Josh Pastner Reportedly Will Become Next Georgia Tech Head Coach

Memphis Tigers men's basketball head coach Josh Pastner has reportedly agreed to take the same position with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. ESPN's SportsCenter relayed the news courtesy of ESPN.com's Jeff Goodman and other outlets.

Gary Parrish of CBS Sports reported on Thursday that the Yellow Jackets and Pastner were “in discussions.” 

Goodman also quoted a source on Thursday who said “I’d be surprised if it doesn’t happen.”

Parrish also added that the process for finalizing the deal is somewhat slow because Pastner has to “negotiate a buyout with Memphis.” Parrish noted that was happening as the rumors broke on Thursday evening.

This comes after the Yellow Jackets fired coach Brian Gregory after five seasons at the helm. Georgia Tech never made the NCAA tournament or even posted an ACC record above .500 with Gregory on the sidelines, and it lost in the quarterfinals of the NIT this year.

As for Pastner, he has been with Memphis since the 2009-10 season and sports a 167-73 career record with the Tigers. He guided the Tigers to the NCAA tournament every campaign from 2010-11 through 2013-14, and also led them to back-to-back regular-season Conference USA titles and three straight Conference USA tournament titles.

Even though Memphis has missed out on the NCAA tournament the past two campaigns, that type of sustained success would be welcome news for the Yellow Jackets. They have only reached the Big Dance one time since the 2006-07 season, and that was when they lost in the second round in 2009-10.

Georgia Tech at least finished with a 21-15 mark during the 2015-16 campaign, which snapped a stretch of losing records in four of the previous five seasons. However, it is clear with this move the program would like to set the bar higher than just a winning record, especially in the daunting ACC.

Memphis has been in the American Athletic Conference the past three years with the likes of Connecticut, Cincinnati, Temple and SMU, but a move to the ACC will be a drastic step up in competition for Pastner.

The ACC is arguably the top conference in the country with programs such as North Carolina, Duke, Syracuse, Virginia, Miami, Louisville and Notre Dame regularly among the nation’s best. In fact, it just had two teams at the Final Four and four teams in the Elite Eight, and the conference is primed for another impressive season with six different teams in Sports Illustrated analyst Seth Davis' Top 25 for 2016-17.

Competing right away in the ACC will be particularly difficult for Pastner because Georgia Tech’s top two scorers in 2015-16, Marcus Georges-Hunt and Adam Smith, were both seniors. The program will have to rebuild under the new coach, but his track record of success at Memphis should have Yellow Jackets fans looking forward to the future.