re: 2021-22 Basketball Thread

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An AP voter accidentally voted for UGA instead of Gonzaga in the top 5, giving the 5-8 Dawgs enough points to be ranked 30th

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LOL... the most UGA basketball thing possible.

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Not sure how a school with our limited resources could be mistaken to compete with a small Catholic school in shithole Washington

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Presumably it was an alphabetical order list they were selecting from and the wrong G_ _ _ _ a team was selected and just not noticed on final review.

Do I want to watch this game?

Lost but didn’t look horrible, just out talented.

I’m watching. Flashes of things and then long stretches of really bad basketball to offset anything positive we did and then some.
Man we are really at a low right now.

Its like groundhogs day

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Its like groundhogs day

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Nailed it!

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Why is Crean still employed. Our NC should be the catalyst to put the other programs on notice that we aren’t accepting mediocre anymore.

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Brooks must have already committed to not making any changes until after the season. Crean makes Fox look like Jim Calhoun. The program at least had a winning record with Fox. There were a few red flag with Crean but I figured he had a chance to do well here. Really hard to figure where we go from here. Do you find a proven HC that was at a power 5; a mid-major guy; or a premier assistant? Seems we need a guy who knows how to recruit in the Southeast/Atlanta area and that's not an easy find.

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Brooks must have already committed to not making any changes until after the season. Crean makes Fox look like Jim Calhoun. The program at least had a winning record with Fox. There were a few red flag with Crean but I figured he had a chance to do well here. Really hard to figure where we go from here. Do you find a proven HC that was at a power 5; a mid-major guy; or a premier assistant? Seems we need a guy who knows how to recruit in the Southeast/Atlanta area and that's not an easy find.

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As mentioned, almost assuredly strictly financial reason to not fire him before end of season. Presumably talks happening behind the scenes, but yeah... I really don't know what the path forward is.

Honestly, I thought if we were moving on from Fox, Crean was a pretty solid hire on paper. Had some concerns/red flags for sure, but at the same time we don't have anywhere near the expectations of an Indiana and most dawg fans would have been more than pleased with his level of achievement there. I think the biggest thing I heard from Indiana fans was that while he was recruiting well overall (likely capitalizing on prior success), he was apparently not building good relationships *in state/region* particularly with programs that they felt like mattered for long term success.

Just some random thoughts and names below... mostly stream of consciousness. Would love to hear others thoughts:

Jonas Hayes has been a popular name in the past. Obvious ties to Athens and has been a well respected assistant.

You've got character issue guys like Pitino and Sean Miller... I'm doubtful that the school would take that kind of risk... Besides, Pitino isn't young and who knows Miller's future status. At least for Miller, NIL basically makes everything that he's in hot water for 100% legal at this point, perhaps not in methodology, but in outcome. He'd also be a flight risk at the first chance a bigger job rolls around if he comes through with no additional issues... Honestly, our program was at it's best that I can remember the last time we took a coach with NCAA issues... let's run that back and just don't bend over if the NCAA actually comes looking into the program this go around. LOL

Mark Pope - HC at BYU was formerly an assistant in Athens... Not sure if he'd be interested in coming back to Athens, but could be worth a look. Played at Kentucky and in the NBA, so maybe has a good perspective for recruiting. Highly doubt we could land him honestly, but aim for the stars sometimes... right?

John Beilein was pretty successful in college, bounced to the NBA and it wasn't a fit, is now in some kind of player development role I think with the Pistons. He took a while to ramp up at Michigan though FWIW and he's another coach who is not young at 68. Probably not a fit for either side, just a bigger "name" that is technically available.

Mark Turgeon stepped down at Maryland but has been good... but feels a little like that could possibly be Crean Redux? Was not exactly beloved by fans.

I think Dennis Gates at Cleveland State could be a great target. Took over for a Dennis Felton led program *LATE* in the summer and turned in a conference championship and NCAA bid, following that up with a strong second year already. Previously worked as an assistant at FSU, so has recruited the Southeast. He's also only making like $500k/year right now. He's done well with JuCo and transfer building, which honestly might be one of the best things we can do to ensure that we lock guys in with their one freebie transfer year.

Niko Medved and Dustin Kerns are 2 guys that previously had success at Furman and Presbyterian and have since moved on to other programs and had sustained success. No clue if either would be interested in a move to Athens with the program build that exists, but they at least have experience recruiting the southeast and both have been good at finding underrated talent which is something that we might need.




Challenges to success:

Keeping said coach if they show promise. How committed will we be on this front, and will it even matter from a financial standpoint? Coach "fit" will likely be a huge deal for those making the decision.

Keeping recruits... As we've seen in FB of late, winning the first signature is great, but you have to keep guys bought in and satisfied or you could lose pretty much your whole roster in one season... see 2021 off season.

Facilities... I honestly don't have the best picture here. I know people have complained about Steg for a long time. At the same time I know others who've said that it's actually a great atmosphere inside now with the recent interior facelift? I'm of the mind that if we could figure out a solution downtown for MBB and keep WBB/Gymnastics at Steg, it would be for the best, but it seems like there has been zero commitment to even trying to make anything happen there, so not holding my breath.

What else?

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I meant to upvote that, but accidentally down voted it. Apologies.

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Look at cünt nation following me around and intentionally downvoting me. I keed I keed.

1) Never worry about the votes either way
2) If you do actually ever want to change a vote, if you hit refresh, click the new vote direction it will update it. You'll still need to refresh once more to retract the "wrong" vote on your browser, but it switches for everyone else. #tmyk

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I feel like, whoever we get, needs to show that they can somehow recruit Atlanta and sell the brand in state. If we pulled 3 of the top 10 players from this state each year, we are back to how we were with Tubby. NIL is gonna be a big part of the future. Need to figure out how to leverage that with the Atlanta market.

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All of dis. Look no further than Auburn basketball over the past several seasons. Auburn was historically not a good basketball program, but brought in a known good recruiter (albeit with his own baggage) and went to town pulling from the state of Georgia (heavy ATL area focus).

Auburn recruits:

2020: 3 out of 5 from Georgia (greater ATL area) - 2 in top 50ish nationally

2019: 3/7 from Georgia (1 top 50, 1 top 150) + all from southeast

2018: only added 1

2017: 2/3 from Georgia (both top 60)

2016: 2/4 from Georgia (1 top 100, 1 top ~200)


Alabama has pulled at least one or two high caliber kids from ATL as well, but I think the bulk of their classes have still been made up of in state kid or at least outside of Georgia.


We've seen first hand how we've lost a good number of kids late in their recruitment, and not strictly to typical recruiting powers like Duke/UK/UNC...