COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Iman Shumpert was seated outside a somber Georgia Tech locker room 10 days ago, talking about how his basketball education at Oak Park-River Forest High School under then-head coach Al Allen had readied him for hyper-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference hoops. The answer: There was no way he could have been fully prepared – for the ACC or for the disappointment he and his team had just suffered.
“At Oak Park I learned the importance of playing hard all the time,” the soft-spoken Shumpert said. “In practice Al would put us in a hole”-starting a scrimmage with one team trailing by 10 points and officiating in favor of the leading team, with the goal of building mental toughness – “and that’s kind of like playing on the road in the ACC.”
Shumpert paused. “But there’s no way to simulate life on the road in the ACC.”
Moments earlier, Shumpert and his teammates had sulked off the court after Maryland hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer to send the Yellow Jackets to a 76-74 defeat. The mood in the locker room, Shumpert said, was “indescribable. It was a loud silence.”
The afternoon – a solid 17-point performance for Shumpert but a tough defeat for the Jackets – reflected the up-and-down nature of the 2008 OPRF graduate’s two years as Georgia Tech’s starting point guard.
Indeed, when Allen sent his former player a text message after the game congratulating him on his play, according to Allen, Shumpert texted back, “Who cares? We lost.”
As a freshman, the 6-foot 5-inch Shumpert started every game, was second on the team in minutes and averaged 10.6 points and five assists. But that success was muted by a lot of losing. Georgia Tech finished last in the ACC at 2-14.
This year the Yellow Jackets have been ranked in the Top 25 much of the season and are likely to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, though Shumpert’s numbers are down slightly (9.9 points and four assists per game). Tech’s tournament hopes are likely to depend heavily on their sophomore from Oak Park.
“When Iman plays well, we’re really good,” Tech head coach Paul Hewitt said in an interview after the Maryland game.
Through it all, Shumpert has stayed in close contact with his former coach, talking with Allen four or five times a week.
“Coach Allen just keeps me on the right track, sees where my head’s at,” Shumpert said. “We talk a lot of life and basketball. He’s always said that, fortunately, he doesn’t have to worry about me academically.”
Allen said in an interview that he especially tried to keep Shumpert’s spirits up during December, when the player had surgery to repair a damaged meniscus in his knee and missed six games.
“I try to talk to him mainly about basketball, because he’s having a rough time sometimes adjusting to the personality of a new coaching staff,” Allen said. “It’s still relatively new. You get a real familiarity with a coach after four years. I keep telling him, ‘You’re remembering how our relationship was at the end, not the beginning. Our relationship grew. You allowed it to grow. And that’s what’s going to happen with the Georgia Tech coaches.'”
Consistency has been an issue for Shumpert as well. He entered the Maryland game having gone scoreless in his two previous outings. But on Jan. 16 Shumpert went off for a career-high 30 points in a two-point win at North Carolina – a performance that was extra sweet not because the Tar Heels had also recruited him, he said, but because he had played poorly against them last season.
Hewitt said he had a feeling before the Maryland game that Shumpert would do well that day – which he did, posting five rebounds, three assists and no turnovers along with his 17 points.
“I could see it in the walkthrough this morning that he was back to his normal self,” Hewitt said. “He was chatty, his normal self as far as instructing the other guys.
“When he plays with that kind of confidence, we’re a good team.”
With Hewitt and the rest of the Tech staff now in charge of Shumpert’s basketball development, Allen now sees himself mostly as a friend.
“Iman has an incredible family unit. He doesn’t need any family-ing stuff at all,” Allen said. “He doesn’t need me to teach him basketball because he’s got people there to teach him.
“He uses me as a friend and treats me as someone he can trust. You have to have people you can say and do things to and know it will stay between you. He may say things to me that he doesn’t say to anyone else. He knows that all I care about are his happiness and his wellbeing.”
Allen has seen Shumpert play in person twice this season, and he will be in Greensboro, N.C., for the ACC tournament next week.
The tournament will no doubt be teeming with NBA scouts, and Allen thinks Shumpert has a good chance to play professionally. Hewitt, in fact, volunteered his opinion that Shumpert is a better shooter than two of his former players who are currently in the NBA, Toronto’s Jarrett Jack and Washington’s Javaris Crittenton.
But for now, the focus is on Shumpert improving his play and leading Georgia Tech into the postseason.
“Everybody says, ‘Go pro, pro, pro,'” Allen said. “Listen, I would love to get some tickets to a pro game from him in four years. But mostly what I want is his happiness.”