I know this is a Georgia football blog, but the sheer ineptitude of the Tom Crean hire compels me to post something.
He certainly took Georgia basketball to another level, alright.
The hire was another lazy McGarity one. What’s most remarkable about it, though, was how expensive it was — when the dust settles, the total financial outlay should be in the neighborhood of $15 million. Not exactly a great return on 15 conference wins. What’s especially galling was shelling out that kind of money to an unemployed basketball coach. It wasn’t like McGarity was having to outbid other schools for Crean’s services.
For an AD whose Job One was to guard the reserve fund hen house, that’s turned out to be a shocking waste of money. We can’t even blame Jimmy Sexton for it.
Sigh. That’s the kind of thinking that’s gotten men’s basketball in the hole it finds itself in. It’s also what you get when there’s no accountability at Butts-Mehre. In that regard, Kirby Smart turned out to be a blessing and a curse. McGarity got a pass on so many mediocre to outright bad hiring decisions because he was lucky enough to give the boosters what they demanded for the football program.
And now, Josh Brooks is saddled with the task of cleaning the Augean stables. He’ll be judged on his successes and failures on the hiring/firing front, as he should be. At least by the fan base, anyway. It remains to be seen if the higher ups care about anything more than football and making money.
Peeps, we get the Butts-Mehre we deserve.
Get The Picture 
It won’t be long before Josh has to clean up Greg’s mess in baseball and gymnastics as well.
LikeLiked by 8 people
People wanted Fox gone because he wouldn’t play the Atlanta scene, so we ended up with Crean who did and got the Ant-man from it and … and … and that’s it, that’s all there is…..
LikeLiked by 3 people
Actually, people wanted him gone because he was a mediocre coach who ran an outdated system that would never get even to regular national tournament appearances level…note that his record at California is almost as bad as Crean’s was at Georgia.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I sure miss him, though.
LikeLike
You miss the guy who had virtually no postseason success, allowed a bunch of talent to leave the state, and barely stayed above.500? He would also have a much worse record if he had stayed. Today’s SEC is much better than the one Fox coached in.
LikeLike
He had some really good (for Georgia basketball) teams that just could not catch a break/get over the hump and into the tourney…
LikeLiked by 2 people
LikeLiked by 7 people
I admit I thought this hire was a solid hire that would put the program where we expect it to be … to make March matter. I never thought it would be that the program would regress where January didn’t matter. We overpaid (thanks, Greg) and now have to pay the piper.
I guess I’m either in the camp of going after Jonas Hayes (the Kirby Smart model although I worry Hayes could end up as a Ron Jirsa hire), backing up a Brinks truck to attempt to hire a big name, or going to the NBA to hire an assistant. The retread certainly didn’t work, and the program has had mixed results with the mid-major stepping up.
Josh Brooks has a lot of personnel decisions he’ll have to make over the next few years for performance and retirements.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I say hire Jonas and see what happens. We shouldn’t have to over pay and maybe having a Dawg run the team will create a spark. He can’t be any worse, that’s for sure.
LikeLike
He may be very available soon. Friends in Cincinnati think that the Xavier staff could be fired after getting bounced from the conference tournament.
LikeLike
That’s not terribly encouraging.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The crazy thing is obviously the lazy the hire was at the time. There was a Wisconsin basketball blogger who wrote extensively about Crean’s time at Marquette and IU that was thoughtful and insightful. It provided an honest and seemingly balanced view of who Crean is. It laid out clearly the risk and reward of hiring him. Personally, I would have passed, but I think the more egregious error was the amount of money paid. Crean’s agent got a story planted in sports Illustrated about his rehab tour, which included visiting Belichik. That could obviously have been interpreted positively or negatively, but purpose was obviously aimed at shaping Crean as an experience “name” coach ready to be recycled. As the search showed, McGarity was clearly focused on that type of candidate and when Motta turned him down, Crean’s agent was waiting in the wings to fleece McGarity. A sharper AD would have turned the SI article back on Crean’s agent and offered a “prove it” contract to Crean. Instead, we paid him a bonus for making the final four with Wade.
