Jose Alvarado Wants To Show Yellow Jackets Can Go "Dancing"
The 2019-20 college basketball season was a peculiar ride for Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets finished fifth in the ACC - the program's highest league finish since 2005. However, Tech couldn't participate in the 2020 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament after dropping its appeal of the NCAA's one-year postseason ban in March (all college basketball postseason tournaments would eventually be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
With the Jackets' set to tip-off the 2020-21 season on November 12 against the Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers, team workouts are already in full swing on the Flats.
For senior point guard Jose Alvarado and junior guard Michael Devoe, they're looking to build off Tech's momentum from last season - the Jackets went 9-3 in final 12 conference games.
"Especially the guys that are coming back from last year, I definitely think we're trying to build from that," Devoe told media on Monday via a conference call. "I think we kind of made a little statement on that run that we did last year. So we're just trying to build from that and continue it. We definitely want to take this team to the tournament. That's our main goal."
"We didn't have opportunities to go to the tournament [last season]," Alvarado said. "We were really focused on showing everybody we could be top five in the ACC... We showed we could do it. Now our goal should be, 'let's show everybody we can go dancing.' That's our real main goal."
As uncertainty looms regarding the 2020 college football season, the Jackets' backcourt duo are remaining focused and hopeful for an upcoming winter sports season.
"As of right now, we do still have a season. So we're just going to focus as if we have a season," Alvarado said. "We went through something similar last year. We got punished for not going to the tournament, but we still had a season. We've got to have that same mindset in proving to everybody. When we come, we're going to be ready."
"As far as us, we're basketball, we're winter sport," said Devoe. "Our main thing is we want to play. Right now, we're not really too worried about that stuff... We're just in here trying to get better."
"All our guys are so confident in wanting to play," added Alvarado. "We live in this world where this bad pandemic happened. It's not going to go away. We've got to live with it. We've got to wear our masks, we've got to wash our hands. We've just got be extra careful... We want to have a season. We want to play."
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