New Yellow Jacket Adam Smith, a graduate transfer who played the previous few seasons at Virginia Tech, is employing some interesting tactics to aid in his quest for even better shooting -- the senior sharpshooter is spending his summer hitting up to 300 shots per day from the exact same spots on the floor. The method, known and spot-shooting, has been employed by a number of the best shooters in the history of the NBA, most notably three-point king Ray Allen, and is a proven way to increase shooting percentage. If Smith, who led the entire conference in three-point shooting last season as a juinor, can see the same amount of improvement that NBA talents have seen, then the ACC better watch out.
As Ken Sugiura continues his noble quest to introduce you to each of the 25 rising freshmen, it is now time to meet offensive lineman and fraternal twin Brad Morgan of Woodstock, GA. Brad and his brother Scott came to the Flats as a package deal a few months back, choosing Tech over a number of other offers from equally prestigious schools. Both are extremely talented three-star players, but it is very unlikely that either brother will see any of the field this season as they learn the complicated offensive scheme (in Brad's case) or a new defensive scheme (in Scott's case). It will be interesting to see them both develop into rotational contributors at Tech.
Do you have an extra $1,000 and a strange love for alligator skin footballs? If so, then you might be interested in this quirky piece of Georgia Tech history that was originally presented to Gator Bowl President Lamar Dean after the 1961 Gator Bowl, a 30-15 Tech loss at the hands of Penn State. Though I can't necessarily condone dropping a thousand dollars on a football of any kind (222-0 game ball is the exception), the ball is certainly fun to look at. Thanks a lot to reader Adam for pointing out the neat auction to me, and I urge all of you out there to do the same! If you see something cool that would be a nice complement to a Technical Tidbits edition, feel free to send me an email or reach me via Twitter (just click my name at the top of the article for that info).
It isn't even football season but Wake Forest just can't resist doing extremely Wake Forest things -- they announced last week that one of their two ACC media day representatives would be punter Alex Kinal. This seems like a non-story until you realize that the players who go to media day are typically big-name players who are veteran leaders on the team and who promise to play a big role during the upcoming season. In other words, typically not a punter. But because Wake is Wake, their best player probably is a punter and therefore Alex Kinal is headed to media day. You can't argue with the impact of a player who promises to be punting at least 90 times, after all.
Could Adam Smith be the key player that turns Tech's season around? Will he provide enough offense to make up for the deficiencies of the rest of the team?