LikeLiked by 6 people
1000%! The laziest, hit-the-big-red-easy button hire I can recall in the history of UGA athletics (someone can surely correct me on that, but this is the hill I’m dying on today). We didn’t pluck a current, proven winner from another program, we plucked something akin to the “Jon Gruden” of NCAAMB (to be clear, I’d rather have a beer with Crean any day over Gruden…..and twice on Sundays).
Honestly, I don’t blame Crean for failing; I bet he could keep a blue-blood a blue-blood, but we needed a “Kirby Smart” to come in and recruit 24/7. We have no cache currently/recently/near-historically; a hungry, relentless worker is the only thing that will turn the program around. I’m all-in on Hayes…pay the man his money and bring him home!
LikeLiked by 3 people
When it’s all done, Kirby Smart might be that once in a Dog life time alumni hire that really worked out for our old school, Coach Perno was another that was kinda’ sorta’ working, Coach Diaz has worked, Coach Bauerle has worked, Coach Magill more than worked and so on, wouldn’t place a whole lot on any one other than a head coach taking over UGA hoops, not looking for a retread either, someone with proof than can run a program and win games…GO DAWGS!
LikeLike
Hindsight’s 20/20, but at the time I didn’t think the hire itself was this bad. I was maybe not excited or inspired but I was optimistic about his chances of building on what Mark Fox had left him, but I was certainly wrong – I didn’t know what a jackass he is. I will never know how he got Anthony Edwards to Athens after publicly trashing his first team, a squad that had been part of at least a series of winning seasons under Fox. Crean has continued to publicly trash his guys all the way through, and that simply doesn’t work, nor does anything else he has done.
The hire can be criticized as unimaginative and uninspired, but I don’t think anyone could have had any idea it would go this badly. The Senator is definitely right that the money we paid to get the guy is easily the worst part of the deal. I’m left wondering how it could have ended up in a smoking crater this deep. I really wonder if Butts-Mehre is failing the program behind the scenes with support somehow. Maybe it really is just that Crean is a jackass and his players hated him so they all left. The good news is that we really don’t ask for very much from the basketball program and the next hire certainly won’t have to accomplish much to be an improvement.
LikeLike
Read this and tell me you don’t think “could have gone this badly” wasn’t a possibility…maybe not “probability” because no one could have forseen the turnover…but the failings…absolutely could have seen coming.
http://chriswesthoops.blogspot.com/
LikeLiked by 1 person
My replacement vote goes to Jonas Hayes…if he and his brother comeback to UGA, I think they could resurrect the bb program. They have the recruiting chops we need.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The bar is so low now, .500 record in sec play might get them poached in a couple of years to better surroundings or not…GO DAWGS!
LikeLike
What happens first: Crean takes some other team to the NCAA tournament and wins a game or UGA appears in the NCAA tournament and wins a game?
Since 2002, Crean has 11 NCAA tourney wins and we’ve won 1.
We kicked Murray State’s ASS! Of course that win was vacated, so you’d have to go back to the spring prior to Jim Donnan’s first season as football coach for the last official win in the ncaa tournament taking down #1 seeded Purdue.
I know where I’d put my money….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great, so you’re in the camp to keep Crean. That makes one.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Great, so you’re in the “we’re UCLA in the 60’s and 70’s if we fire Crean” camp!
That makes dozens apparently.
Just put me down and one who thinks our BB issues go a bit deeper than McGarity, Crean or the size of his contract.
LikeLike
Crean won’t be hired any time soon where he can get to the tourney with an at large bid. So I will take that bet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But if he gets ANY FUCKING job in America, you’re in trouble.
LikeLike
So your first comment wasn’t 100 percent clear on where you stand, you just said that Tom Crean did a better job at Marquette and Indiana than he did at Georgia. That’s factually obvious. So let’s be clear: do you think Georgia should retain Tom Crean as head coach? Me, I believe that Crean should be fired. I do think he could succeed at some other D1 programs, but I think there are a lot of other places where he’d struggle to build a program. His personality doesn’t seem to be in line with this generation of college athlete. That said, I don’t think he’s a horrible coach or anything, I think if you traded him out for Calipari or Pearl this March he’d lead their teams well in the tourney this year. I just don’t know that he’d be able to maintain the level where they are. And yes, he’s getting a LOT of mileage out of the fact that he coached Wade, Oladipo, etc.
