Tournament championships. Auburn has appeared in the NCAA Tournament ten times, making it as far as the Final Four in 2019. 11 Auburn players have been named Auburn has had 87 All-SEC selections. Auburn has produced 29 NBA Draft picks, including Chuck Person and Chris Morris, both of whom were selected with the fourth overall pick, the highest in Auburn history. Two Auburn players have been named SEC Player of the Year: Charles Barkley in 1984 and Chris Porter in 1999. Auburn has had five head coaches selected as SEC Coach of the Year a total of seven times, former Auburn head coach Cliff Ellis was named National Coach of the Year by multiple outlets in 1999.
Former Auburn player Charles Barkley was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006. Auburn has had 20 head men's basketball coaches since the program was started in 1906 by Mike Donahue; the program is coached by Bruce Pearl. Mike "Iron Mike" Donahue was Auburn's first head men's basketball coach, starting the program in 1906, he coached the program for 16 seasons, the longest tenure of any men's basketball coach in Auburn history, finishing with a record of 74–80–1. In addition to coaching basketball, Donahue served as athletic director and coached the football, baseball and soccer teams while at Auburn. Though more famous for his career as a football coach at Auburn, Ralph "Shug" Jordan coached the Auburn men's basketball program for 10 seasons prior to becoming the head football coach. Jordan was a football assistant coach. After playing football and basketball for Auburn from 1929 to 1932, Jordan became the head men's basketball coach in 1933, he coached until 1942, when he was called overseas to fight as an officer in World War II.
Following his service, Jordan returned to Auburn to coach the 1945–46 team. He left Auburn to become the head men's basketball coach at Georgia after the season. Jordan finished with a record of 95–77 at Auburn. Joel Eaves was Auburn's 12th head men's basketball coach, coaching from 1949 to 1963. Eaves was a former Auburn football and basketball player, playing from 1934 to 1937 under head coach "Shug" Jordan. Auburn won its first SEC championship under Eaves in 1960, finishing 12–2 in the conference and 19–3 overall. Eaves was named SEC Coach of the Year following the 1960 season. Eaves finished with a 213–100 record at Auburn, making him the winningest men's basketball coach in Auburn history. Joel Eaves was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1978. Auburn's Memorial Coliseum was renamed after Eaves to Joel H. Eaves Memorial Coliseum in 1987, to Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum in 1993. Sonny Smith was the 15th head men's basketball coach at Auburn, coaching for 11 seasons from 1978–1989.
Smith coached Auburn to the NCAA Tournament in 5 consecutive seasons, 1984 to 1988, including a run to the Elite Eight in 1986 before losing to eventual national champion Louisville. In addition to leading Auburn to its first NCAA Tournament in 1984, he coached Auburn to its first SEC Tournament championship in 1985. Smith is the only head men's basketball coach in Auburn history to coach three consecutive 20-win seasons, doing so from 1984 to 1986. Sonny Smith was named SEC Coach of the Year in 1984 and 1988. Smith coached his final season at Auburn in 1989, leaving to become the head men's basketball coach at VCU. Smith finished with a record of 173–154. Smith was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. Cliff Ellis was the 17th head men's basketball coach at Auburn, he coached for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. Ellis had some success early in his career, leading Auburn to the NIT three times in his first four seasons and being named SEC Coach of the Year in 1995, his most successful season at Auburn was the 1998–99 season, where he led the Tigers to an SEC regular season championship and the program's first #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, in which they reached the Sweet Sixteen.
