Georgia Tech predicted to finish 13th in preseason media poll

The ACC released its preseason media poll Wednesday, and with it the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets were predicted to finish in 13th place in the conference, ahead of only Boston College (14th) and Virginia Tech (15th).

Here is the full poll:

"ACC Operation Basketball 2014-15 Preseason Poll(First-place votes in parenthesis)Team & Points1. Duke (41): 9352. North Carolina (12): 8703. Louisville (3): 8474. Virginia: 824 (7)5. Syracuse: 706 (2)6. Pitt: 5927. Notre Dame: 5158. Florida State: 5069. NC State: 47810. Miami: 44211. Clemson: 33012. Wake Forest: 22113. Georgia Tech: 19514. Boston College: 18415. Virginia Tech: 155"

At media day — or “Operation Basketball,” as the ACC likes to call it — coach Brian Gregory talked about this year’s team alongside forward Marcus-Georges Hunt and guard Corey Heyward.

This year marks the fourth year of Gregory’s term with Tech, and now is when his recruiting impact should really start to shape the program. With an extremely talented top of the conference (Duke, North Carolina, Louisville and Virginia are all ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll), it will be almost impossible for the Jackets to challenge for the conference.

Instead, Gregory and his team is simply focused on improvement.

“I think we have an unbelievable opportunity to take another step forward in the rebuilding process,” Gregory said Wednesday in Charlotte. “You know, an opportunity — as our first recruiting class is now juniors, and this is the first year that everybody in the program has been recruited by us — for us to really kind of forge that identity of what this program is all about.

“I think that challenge is exciting, not only to me, but to the players.”