The basketball program was fairly healthy five years ago before we fired Mark Fox. We’d achieved a level of pretty comfortably mediocrity and he led the program to two NCAA appearances, so I don’t know that the basketball program’s issues are so dire that nobody could possibly save the team.
LikeLike
I just don’t think it matters. With or without Crean, chances are we’ll suck at basketball.
I’d also suggest that recent history shows that Crean is better at coaching basketball than we are at playing basketball.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If the recent history you’re referring to is his career pre-2017 then you may have a point. He did take an Indiana program gutted by sanctions back to where it was a tournament team and he got to three sweet 16s. That is certainly not a bad performance, but it’s also Indiana. Sure, being a great program doesn’t guarantee that you always will be, just ask Nebraska. But getting Indiana back to being a tournament team is roughly akin to taking over as Florida’s head coach and getting to the Peach Bowl. You’ve done a good job, but how much of that is just that there are kids who want to wear that helmet?
His more recent four years of coaching featured Georgia getting worse than it had been.
LikeLike
Since Knight was fired Indiana has been to the Sweet 16 four times. Crean coached three of those teams.
Since Knight was fired Indiana has three regular season Big Ten titles. Crean coached 2 of them.
2002 is the outlier. Take that away and Indiana Basketball hasn’t done anything since Knight, save when Crean was there.
LikeLike
Alabama didn’t do much in between Gene Stallings and Nick Saban but I’m not sure that means Alabama isn’t a much easier place to win football games than Ole Miss is. It means they made some very bad hires. Again, credit to Tom Crean, he did a good job at Indiana but he didn’t do a good enough job relative to the resources he was given and the expectations there so they fired him.
So he did a good job at Marquette and a great job when he had Dwyane Wade and then he did a good job at a basketball blue blood. He then took over at Georgia and the program declined from where Mark Fox had lifted it. I don’t think the argument is that he hasn’t had success, I think the argument is that he has failed in Athens and deserves to be fired for that failure. When his entire team deserted him last year he should have been fired then instead of starting over from scratch as a lame duck but he had a great contract. Your argument that Georgia doesn’t have a great history with basketball does not equal that Georgia can’t do a lot better in basketball. The school has to commit to it fully. I’m not sure that it ever has.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Alabama won a SEC championship between Stallings and Saban.
No we haven’t committed to winning in MBB which is why I think the problem transcends Crean, McGarity and Crean’s contract. That is breadth and scope of my point which is so obvious it really needn’t have been made yet the point still gets missed over and over and over.
We sucked at MBB BEFORE Crean and we’ll suck at MBB AFTER Crean.
Crean himself? There’s hope there because his record reflects that there is hope there.
UGA MBB? Not so much.
LikeLike
Really? I can’t tell the difference.
LikeLike
Tom Crean started coaching in 1999. He has 4 sweet sixteen appearances.
Georgia has been playing basketball since 1931. We have 2.
Can you tell now?
LikeLike
Not any more. That’s the point.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Undeniably true. I’m sure rinse and repeat will solve it this time. Or its Josh’s fault of course.
Given our proud basketball tradition, I just hope our AD doesn’t run the program into a ditch or something by hiring a proven winner who shows up and falls on his face like all of the others in the past quarter century have.
Fucking Dooley, Evans, McGarity, and Brooks. Bastards all!!
LikeLike
Damn, man, you’re right.
Crean deserves a contract extension. I mean, that’s what you do with a proven winner.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Never suggested he should be retained. I’ve suggested that we will still suck at MBB after its done.
His well deserved termination will result in nothing whatsoever. Neither will the next guy’s firing. Or the next.
Other than soon to be crushed hope I suppose.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tell me you didn’t read the last three paragraphs of my post without telling me you didn’t read the last three paragraphs of my post.
I don’t know why you’re arguing with me… other than for the sheer sport of it. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Arguing as sport? Me?? Never…
Perhaps you should give me my Wednesdays back….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your Wednesdays? I thought they were BonerFart’s. 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
Only if you believe “the narrative.”