Ellis was named both SEC and National Coach of the Year in 1999. Ellis would take Auburn to the NCAA Tournament two more times: reaching the Second Round in 2000 and returning to the Sweet Sixteen in 2003. Ellis was fired following the 2003–04 season after finishing the season with a 14–14 record. Auburn faced NCAA sanctions over alleged recruiting violations during the season, but Ellis was not found at fault after the investigation. Ellis finished with a record of 186–125 at Auburn. Bruce Pearl became Auburn's 20th head men's basketball coach on March 18, 2014, he led Auburn to its third SEC regular season championship in the 2017–18 season and its second SEC Tournament championship in 2019, en route to leading Auburn to its first Final Four in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. Pearl's current record at Auburn is 100–72. National Coach of the Year Cliff Ellis SEC Coach of the Year Joel Eaves Bob Davis Sonny Smith Tommy Joe Eagles Cliff Ellis Alabama Sports Hall of Fame Joel Eaves Sonny Smith Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Charles Barkley SEC Player of the Year Charles Barkley Chris Porter SEC Tournament MVP Charles Barkley Chuck Person Bryce Brown SEC Rookie of the Year Chris Porter Alabama Sports Hall of Fame John Mengelt (1995
San Antonio Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division; the team plays its home games at the AT&T Center in San Antonio. The Spurs are one of four former American Basketball Association teams to remain intact in the NBA after the 1976 ABA–NBA merger and are the only former ABA team to have won an NBA championship; the franchise has won NBA championships in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014. As of May 2015, the Spurs had the highest winning percentage among active NBA franchises; as of April 2019, the Spurs have won 22 division titles since joining the NBA and have only missed the playoffs four times. From 1999–2000 to 2016–17, the Spurs won 50 games each season, setting a record of 18 consecutive 50-win seasons. In the 2018–19 season, the Spurs matched an NBA record for most consecutive playoff appearances with 22; the team's recent success coincides with the tenure of current head coach Gregg Popovich, who has coached the team since 1996.
The Spurs are the city's only team in any of the four major U. S. professional sports leagues and the only major-league team in the city's history to have lasted more than five years. Spurs players are active members of the San Antonio community, many former Spurs are still active in San Antonio including David Robinson with the Carver Academy and George Gervin with the George Gervin Youth Center; the Spurs set several NBA attendance records while playing at the Alamodome including the largest crowd for an NBA Finals game in 1999, the Spurs continue to sell out the smaller AT&T Center on a regular basis. Since 2003, the team has been forced on an extended road trip for much of February since the AT&T Center hosts the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo; this is informally known as the "Rodeo Road Trip". The Spurs have posted winning road records during this period, including an NBA-record longest single road trip winning streak; when the Spurs have won the NBA title, the team's victory parades have been boat trips on the San Antonio River Walk.
The San Antonio Spurs started out as the Dallas Chaparrals of the original version of the American Basketball Association. Coached by player/coach Cliff Hagan the Dallas Chaparrals were one of 11 teams to take the floor in the inaugural season of the upstart ABA; the Chaps' second season was a bit of a disappointment, as the team finished in 4th place with a mediocre 41–37 record. In the playoffs the Chaparrals fell to the New Orleans Buccaneers; the team suffered from general disinterest in Dallas. In fact, during the 1970–71 season, the name "Dallas" was dropped in favor of "Texas" and an attempt was made to make the team a regional one, playing games in Fort Worth, at the Tarrant County Convention Center, as well as Lubbock, at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, but this proved a failure and the team returned full-time to Dallas in time for the 1971–72 season, splitting their games at Moody Coliseum and Dallas Convention Center Arena. While the Chaparrals had been modestly successful on the court, they were sinking financially by their third season because the ownership group refused to spend much money on the team.
After missing the playoffs for the first time in their existence in the 1972–73 season, nearly all of the owners wanted out. A group of 36 San Antonio businessmen, led by Manager/Angelo Drossos, Chairman of the Board/John Schaefer and President/Red McCombs, worked out a "lend-lease" deal with the Dallas ownership group. Drossos and his group would lease the team for three years and move it to San Antonio, agreed to return the team to Dallas if no purchase occurred by 1975. After the deal was signed, the team was renamed the San Antonio Gunslingers. However, before they played a game the name was changed to Spurs; the team's primary colors were changed from the red and blue of the Chaparrals to the now familiar black and white motif of the Spurs. In the first game at the HemisFair Arena the Spurs lost to the San Diego Conquistadors, despite attracting a noisy crowd of 6,000 fans. A smothering defense was the team's image, as they held opponents to less than 100 points for an ABA record of 49 times.
