A flattering cast of new freshman join the core for whom the future is now
Four years since their last NCAA Tournament appearance, Nell Fortner’s Georgia Tech Women’s Basketball team brings in a team both battle tested with an experienced core group and a local recruiting class with the most upside we’ve seen in recent memory. What we might see in the 2024-25 team is the first year of hopefully multiple years of a Georgia Tech team that’s competitive in the top half of the ACC after two seasons of what can mostly be boiled down to development. For a sport that operated until very recently without a salary cap/draft system, the Jackets were playing like a team getting young and taking their losses intentionally with the goal of having an established group down the line.
It’s year three, we’re down that line now. Or as Associate Head Coach Blanche Alverson put it, “this is what we’ve been looking forward to, now let’s go do it.”
Tech brings back the core group of junior guards Tonie Morgan, Inés Noguero, and Kara Dunn plus senior forward Kayla Blackshear who have been the focal point of the rebuild of this team post-Hermosa/Cubaj/Lahtinen.
“Having a mature group and and experienced group is great and I feel like we finally have that after a couple years,” said Alverson of them.
This will likely be the oldest group receiving minutes since Tonie Morgan landed on campus and became the starting point guard, as all of last year’s starters except Aixa Wone Aranaz return including depth in sophomore’s Rusne Augustinaite (who eventually got starts last season), Ariadna Termis, and D’Asia Thomas-Harris.
2023-24 Review
Tech had their first winning season since 2021-2022 last year, and were a debut team in the brand new WBIT tournament, falling in the first round to Mississippi State, their first postseason game since the 2022 NCAA Tournament. In a year where signs of progress had to be seen, even if that meant not making the NCAA Tournament, we got that progress. While there wasn’t a signature win like they had two seasons ago against NC State, the tools are all there even if all of last season went chalk.
Record: 17-16, made the WBIT 1st Round (first winning season since 2021-22)
Leading scorer: Tonie Morgan, 516 points
Leading rebounder: Tonie Morgan, 226 rebounds
Leading assists: Tonie Morgan: 170 assists
Returning players
Tonie Morgan, G, Junior
2023-24: 33 GP, 15.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 5.15 APG, 55 steals, 45.7% FG, 25.4% 3PT, 67.9% FT
Tonie is the face of this team. I might be plagarizing myself here, but any success Georgia Tech has will be predicated on what Tonie can do. While Chit Chat Wright is going to be a flashy PG behind her, there is not a world where Tech is a great team without Tonie leading the charge.
Kayla Blackshear, F, Senior
2023-24: 32 GP, 11.8 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 1.5 APG, 26 steals, 48.8% FG, 2-10 3PT, 68.1% FT
Ariadna Termis, C, Sophomore
“We’re going to see a big jump from her freshman to sophomore year.” – Alverson
2023-24: 25 GP, 2.6 PPG, 1.5 RPG, 0.64 APG, 47.3% FG, 40.0% 3PT, 3-4 FT
Inés Noguero, G, Junior
2023-24: 32 GP, 6.4 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 1.34 APG, 40 steals, 34.9% FG, 24.6% 3PT, 71.0% FT
Rusne Augustinaite, G, Sophomore
2023-24: 33 GP (17 starts), 10.8 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 1.3 APG, 37.3% FG, 35.3% 3PT, 75.0% FT
Kara Dunn, G, Junior
2023-24: 30 GP (26 starts), 15.5 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 1.4 APG. 26 steals, 44.6% FG, 29.8% 3PT, 78.2% FT
D’Asia Thomas-Harris, F, Sophomore
2023-24: 28 GP, 2.8 PPG, 2.4 RPG, 50.0% FG, 62.9% FT
New Players
Between pulling Zoe Smith from UGA and a stalwart freshman class 100% from the state of Georgia, there is not only a clear path to success for this season, but also the future.
“That was something when Nell first got here wanted to go after and strive to recruit our state and area. We want to build this. We want a huge fanbase, we want to be able to market our players here with players that are from Georgia, staying here, most of them right around this Atlanta area. We’ve already seen it in our open practices and scrimmages. [the players] have followings, they’re all very talented and had successful high school careers. It’s going to be a fun group to follow.” – Alverson
Zoesha “Zoe” Smith, Georgia, G/F, 6’1’’, 5th Year
2023-24: 16 GP, 9.9 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 16 steals, 46.9% FG, 67.9% FT
“We knew we needed to add someone with her athletic ability, her defensive mindset, rebounding, and ability to run the floor. Those are definitely things that we wanted in that position so she really fit the mold especially being from the state of Georgia, we’re familiar with playing against her during her entire career at UGA. She always played pretty well against us so we had a good idea of what she was going to be capable of and it really fit what we needed. So when she became available, she was someone we identified early and said ‘she is who we’ve been looking for out of this position.’” – Alverson
Chazadi “Chit-Chat” Wright, G, 5’4’’, Freshman, Wesleyan School
“We started watching her when she was younger, and she just blew us away. She plays bigger than her size, her IQ is off the charts. She’s a phenomenal point guard with great vision. She has this calmness about her where she doesn’t get rattled. What we’ve seen is her steadily continue to get better and better.” – Alverson
A 4-star per ESPN, of everyone in this group with hype, Chit Chat might have the majority of it. She may be a little undersized at 5’4’’, but Alverson was quick to mention that she plays beyond her size. She’s made numerous all-state teams and is a personification of something we love to see: Atlanta recruits staying in Atlanta.