LikeLike
Basketball seasons with 25 or more wins:
UGA – 0
Crean – 6
LikeLike
Not sure I get what you are trying to sell, Derek. Should Tom Crean continue to be employed by the University of Georgia based on his past performance at Marquette and Indiana? Is Georgia just a terrible place for basketball, so we should tolerate what has been abysmal performance over the last few years (the team didn’t make it to the NCAAs with Edwards)? If so, what makes you believe Crean is going to make it better other than to reduce any buyouts?
I’m guessing Tom Crean is still a pretty good basketball coach, but he has not demonstrated that here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Its a tough sell I know, but in summary I’d say that I’m selling Georgia Basketball and you can have it very cheap.
Seriously tho, I’m sure that the problem with Georgia Basketball is Tom Crean. Handle that problem, then collect trophies. Simple.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t think anyone who is even remotely a follower of Georgia basketball expects trophies. I don’t think it’s too high of an expectation to expect Georgia to be what many of the other football-first schools are. Make the tournament more often than not. Make a run to the 2nd weekend of the tournament once in a while. Catch lightning in a bottle and have a chance get to a final 4.
Being so bad that you lose to Gardner Webb should be absolutely embarrassing.
LikeLiked by 3 people
If you don’t even know that Gardner-Webb was on the schedule you miss all of that.
I’ve tried to watch us play from time to time over the years, but its almost always been an embarrassment.
The inability to make free throws down the stretch and the turnovers and the bad shots at the end of games all make me regret trying. We always seen to have guys who can run and jump but they are almost always terrible at fundamental basketball.
A bunch of fucking losers….and I don’t see it changing. Neither should you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nuff said.
LikeLike
You’d think as the guy who’s said all this for years, this would be my very most favorite Senator post ever, but it just makes me sadder than I already am about the state of our overall athletics program. And forking angry as hades about it, too.
Greg McGarity was the worst, most inept Athletic Director in UGA history, and maybe in all of the NCAA’s history as well. No hire he made was any good. Look at our other money sport: Our baseball team. When Stricklin has a good year, which is only twice so far in over 8 seasons, he hasn’t gotten out of two home regionals as overwhelming favorites, and this year does not look like a good year with us dropping a series this last weekend to the forking NATS. Dude needs to be fired. He took a program that Perno had taken to three CWS, and went on a four season losing streak, and has been up and down since then. WHY IS HE STILL HERE???
We’re not close to winning anything meaningful, like a conference title, with any other coach McGarity hired, either.
The man was a complete and utter failure. Good forking riddance to that Damn Bad Dawg!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Steve Patterson thanks you for your support.
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2015/6/18/8804391/steve-patterson-texas-athletic-director
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am still not clear on why we ever fired David Perno. What a stupid idea that was.
LikeLiked by 3 people
When a team’s fans don’t demand championships, they rarely get one. We’ve been so caught up with getting one in football, that basketball has become something that we might watch if we accidentally click on it while in between Georgia football season and Braves baseball season. I wish we could get someone like Mark Few but I doubt at this point he wants to rebuild a program.
LikeLike
Georgia is not going to get a “name”. The money we’d have to pay a name coach to come in with where the program is today would be a worse mistake than the resources we committed to Tom Crean. What we need is to get a guy like Mark Few or any of the other guys who have built great programs. Don’t be lazy, don’t just grab whichever G5 guy does the best in March Madness this year. Hell, I don’t care if we get another Tubby Smith who builds the program up and then leaves for something bigger as long as we hire the right guy to succeed him and don’t make the laziest possible hire in Ron Jirsa because we don’t really care about the program.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Since I retired back to the Athens area I’ve followed the soccer team. The last few years Georgia has had some good talent but never seem to really put it all together. Josh hired the new guy so I’ll be interested to see how that goes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mark Fox was a good dude who regularly had his teams winning 17-20 games and in a blue moon making a first round exit in the NCAAs. The very definition of a replacement-level coach; a whole slew of guys out there could’ve improved on that if given support from the AD.