The early Spurs were led by ABA veteran James Silas, the team would get stronger as the season went on as they twice took advantage of the Virginia Squires, acquiring Swen Nater, who would go on to win Rookie of the Year, in November, "The Iceman" George Gervin in January. The ABA tried to halt the Gervin deal, claiming it was detrimental to the league, but a judge would rule in the Spurs' favor, Gervin made his Spurs debut on February 7; the Spurs would go on to finish with a 45 -- good for 3rd place in the Western Division. In the playoffs, the Spurs would battle the Indiana Pacers to the bitter end before falling in seven games. San Antonio embraced the Spurs with open arms. Schaefer, Drossos and McCombs knew a runaway hit. After only one year, they exercised their option to tear up the lease agreement, buy the franchise outright and keep the team in San Antonio for good; the team made themselves at home at HemisFair Arena, playing to large and raucous crowds. Despite a respectable 17–10 start during the 1974–75 season, Coach Tom Nissalke was fired as owners become tired of the Spurs' slow defensive style of games.
He would be replaced by Bob Bass, who stated that the Spurs would have an new playing style: "It is my belief that you cannot throw a set offense at another professional team for 48 minutes. You've got to
Lakeland, Florida
Lakeland is a city in Polk County, along Interstate 4 east of Tampa. The westernmost city in Polk County, it is part of the Tampa Bay Area. According to the 2013 U. S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 100,710. Lakeland is a principal city of the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 623,009 in July 2013 based on data from the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research, it is twinned with Ontario. Native Americans began to live in the area 12,000 years ago. European-American settlers arrived in Lakeland from South Carolina in the 1870s; the city expanded in the 1880s with the arrival of rail service, with the first freedmen railway workers settling here in 1883. They and European immigrants came because of new jobs in the large phosphate industry that developed. Lakeland is home to the 1,267-acre Circle B Bar Reserve; the first Paleo-Indians reached the central Florida area near the end of the last ice age, as they followed big game south.
As the ice melted and sea levels rose, these Native Americans ended up staying and thrived on the peninsula for thousands of years. By the time the first Spanish conquistadors arrived, more than 250,000 Native Americans were living on the peninsula; some of these first early tribes were the Tocobago and Calusa. In 1527, a Spanish map showed a settlement near the Rio de la Paz; the arrival of the Spanish turned out to be disastrous to these Native American tribes. Within 150 years, the majority of the pre-Columbian Native American peoples of Florida had been wiped out; those who had not succumbed to diseases such as smallpox or yellow fever were either killed or enslaved. Little is left of these first Native Americans cultures in Polk County except for scant archaeological records, including a few personal artifacts and shell mounds; the remnants of these tribes merged with the Creek Indians who had arrived from the north and became the Seminole Indian tribe. Florida became a state in 1845, Polk County was established in 1861.
After the American Civil War, the county seat was established southeast of Lakeland in Bartow. While most of Polk County's early history centered on the two cities of Bartow and Fort Meade people entered the areas in northern Polk County and began settling in the areas which became Lakeland. Lakeland was first settled in the 1870s and began to develop as the rail lines reached the area in 1884. Freedmen settled here in 1883, starting development of what became the African-American neighborhood of Moorehead. Lakeland was incorporated January 1, 1885; the town was founded by Abraham Munn, who purchased 80 acres of land in what is now downtown Lakeland in 1882 and platted the land for the town in 1884. Lakeland was named for the many lakes near the town site. In April 1898, the Spanish -- American War started a crucial point in Lakeland's development. While the war ended and had little effect on most of the nation, the Florida peninsula was used as a launching point for military forces in the war.
