re: Alabama Basketball Recruiting and Offseason Talk

Nah Grant would still be gone. He would’ve found a way to screw it up

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Avery Johnson- Beats more ranked teams than he loses to. Shows he’s capable of making the NCAA tourney, and advancing.

Anthony Grant- loses to more ranked teams than he beats. Made the tourney once in 6 years and never advanced.

Avery is 100% an upgrade over Grant. That really shouldn’t even be up for discussion.

Yes, there’s still some things I question about Avery. But he’s on a different level than Grant.

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I'd argue that these facts lack context. Not all ranked teams are created equal.

Most of the "ranked" teams Grant faced were elite UK and Donovan UF teams. The SEC may have been deeper this year but the Wall or Davis UK teams and the Wilbekin/Pat Young UF teams decimate any of this year's SEC teams. Tennessee, A&M, UK, UF, Arkansas, and Auburn were all ranked at different points of the season and all were extremely vulnerable at different points of the season.

Through three years their tenures are basically identical. That's not arguable. Avery won his 8/9 game and Grant lost his at the buzzer. But that's not a monumental difference

And there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic about Grant after his third year considering he returned Releford, Lacey, Randolph, Cooper, etc, just like there are reasons to be optimistic about Avery and the future with Petty, Hall, and crew

Grant also had like a 16 game losing streak to ranked teams the day he was fired. That’s unacceptable. I don’t care how tough the ranked teams were he was playing, you can’t lose 16 straight and expect people to be happy. He should’ve been fired one year earlier. That year he finished 13-19 was ridiculous

Auburn's new Athletic Director Allan Greene made a very public statement of support of Bruce Pearl.


Looks like Bruce Pearl is staying at the barn

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Samford guard Christen Cunningham has asked for his release and will opt to graduate transfer, per a source. Cunningham has scored 1,283 points and tossed out 514 assists in his career.

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Think we’ll take a look at him?

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Alright let’s hear it. Making the 2nd round of the tourney is already better than Grant.

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As I said, Hobbs took over a talent loaded program accustomed to success. The 4 years before he took over the program, Bama won 23, 26, 23, and 26 games with 4 NCAA trips and 2 sweet 16s. It wasn't a new team to him either, he was an assistant for those teams so he knew the players.

The next 4 under Hobbs, the highest win total was 23 with 2 seasons under 20, they only made the tourney twice and they never advanced to the second round despite having 4 NBA first round picks including a #2 overall on the teams. Those guys weren't busts either - they finished with a combined 37 NBA seasons played. The talent on those teams was off the hook.

Grant took over a program that had missed the tournament three straight years, had won 20 or more games only once in four years, and had a winning conference record only once in that stretch. Over the next 4 seasons, they won 17, 21, 25, and 23 games and also had winning conference records in three of the four seasons. Unlike Hobbs, he didn't have a single player drafted by the NBA (much less 4 first round picks) and only one ever made it to the league.

Both Hobbs and Grant faded badly, but Grant had much better overall success with much less talent.

To put it more bluntly, probably half the posters on tRant could make the NCAA and win a game or two with a roster built around Hollywood Robinson, Jason Caffey, Roy Rogers, and Antonio McDyess.

Hobbs could have given Mike DuBose lessons in how to do less with more.

Sure they were helped some but they were legit 20 win seasons. Don't forget the year they got snubbed for the tourney they won 12 SEC games and finished 2nd in the conference.

Absolutely. Particularly the last couple of years for both of them.

I hold Hobbs at a higher level of fail because of the talent. I mean, he had a couple of teams where his starting 5 included 3 NBA first round picks yet he never won the SEC regular season, never won the SEC tournament, and couldn't get past the round of 32 (when he managed to get in the tourney).

He actually did something quite impressive. He got Anthony Grant level results with Kentucky level talent.

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Don't forget the year they got snubbed for the tourney they won 12 SEC games and finished 2nd in the conference.

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While I think Alabama got screwed relative to who was chosen for the field, in a vacuum I don't think Bama got snubbed.


For the record, I feel the same way about the Auburn 2009 bball team that AU fans feel got "snubbed." That team wasn't a NCAAT team either

Yea, people act like Grant didn't inherit any talent. Gottfried quit coaching his last couple of years, but his last recruiting class was quite good. Both Green and Mitchell were NBA caliber players. The program wasn't in terrible shape when Grant was hired, but he ran it into the dirt.