Leave it to McGarity to take that easy-to-improve-upon situation and end up hiring a guy who’d end up having the worst season in school history. F-in’ Georgia State regularly makes the tourney; what’s our problem?
LikeLike
Just a question, but how often has Georgia State made the tournament as an at-large vs. automatic qualifier?
Not saying Georgia today would win the Sun Belt, but that is an appropriate next question to ask. I also doubt Georgia State would be able to earn an at large bid in the SEC.
LikeLike
I made the comment on here when Crean was hired that he would never have winning percentage Fox had and got laughed at by many. Well here we are again, starting over.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I grew up a huge college basketball fan, and was one of the few Dawg fans to be in Albuquerque for our last final four. Post the unfortunate Harrick debacle, whether by design or bad luck, our basketball team has the drifted into oblivion.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Only final four … FIFY 😉
LikeLike
The Harrick era a.k.a. the good old days.
LikeLike
No one can argue with the quality of the basketball UGA played during that era! I actually have a basketball floor tile signed by the members of that infamous team! It was the most UGA thing ever to cancel the season before it ended.
LikeLike
I have a Jim Harrick bobble head doll on my living room shelves. #winning
LikeLike
Thanks for this post, Senator. It’s times like this I miss hoopdawgsblog.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes nice change of pace, I’m a tennis guy and McGarity lead Ga from top of the National tennis crowd to just good. Primarily by failing to keep pace in facilities! Once Dan McGill was gone it was over!! We are now doing or looking at what should have been done 10 -12 years ago!
Went on a team road-trip with the basketball team 2 years ago. Not a whole lot of face time with Crean but up close (just like tv or from in the stands)he just seems off, weird dude!?
Think we bring Jonas and family in get them working to create the Kirby model in recruiting and hope like hell he/they can coach em up!
LikeLike
Tennis guy here, too. What McGarity (a tennis player under Magill!) did to our tennis program was an outrage and disgrace. He was playing at Georgia when Magill was busting his ass to get the NCAAs to Athens. When he let all that go to say a few dollars out of our record reserve fund, I was done with him.
LikeLike
I mean tennis fan. I’m not a UGA letterman, or even close to one. But I spent many spring afternoons barking in the stands at those California players in the early 80’s.
LikeLike
The problem with us is UGA is it is a football school, first, last and always. Most of our fans could give a sh*t less if the basketball team is great or any other team for that matter since Susanne retired. I saw exactly one UGA basketball game in my junior and senior year and that was because LSU with Pistol Pete came to Athens. He absolutely was the greatest white college basketball player ever. As he was leaving the game because the UGA coach put in a DB off of the football team to kill him, he hit a half court hook shot as he walked off the court. The UGA crowd went wild and the UGA coach in the next issue of the Red and Black criticized the student body for cheering for an opponent.
LikeLike
Not sure I agree with that. A lot of people are disappointed in the epic implosion of the Gym Dawgs over multiple coaches since Mrs. Leebern’s retirement. People are downright pissed that McGarity let the men’s tennis tournament leave Athens.
Is Georgia a football school first, last and always? Hell yes because that’s what brings in the money to fund everything else. That doesn’t mean Georgia basketball shouldn’t be important.
Alabama has been to 21 NCAA tournaments … Georgia to 12. That should be what we are trying to achieve, period.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Based on his overall resume, it wasn’t a bad hire. It just went spectacularly bad. A series of events unfolded that all played to his most extreme personal and professional weakness.
Regardless, 3 primary things have plagued UGA hoops.
For the past 20 years the program has operated under the assumption that it can’t get any worse so try X, Y or Z. And they have been proven wrong at every turn.
We keep hiring guys who have Dan Mullen Disease. They think they are so smart and so supremely gifted that they don’t need blue chip players to win. And they are wrong. They staff up with their buddies and have 1 or less token guy on staff with ATL ties. And the results in recruiting are predictable.
No accountability as you said for the failures of the sport.
It’s not a money issue. It’s a recurring issue caused by a lack of vision or understanding for how to get what we want/need. What we should pursue isn’t to become UK. It is to become what UF hoops became for almost 20 years. That’s the goal.
