Georgia Tech gets a big boost

Among ACC basketball players, Georgia Tech's Gani Lawal hardly has a reputation for being brash. It's just the opposite. He's far more likely to be described as the strong, silent type.

"When Gani says something, you know he means it. He doesn't talk for show," teammate D'Andre Bell said.

With that in mind, something Lawal said last Sunday about the addition of freshman Derrick Favors to the Yellow Jackets frontcourt might be worth remembering.

"It's going to be dominance with both of us on the court," Lawal said. "I'm not trying to belittle any other team or anything of that nature. But I just don't think there's going to be any stopping the two of us together."

Lawal's talents are clearly documented. At 2-14 in the league and 12-19 overall, the Yellow Jackets easily qualified as the ACC's most disappointing team a year ago, but it was through no fault of the 6-foot-9, 235-pound Lawal. He averaged 15.1 points and 9.5 rebounds, shot 55.6 percent and capped his sophomore season by going through the NBA Draft review process.

By the time Lawal decided that returning to school was "definitely the smartest move", the 6-10, 245-pound Favors had announced his decision to join his hometown school - a recruiting triumph for Paul Hewitt's program that Lawal expected all along.

"Derrick and I have been friends for a while," Lawal said. "I didn't come back to school just to play on the same team with him, but it was something I couldn't help but think about some. He's that good."

It hasn't taken coach Paul Hewitt long to reach the same conclusion.

"So far Derrick seems almost unflappable," Hewitt said. "I don't think I've ever had a guy come in and be so prepared. He keeps it really simple. He wants to dominate the glass. He wants to score inside, and he's as even-keeled as anyone I've ever had. Nothing seems to get to him."

No big surprise there, of course. Favors was among the nation's top-rated prospects, a hands-down winner in the voting for preseason ACC rookie of the year and is listed among the top handful of likely picks on virtually all of the 2010 NBA mock lists.

At South Atlanta High, Favors averaged almost 30 points per game in '08-09. He'll begin college ball as a primary candidate to join the one-year-only club, which explains the prevailing atmosphere of urgency within the team.

"We have to make it happen right now," Lawal said. "Coach has preached that to us, but we knew it anyway. Next year, this roster may not look the same as right now. We have this opportunity to do something great, and I think we will."

Bell, a 6-6 senior who missed all of last season with injuries, and Lawal talk in terms of championships and the Final Four, which Tech last reached in 2004. Such an abrupt turnaround from 2008-09 would be stunning, but the 2003-04 Jackets (28-10) were coming off a 16-15 season.

"Derrick helps give us a chance to do something big," Bell said. "There's a lot more to it than just him, obviously. We've got to get a lot better in several areas, but he's going to make a huge impact."

Since 1995-96, the only freshman big man to make first-team All-ACC was North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough in 2005-06. Tech's Chris Bosh, Carolina's Marvin Williams and Brandan Wright, Duke's Luol Deng and N.C. State's J.J. Hickson had big rookie seasons, but not big enough to gain that first-team distinction.

The odds are against Favors, too. But it's already clear that his new teammates wouldn't be surprised to see him do it.