The small town of Lakeland housed over 9,000 troops. The Florida boom resulted in the construction of many significant structures in Lakeland, a number of which are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places; this list includes the Terrace Hotel, New Florida Hotel, Polk Theatre, Frances Langford Promenade, Polk Museum of Art, Park Trammell Building, others. The city has several historic districts that have many large buildings built during the 1920s and 1940s; the Cleveland Indians held spring training there from 1923 to 1927 at Henley Field Ball Park. Parks were developed surrounding Lake Mirror, including Barnett Children's Park, Hollis Gardens, the newest, Allen Kryger Park; the "boom" period went "bust" and years passed before the city recovered. Part of the re-emergence was due to the arrival of the Detroit Tigers baseball team in 1934 for spring training; the Tigers still train at Lakeland's Joker Marchant Stadium and own the city's Class A Florida State League team, the Lakeland Flying Tigers.
In the mid-1930s, the Works Progress Administration built the Lakeland Municipal Airport. In 1938, Florida Southern College President Ludd Spivey invited architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a "great education temple in Florida." Wright worked on the project for over 20 years as Spivey found ways to fund it and find construction workers during World War II. Wright's original plan called for 18 structures. Wright's textile block motif is used extensively on the campus; the concrete blocks he used are in need of restoration. Wright titled the project Child of the Sun, describing his Florida Southern buildings as being "out of the ground, into the light, a child of the sun." It is the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the world, attracts 30,000 visitors each year. In 1975, the "Florida Southern Architectural District" was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2012, Wright's campus was designated as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.
At the beginning of World War II, the Lakeland School of Aeronautics—headquartered at the recently-built Lakeland Municipal Airport—became part of a nationwide network of civilian flight schools enjoined for the war effort by the United States Army Air Corps. Between 1940 and 1945, more than 8,0
New Orleans Pelicans
The New Orleans Pelicans are an American professional basketball team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Pelicans compete in the National Basketball Association as a member club of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division; the team plays their home games in the Smoothie King Center. The Pelicans were established as the New Orleans Hornets in the 2002–03 season when then-owner of the Charlotte Hornets, George Shinn, relocated the franchise to New Orleans. Due to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the franchise temporarily relocated to Oklahoma City, where they spent two seasons known as the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets; the team returned to New Orleans full-time for the 2007–08 season. On January 24, 2013, the franchise announced it would rename itself the Pelicans, effective after the conclusion of the 2012–13 season; the Charlotte Hornets' name and records from 1988 to 2002 were returned to its original city to be used by the then–Charlotte Bobcats franchise, which subsequently became the Charlotte Hornets, starting May 20, 2014.
In 16 seasons of play since the original franchise relocated from North Carolina, the Louisiana franchise has achieved an overall regular season record of 610–686, has qualified for the playoffs seven times. Their achievements include one division title. While the Charlotte Hornets put a competitive team on the court throughout the 1990s, the team's attendance began falling dramatically. Many attributed this lapse in popularity to the team's owner, George Shinn, becoming despised by the people of the city. In 1997, a Charlotte woman claimed that Shinn had raped her, the resulting trial tarnished his reputation in the city; the consensus was that while Charlotte was as basketball-crazy as fans took out their anger at Shinn on the team. Shinn had become discontented with the Charlotte Coliseum, although considered state-of-the-art when it opened in 1988, had by been considered obsolete due to a limited number of luxury boxes. On March 26, 2001, both the Hornets and the Vancouver Grizzlies applied for relocation to Memphis, won by the Grizzlies.