LikeLiked by 2 people
To clarify. It wasn’t a bad hire at the time in my opinion. It turned out bad. Worse than anyone could have ever imagined.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It wasn’t Crean himself who was objectionable, but the process that led to his hiring. Much as was the case with Smart; it’s just that in his case Georgia lucked into hiring somebody who had a clue about what to do with a UGA sports program.
LikeLike
I was not all that in favor of firing Fox as he had a mediocre program which as stated in posts below is about what I expect. Crean came in with a resume to have some hope in more. Ant Man added to that hope. Get one big recruit and build on the momentum. I don’t keep up with it enough to exactly determine why Crean was so much worse than Fox but here we are.
As for hires, I firmly believe Smart was McGarity’s first choice because it united the alumni who funded the change. If Smart had been an alum of another school and had Mullen come from another program other the Florida. I believe Mullen would have been his fist choice from their days working together. I admit I was surprised to see Mullen fail so badly at UF but it is obvious the more that came out with recruiting and as his personality was more public and not over shadowed by Urban Meyer. . Luck, timing and connections all lined up for McGarity to back into a good hire with Smart.
LikeLike
I fully believe McGarity was told that Smart was “his” first choice.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Exactly! Why should any of us be surprised at the seemingly perennial mediocrity of men’s basketball when nobody pays a price for it? Hell, nobody in the administration suffered the consequences of the Harricks’ academic fraud.
If your job is secure no matter what, McGarity’s hiring of Crean makes perfect sense. Even if he overpaid for Crean.
LikeLike
Well, that goes back to your Michael Adams thread a week or two ago….
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s a recruiting issue. Not recurring issue. Well both are true. By my original note meant to say recruiting.
LikeLike
PWD, you probably follow Georgia basketball closer than many of us. What would you suggest to Josh Brooks if you were making these decisions?
1) What does the program need to become UF hoops?
2) How do you elevate recruiting?
3) How do you deal with what has become fan apathy (I’m guilty as charged)?
4) What kind of coach would you go get if money and commitment were no object (I don’t mean who)? Realistic names would be appreciated.
LikeLike
The search doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens with other searches in market at the same time.
I would hire Jonas right now. Because that’s where it will end up anyway. The job is radioactive because the roster is trash and lots of schools have money.
I would hire Jonas and give him double the salary pool for assistants. And then I would see what’s next on the list
LikeLike
Do you think Jonas can make Georgia competitive? I see both sides of this argument. Rumors are Scott Drew may be a candidate given the Big 12 media rights value without Texas and Oklahoma (I doubt this ends up as the answer). Kirby was successful partially because this wasn’t a complete rebuild. This job is totally different with how the roster absolutely collapsed. Drew would be intriguing given what he had to do in Waco.
I assume if it’s a quick hire, it’s Hayes. I hope he can be Tubby (and stay) and not Ron Jirsa.
LikeLike
I thought it was dumb to fire Fox but they did. Other than betting on an unproven coach at this level, and getting lucky, I think Rick Pitino is the only coach (with baggage I know) that has a proven track record at this level that we would be willing to pay for.
LikeLike
“Baggage” is doing a shit ton of heavy lifting there, ant.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May be but I still don’t see anyone else as a better proven candidate.
LikeLike
It’s been 15 hours since the season ended, why has he not been fired yet????
LikeLiked by 3 people
I’m guessing they are trying to negotiate the terms of the buyout or trying to pull together the money.
LikeLike
Per Chip Towers,
According to Chip, Brooks offered Crean the opportunity to resign Feb. 23 and accept the $3.2 million buyout, but Crean refused.
LikeLike
Hell, Josh could have had the letter in his coat pocket when he walked into the arena in Tampa. He could have hand delivered it to him right after the press conference. Then, to be nice, he could have said we have an executive car service ready right outside to take you and your wife to the team hotel to gather your things and take you to your house in Sarasota.
LikeLike
We’ve needed an institutional commitment to winning in BB for a long time. If the answer were easy and obvious it would’ve been done by now, but there is enough money floating around B-M that there should no longer be any excuses.