Dani Cargenie, G, 5’9’’, Freshman, Grayson High School
“Dani’s been a scorer, that’s who Dani is. She wants to be great and put the work in to be great. She can rebound as a nice sized guard. She can do a multitude of things. She played her way into championship games and worked her way steadily up those high school rankings. She proved to a lot of people that she was good enough. She’s earned everything she’s gotten to this point to her credit. A great personality and good vibe about her…She plays at her own pace in a good way.” – Alverson
Four-star, 29th ranked player per ESPN and helped Grayson win the state title this past season while attaining a bunch of accolades in 2024 (Georgia Player of the Year, Region 7A Player of the Year, 2024 Miss Basketball, quadruple double).
Gabbie Grooms, G, 5’9’’, Freshman, Trinity Christian School
“She was the first one of this class to comimt, that says a lot about her and who she is and why Georgia Tech is special to her. She’s a phenomenal person and had a great career in high school. Can score the ball. Her mom played at the University of Georgia, played in the WNBA. She actually wears her mom’s number, which is why she wears #27. She’s a big part of well rounding this class in terms of our personality in that group.”- Alverson
As Alverson mentioned, Grooms comes from a basketball family. Her mom, Lady Grooms, played with the Utah Starzz and Sacramento Monarchs in the WNBA from 1997-2004. Like D’Asia-Thomas Harris, she was multisport in volleyball, winning regional titles in both sports.
Tianna Thompson, G, 5’10’’, Freshman, The Galloway School
“Tianna was someone we identifed really early and recruited her young in high school. Her dad, Rich, came to Georgia Tech and they have a strong tradition here. He was on the track team and high jumped. For us, establishing a relationship with Tianna and her family at an early age was really important for that. She’s going to have the ability to impact the ball on the defensive side. People are going to notice her ability and tenacity to play both sides of the ball.” – Alverson
One of our best gets, Tianna was the top recruit coming out of Georgia for this class. Getting her not only is good for maintaining a family legacy here at Tech, she’s going to provide size. But, knowing Tech is going after five star prospect Kate Harpring, brother of current Tech TE Luke Harpring who are both kids of Matt Harpring, showing that Nell’s program can be a good home for children of Tech athletes could pay off massively in the near future.
Departures
Caitlyn Wilson (graduated), Anisa Clark (graduated), Jada Bediako (transferred to Marquette), Sydney Johnson (graduated)
Jada only got minimal playing time, so she was the only player we don’t have this year that maybe could’ve seen the court for Tech. Ultimately with how good our freshman class is, odds are she had better opportunities to get playing time elsewhere, and hopefuly she gets that at Marquette.
New Schedule Format
With the addition of Cal, Stanford, and SMU to the ACC, the schedule for the next two years has each team playing 18 games with one home and away opponent while playing every other school on the road and at home once in the next two seasons. Clemson is Georgia Tech’s home & road team for these next two seasons.
Tech will per usual go to a neutral site mid-season showcase, this year at the Hawaii North Shore Showcase where they will play South Dakota State and Oregon.
In the SEC/ACC challenge, Tech will play Mississippi State in McCamish on December 4.
For other non-con home & homes, Tech hosts Rice (December 18) and Nebraska (December 21) after travelling to Houston and Lincoln last season
Season Outlook
“We’ve talked about ‘this is what we’ve been preparing for.’ This is the moment we’re looking for for them. This is what we’ve been looking forward to, now let’s go do it.” – Alverson
That right there from Coach Alverson is music to my ears. Tech WBB has done the work to gain the experience they need. Nell Fortner has been around the block so many times and is undoubtedly still one of the most respected coaches in the NCAA. If Tech isn’t above .500 at the end of the year, something probably went horribly wrong with injuries. They finished 10th in the ACC last year, and even with Stanford joining the conference, who will compete for the conference title, finishing 8th or higher is something this team can do.
If Tech switches three wins from last year’s 17-16 record, they’ll find themselves back in striking distance of one of the higher ACC seeds come tournament time, and also breathing down at a chance to make the NCAA Tournament. I’m not ready to go as far as to say making the Tournament is a lock (WBIT maybe), but they can be in contention if they progress as they have the potential to.
They will need statement wins to do that, and being in the ACC, they have more than enough chances at that. Any wins against Virginia Tech, Florida State, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville, or Stanford will be very impressive, assuming those teams are ranked. Ultimately, I think they’ll get to the 16 win mark at the low end, 23 wins at the top end, but it will take everything going right to get to 23 wins.
Tech’s season begins today at 10:30 a.m. against Winthrop for their Education Day game where Fulton County students get to come to the game as a field trip, their first of four home games over the next two weeks.