Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Georgia Tech announced Sunday that it has fired men’s basketball coach Damon Stoudamire, one day after the Yellow Jackets dropped a 79-76 decision to Clemson in the final game of the regular season. The move ends a three-year tenure that produced a 42-55 overall record, no NCAA Tournament appearances and, in its final chapter, one of the program’s most difficult stretches in recent memory.
Associate head coach Greg Gary has been named interim head coach while Georgia Tech conducts a national search for a permanent replacement. Athletic director Ryan Alpert confirmed the move and acknowledged the program’s need to find leadership capable of building toward a championship level.
A season that unraveled completely in the second half
The 2025-26 campaign began with some reasonable expectations following a 17-17 season the year prior, but the Yellow Jackets deteriorated steadily as conference play wore on. Georgia Tech finished the regular season 11-20 overall and 2-16 in ACC play, placing last among all 18 conference members and failing to qualify for the ACC Tournament.
The closing stretch was particularly difficult. Georgia Tech lost 12 consecutive games to end the season, with the final victory coming on Jan. 17 a 78-74 road win over North Carolina State. The Yellow Jackets won just two of their final 17 games after entering 2026, a collapse that left little ambiguity about where the program stood under Stoudamire’s direction.
Three seasons that never fully delivered
Stoudamire’s tenure at Georgia Tech followed a recognizable arc: a difficult first season, a promising middle year and a sharp regression at the end. His year-by-year record told the story clearly. In his first season in 2023-24, the Yellow Jackets went 14-18 overall and 7-13 in ACC play. The 2024-25 campaign represented genuine progress, with a 17-17 record and 10 conference wins suggesting the program might be turning a corner. This season erased much of that optimism, with the 2-16 ACC mark and last-place finish representing the worst conference performance of his tenure.
Across all three seasons, Stoudamire went 42-55 and never guided the program to the NCAA Tournament. Georgia Tech has not appeared in the tournament since the 2020-21 season and has made just four appearances since finishing as the national runner-up in 2004. The program has not reached the tournament in consecutive seasons since 2004 and 2005.
What Stoudamire brought to the job and what he leaves behind
Stoudamire arrived at Georgia Tech in 2023 as a coach with an impressive playing pedigree and some prior head coaching experience. He played college basketball at Arizona from 1991 to 1995 before being selected seventh overall in the 1995 NBA Draft by the Toronto Raptors, where he won Rookie of the Year honors. His 13-year professional career also included stops with the Trail Blazers, Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs, and he spent time as an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics before transitioning to the college head coaching ranks.
At Pacific from 2016 to 2021, Stoudamire posted a 71-77 record across five seasons, including a strong 23-10 campaign in 2019-20. His best season-by-season record at Pacific was followed by the Georgia Tech opportunity, where he replaced Josh Pastner after Pastner’s seven-year run with the program.
Georgia Tech owes Stoudamire approximately $2.6 million over the next two years as part of the remaining buyout on his contract, unless he secures another coaching position before that obligation is fulfilled.
The stakes for Georgia Tech’s next hire
Alpert made clear in his statement that the next step for the program is identifying a coach capable of building something sustainable. The challenge is considerable. Georgia Tech operates in one of the most competitive conferences in the country, and the current NIL landscape demands that programs either invest aggressively in talent acquisition or risk falling further behind peers who do.
The Yellow Jackets extended NCAA Tournament drought now stretching back to 2021 with just four appearances in more than two decades means the next hire will face immediate pressure to produce results. The margin for another extended rebuilding period is narrow, and Alpert acknowledged as much in framing the search around championship-level ambitions rather than incremental progress.
Gary will guide the program through whatever postseason activity remains while the national search for a permanent replacement gets underway.