Hire the right coach and build a decent fucking gym.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The fan interest vs admin investment is not an easy cart-horse theory. But it kind of seems we have proof since the Harrick debacle that fan / public interest cannot be the real horse. Does an administration that rakes in money and is a non-profit have a duty to be the horse even in the face of uncertainty as to how many will jump in the cart ?
What’s the state of basketball facilities in a language we can understand, like the oft cited Richt (astonishingly hamstrung) to Kirby (full tilt) ? I don’t think even the most magical coach / recruiter can come in and change it if structurally you are massively behind the 8-ball.
Do we need to bulldoze the entire concept to the ground and start fresh ? Should we have scrapped Stegeman in 2010 instead of putting lipstick on a pig ? Back then, I thought a new arena somewhere downtown or on its edge would have been a good long term investment. I think you need not just a new coach but an entirely new identity of what we want to be that is completely divorced from the past. Stegeman may be perfectly adequate to a fan like me, but what does the industry demand ? What about all the other facilities ?
LikeLike
The whole question about the playing facility is interesting. Duke just sent one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport regardless of level into retirement while playing in a facility that is a POS by modern standards. Don’t take that the wrong way. I’ve been to a game in Cameron, and it was incredible. I just really don’t think the Coliseum is the albatross it once was.
LikeLiked by 2 people
He’s the exception, not the rule.
Look at the KFC/Yum Center in Louisville – outstanding facility that also drives other revenue streams for the city. It is an asset that is used in recruiting.
LikeLike
Louisville was good for a long period of time with Denny Crum and Freedom Hall.
Athens is a bit different city than Louisville. Metro Louisville has 1.4m … Athens has 215k with a metro area of 6m 70 miles away.
I don’t think Athens-Clarke County is going to be able to fund a downtown arena, so anything related to a new arena is going to be UGA funded only.
LikeLike
Louisville KY metro is 1.4 million people, so they can use an arena for a variety of events.
LikeLike
Coach K is available……problem solved. Back to football.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So is Roy Williams!
LikeLike
K’s first 3 years in Durham … 17-13, 10-17, 11-17 (when Georgia with Hugh Durham was beating defending national champion UNC and Chris Mullen St. John’s). The natives were restless in Durham. He didn’t get to his first Final 4 for another 3 years and didn’t win his first national title until 5 years after that.
He did all of this with Cameron.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I saw Georgia State mentioned above, as someone who holds a degree from State, and keeps an eye on GSU’s sports, State recruits well for the Sun Belt and can beat GT in most sports. They get in the tournament by winning the Sun Belt not on a regular season conference championship or at large bid. State has been growing in sports, adding football with games in the Dome, taking over the Ted, plans to build a new baseball stadium on the grounds of the old Atlanta Fulton County, and a new basketball area is being constructed. The area around the GSU’s football stadium is turning around.
Also many on here might bash what Atlanta, GT’s campus, etc Georgia State’s campus is no better. Basketball and Football recruits may like living in Atlanta better than Athens with the hip hop, and rap scene in Atlanta. It isn’t the liability many here think it is from the recruit’s perspective. It might be from the perspective of fans going to see games at night.
UGA might do well to hire GSU’s basketball coach but UGA needs to make a splash in basketball facilities. Stegeman might be on par with everyone in the SEC. However, Auburn is in many ways the better blueprint. They build a new basketball arena and made a big hire. It might be absurd but UGA needs the splash with new facilities and kill any negative recruiting of what Stegeman was. I view the Fox era as about the ceiling of UGA basketball as long as they play their games in the Stege. UGA needs a new arena, and 5 to 8 years under a coach that can recruit. Smart came in built facilities some here thought college kids didn’t need. He was behind a new locker room, hosting recruits in a new seating area next to the bridge etc etc. The kids notice and headlines travel. It is a never ending arms race, especially if you are not a basketball powerhouse like UNC or Kentucky.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Virginia won their first NCAA tournament in 2019. They opened a new arena in 2006. Duke, UNC, and Kentucky maybe capable of getting by on an old basketball arena. If you want to make the step from a floundering program to the next level more is required.