Shinn issued an ultimatum: unless the city built a new arena at no cost to him, the Hornets would leave town. The city refused, leading Shinn to consider moving the team to either Norfolk, Louisville, or St. Louis. Of the cities in the running, only St. Louis had an NBA-ready arena in place and was a larger media market than Charlotte at the time. A new arena in Uptown, which would become the Charlotte Bobcats Arena, was included in a non-binding referendum for a larger arts-related package, Shinn withdrew his application to move the team. Polls showed the referendum on its way to passage. However, just days before the referendum, Mayor Pat McCrory vetoed a living wage ordinance; the veto prompted many of the city's black ministers to oppose the referendum. After the referendum failed, city leaders devised a plan to build a new arena in a way that did not require voter support, but made it known that they would not consider building it unless Shinn sold the team. While the NBA acknowledged that Shinn had alienated fans, league officials felt such a demand would anger other owners.
The city council refused to remove the statement, leading the Hornets to request a move to New Orleans – a move which would return the NBA to that city since the Jazz moved to Salt Lake City in 1979. Before the Hornets were eliminated from the playoffs, the NBA approved the move; as part of a deal, the NBA promised that Charlotte would get a new team, which took the court two years as the Charlotte Bobcats. In a 2008 interview with the Charlotte Observer, who has not returned to Charlotte since the Hornets moved, admitted that the "bad judgment I made in my life" played a role in the Hornets' departure, he said that if he had it to do all over again, he would not have withdrawn from the public after the sexual assault trial. Shinn emphasized how he was making amends by committing to New Orleans saying, "I've made enough mistakes in my life. I'm not going to make one here; this city needs us here. We're going to make this thing work." The Hornets opened their inaugural season in New Orleans on October 30, 2002, against New Orleans' original NBA franchise, the now-Utah Jazz.
In the first regular season NBA game played in New Orleans in over 17 years, the Hornets defeated the Jazz 100–75, posthumously retired #7 of "Pistol" Pete Maravich during halftime. The Hornets finished the season with a 47–35 record but were defeated by the Philadelphia 76ers in the First Round of the 2003 playoffs. Following the season, the team unexpectedly fired head coach Paul Silas and replaced him with Tim Floyd; the Hornets began the 2003–04 season strong with a 17–7 start but sputtered at the end and finished 41–41. They lost to the Miami Heat in the First Round of the 2004 playoffs. After the season, Floyd was fired and the team hired Byron Scott as its new head coach. During the first two seasons in New Orleans the Hornets competed in the NBA's Eastern Conference; the 2004–05 season saw the team move to the Western Conference's Southwest Division to the number of teams in each conference after the Charlotte Bobcats started play in their inaugural season of that same year. In a season marred by injury to the team's three all-stars, the team finished the year with a
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets men's basketball
The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Men's Basketball team represents the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in NCAA Division I basketball. The team plays its home games in McCamish Pavilion on the school's Atlanta campus and is coached by Josh Pastner. Under the tenure of Bobby Cremins, Georgia Tech established itself as a national force in basketball. Cremins led his team to the first ACC tournament victory in school history in 1985 and in 1990 he took Georgia Tech to the school's first Final Four appearance ever. Cremins retired from Georgia Tech in 2000 with the school's best winning percentage as a head coach; the Yellow Jackets returned to the Final Four in 2004 under Paul Hewitt and lost in the national title game, losing to UConn. Overall, the team has won 1,352 games and lost 1,226 games, a.524 win percentage. Georgia Tech's first recorded official participation in basketball was in 1906, when a small club organized under Coach Chapman, they won two of the three games. The next time Tech had a basketball team, it was under the famous coach John Heisman Tech's baseball and football coach.
Heisman had a winning percentage of.142 that season and improved the team's percentage to.500 in 1912 and 1913. Since that time, Georgia Tech has forged a solid basketball program on the strength of coaches like John Hyder and Bobby Cremins, such players as Roger Kaiser, Rich Yunkus, Mark Price, Craig "Noodles" Neal, John Salley, Tom Hammonds, Matt Harpring. Georgia Tech became a charter member of the Southeastern Conference in 1932 and won the conference title in 1938. Coach Hyder, whose teams won 292 games in twenty-two seasons, put the program on the national map when his 1955 team defeated Adolph Rupp's Kentucky team, ending the Wildcats' 129-game winning streak at home; the Yellow Jackets played their first NCAA tournament game in 1960. Coached by Hyder and led by all-American Kaiser, the team defeated Ohio University before losing in the second round to the eventual champion, Ohio State. Hyder continued to have strong teams in the 1970s. In 1964, Georgia Tech's final season in the Southeastern Conference, the team went undefeated at home and was the conference runner-up.
