Before Georgia Tech guard Kyle Sturdivant’s game ignited and helped set in motion the Yellow Jackets’ unlikely finish to the regular season, he already stood apart.
Near the end of Tech’s nine-game losing streak, as the Jackets were consistently getting throttled, coach Josh Pastner brought the team together and named Sturdivant the team captain and, by virtue of that distinction, the template. As the team’s fortunes for the season sank, he wasn’t sulking, but continuing to practice with energy and maintaining his pre- and post-practice routines.
“It wasn’t because he was playing better than anybody else,” Tech associate head coach Anthony Wilkins said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was just the consistency, the dependability. Win, lose or draw, he was just going to be the same guy, bring great effort, and that’s been very stabilizing for us.”