LikeLike
All of this is a very good argument for a new arena. The fact that it could bring additional benefit like concerts, etc. would be a big plus.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Auburn & Pearl = cheats
LikeLiked by 1 person
We need players. Recruiting is a PR game. So, go hire someone “hot” that kids recognize, and with an actual history or recruiting studs.
Pay whatever that costs. If you’re not willing to do that, might as well head to the bargain bin. Ain’t much in between with realistic hope of building a winner at a school with zero history of winning anything remotely important.
LikeLike
Hire someone “hot” … this is my small basketball mind, but I thought we tried that with Dennis Felton and Mark Fox? Who fits the bill? I’m genuinely curious because I remember having a blast in the late 80s as a student even though we didn’t win every game. I remember the 2 years of Tubby as being fun to be a Georgia basketball fan (other than the face plant in Tubby’s last game in the tournament).
It’s possible for this program to be a consistent tournament team.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Agreed, UGA basketball had bright spots in the 80s and 90s. UGA has talent locally and the funding to build a program. Promising coaches have been hired.
It is more than just hire the right guy, and it is more than facilities. You have to have an AD with a plan or listens to his coach who has a plan to improve facilities, and then the coach which can capitalize.
I think the fans and students will respond with some results on the court.
UGA maybe a football school but has access to talent for every sport the university fields. Smart likely wants a better basketball program. A cousin was recruited by UGA football under Richt and received tickets to a basketball game. Smart recruits well but he would certainly like to be handing out tickets to a basketball game that had the students fired up.
LikeLike
Wouldn’t Kirby Smart say that this hot coach needs serious capital expenditures to be able to really compete ? Wouldn’t the hottest recruiter even be hamstrung by the perception that we don’t invest in our program, real or imagined ?
LikeLike
That’s also true. The real point here is that we either completely, fully commit… or just accept that we’re going to stay mediocre and save the cash. Half measures won’t get us anywhere.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It would be fun if they fully committed and we wound up with a respectable team. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they throw in the towel and accept mediocrity.
What would burn my ass is wasting another $15,000,000+ on a “pretty good” coach and some half assed locker room renovations or whatever. I say go hard or spend as little as possible.
LikeLike
According to most outlets, he gone.
LikeLike
Thankfully Swamp People is on History Channel.
Basketball? I was a damn good baller and loved playing the game. Watching it ?
“You can’t have no idea how little I care.”
-Monty Walsh
LikeLike
I don’t buy the argument that we are a football only school and fans won’t give a shit what we do with the MBB school.
Alabama is the biggest football school you’ll find. Their sizable alumni base in Bham (an hour away) will show up to their aging coliseum (which seats many more than ours) in droves to watch basketball on a weeknight. Hell, Auburn fans from Bham drive two hours for a weeknight game.
ABSOLUTELY no excuse for an apathetic athletic department. None. Our fans will show up and make the Steg or whatever arena we build a hell of a hard place for an opponent to play at.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly this. When Georgia has been good on the court, people have shown up and the Steg has been a home court advantage.
LikeLike
My take on this, liked by former Georgia beat writer David Hale:
We should hire up-and-coming coaches and hope to get lucky now and then when we find someone like Tubby. Then the rest of the money should all go to Kirby’s recruiting warchest.
College basketball is dominated by the blue bloods and always will be. Also, it makes way less money than football anyway.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bama ? Hahahahahahaha.
#justlikefootball
LikeLike
I didn’t know Baylor and Gonzaga were blue bloods in men’s basketball. Hell, until recently, I didn’t know South Carolina was a blue blood in women’s basketball.
There’s no excuse for what has become Georgia men’s basketball.
LikeLike
I thought the hire was terrible from the jump. He was limited in success at Indians comparative to the success he recruited. Wade is a different being, and that catapulted Crean ahead. Aside from that, he did less with more. It was stupid from the jump.
Any hire at this point is better, and that is actually worse. Georgia Basketball (I attended during the Tubby years) deserves better.
LikeLike
Uga bball isa stepping stone job or a career dead end. The reality is, until the SEC football money train stops flowing butts- mehr just has to pretend to show they care a wee bit
LikeLike