In 1971 the Yellow Jackets, led by Yunkus, reached the finals of the National Invitation Tournament but lost to the University of North Carolina. Georgia Tech became a charter member of the Metro Conference in 1975, became the eighth member of the ACC in 1978; as of the 2007–08 season, the Yellow Jackets have won three ACC Tournament championships and been the ACC's top seed twice. Through 2017, Georgia Tech has received sixteen berths in the NCAA tournament, seven of its teams have made it to the Sweet Sixteen; the 1985 team, led by head coach Bobby Cremins and players Mark Price, Duane Ferrell, Yvon Joseph, Craig Neal, Bruce Dalrymple, John Salley, won the school's first ACC championship and advanced to the final eight in the NCAA tournament. In the 1990 tournament, the trio of Kenny Anderson, Dennis Scott, & Brian Oliver carried the Yellow Jackets all the way to the Final Four, where they lost to eventual champion UNLV in the national semi-finals. In 1992, Cremins led an inexperienced Tech team to the Sweet 16, thanks in no small part to James Forrest's buzzer-beating game-winning 3-pointer in the second round against USC.
The following year, the Yellow Jackets won the ACC Tournament. Georgia Tech's nine consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament from the mid-1980s and the early 1990s accounted for the nation's fourth-longest active streak before it ended in 1994. In 1996, the team finished first in the ACC's regular season and returned to the tournament behind future NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury. Cremins's nineteen-year tenure stands as the team's most successful era. Cremins is third among all ACC coaches. Upon his retirement after the 1999–2000 season, his teams had won 354 games and lost 237 for a.599 winning percentage. The floor at Alexander Memorial Coliseum is named "Cremins Court" in his honor. In 2000, head coach Paul Hewitt was hired away from Siena College and helped to revitalize the Yellow Jacket program. In his first season, Georgia Tech beat UCLA, Kentucky and five ACC rivals that were ranked en route to an NCAA tournament appearance. Georgia Tech experienced a Cinderella season in 2003–2004: winning the Preseason NIT, ending Duke's 41-game winning streak at Cameron Indoor Stadium, making it to the school's second Final Four and first national championship game, in which they lost by nine points to UConn.
Notable players sent to the NBA under Hewitt include Chris Bosh, Jarrett Jack, Mario West, Luke Schenscher, Thaddeus Young, Will Bynum and Anthony Morrow. In back-to-back years, Hewitt successfully recruited national top-10 high school prospects in Iman Shumpert and Derrick Favors. During the 2009–2010 season, the Yellow Jackets played for the ACC tournament championship game as well as earning Hewitt's fifth NCAA tournament appearance at Tech, they advanced to the round of 32. Georgia Tech finished the 2010–11 season 13–18. On March 12, 2011, Paul Hewitt was dismissed as the head coach of the Georgia Tech after eleven seasons. Brian Gregory was appointed as his successor, Georgia Tech's thirteenth men's basketball coach, on March 28, 2011. Brian Gregory, who led Dayton to 97 victories over his last four seasons there and worked under Tom Izzo at Michigan State when the Spartans won the 2000 NCAA Championship, was named Georgia Tech's head men's basketball coach on March 28, 2011. In their first sea
2017 NBA draft
The 2017 NBA draft was held on June 22, 2017, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. National Basketball Association teams took turns selecting amateur U. S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. The draft lottery took place during the playoffs on May 16, 2017; the 53–29 Boston Celtics, who were the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference and reached the Eastern Conference Finals at the time of the NBA draft lottery, won the #1 pick with pick swapping rights thanks to a previous trade with the Brooklyn Nets, who had the worst record the previous season. The Los Angeles Lakers, who had risked losing their 2017 first round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers, moved up two spots to get the No. 2 pick, while Philadelphia moved up to receive the No. 3 pick due to the Sacramento Kings moving up in the draft, which activated pick swapping rights the 76ers had from an earlier trade. On June 19, four days before the NBA draft began, the Celtics and 76ers traded their top first round picks to each other, meaning the holders of the top four picks of this year's draft would be the same as the previous year's draft.
The draft class is the youngest draft class with the most freshmen and fewest seniors selected in the first round. It was the third time, the second in a row, that three players were selected from Serbian team KK Mega Basket in the same draft, with it occurring during the 2014 and 2016 NBA draft; the draft received a lot of media coverage from ESPN pertaining to eventual No. 2 pick Lonzo Ball and his outspoken father, LaVar Ball, much to the chagrin of many sports fans and some ESPN employees. This was one of the rare occasions where a player drafted from their year did not win rookie of the year. Despite a terrific season from rookie Donovan Mitchell the award went to 2016 first overall pick Ben Simmons the first player to win the award in a year they weren’t drafted since Blake Griffin These players were not selected in the 2017 NBA Draft, but have played at least one game in the NBA; the draft is conducted under the eligibility rules established in the league's 2017 collective bargaining agreement with its player's union.
The CBA that ended the 2011 lockout instituted no immediate changes to the draft, but called for a committee of owners and players to discuss future changes. All drafted players must be at least 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft. In terms of dates, players who are eligible for the 2017 draft, must be born on or before December 31, 1998. Since the 2016 draft, the NCAA Division I council has implemented the following rules for that division that changed the draft landscape for college players:Declaration for the draft no longer results in automatic loss of college eligibility; as long as a player does not sign a contract with a professional team outside the NBA, or sign with an agent, he will retain college eligibility as long as he makes a timely withdrawal from the draft. NCAA players have until 10 days after the end of the NBA Draft Combine to withdraw from the draft. Since the combine is held in mid-May, the current deadline is about five weeks after the previous mid-April deadline.
NCAA players may participate in the draft combine, are allowed to attend one tryout per year with each NBA team without losing college eligibility. NCAA players may now withdraw from the draft up to two times without loss of eligibility; the NCAA treated a second declaration of draft eligibility as a permanent loss of college eligibility. The NBA has since expanded the draft combine to include players with remaining college eligibility. Players who are not automatically eligible had to declare their eligibility for the draft by notifying the NBA offices in writing no than 60 days before the draft. For the 2017 draft, this date fell on April 23. After that date "early entry" players were able to attend NBA pre-draft camps and individual team workouts to show off their skills and obtain feedback regarding their draft positions. Under the CBA a player may withdraw his name from consideration from the draft at any time before the final declaration date, 10 days before the draft. Under current NCAA rules, players have until May 24 to withdraw from the draft and retain college eligibility.
A player who has hired an agent forfeits his remaining college eligibility regardless of whether he is drafted. At the time, a record-high 185 underclassed draft prospects had declared themselves for eligibility at the April 24 deadline, although college players who had not hired agents or signed professional contracts outside the NBA were able to decide to return to college by May 24, 10 days after the end of the NBA Draft Combine; these players have publicly indicated that they have hired agents, or had planned to do so around the start of the draft. By the end of the May 24 deadline, 73 draft candidates from college decided to return to their respective colleges for at least another year, leaving 64 underclassmen to enter the draft this year. Additionally, two more players left entry at the end of the international player deadline, meaning both Maverick Rowan from North Carolina State and Darin Johnson from Cal State Northridge would not return for college, but one player managed to enter the college underclassman deadline, thus leaving 63 entries at hand for the NBA Draft.
International players that had declared this year and did no
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