re: Tom Crean is our MF Coach

only thing I see is mutual interest. i doubt there is anything firm in place yet

Just out of curiosity when is the last time you saw a game at stegeman?

December... it’s better, but not like Auburn for instance.

quote:

---

December... it’s better, but not like Auburn for instance.

---

There is absolutely nothign wrong with stegeman, unless you somehow think a palace is what's going to cure our ails. Auburn is winning because they have pearl (funny waht competent coaching gets you). Coleman coliseum is a friggin dump yet bama is in the tourney (funny what good recruiting gets you). The steg is light years better now than when we had harrick yet those were some of our best squads in decades.

Fact is that it all starts with the coach. Get a coach who knows how to actually coach basketball, you start winning more, you start recruiting better, the fans get excited and start spending more money. We could a Rupp Arena quality gym the last few years and we'd still have stunk because of coaching, and the place would be half empty.

Also I admittedly haven't bene to Auburn, but what exactly makes this



markedly better than this




Auburn's is new so I guess it's nice and shiny, but it's not very large and doesn't look too much different than ours aside from having a full bowl instead of our small section in front of hte mural wall.

Also call me crazy but I think this



looks a bit more aesthetically pleasing than this

I get why it has a bad reputation, but I feel like many people that rip on it haven't been in a while. When I was in school is was absolutely shoddy (but still better than coleman, probably the worst arena I've ever been in) but the "new" glass facade, concourse renovations, hanginging scoreboard, and black seats have transformed it considerably. It's not just "lipstick on a pig", it's pretty much a complete overhaul short of adding more seats or changing the ceiling, both of which are irrelevant.

This isn't intended to be an extensive response, but I really dislike the mural with the gymnast on it. I think that's really dumb if you're trying to be taken seriously by 17 year old basketball players.

Agreed. That has always been a major beef of mine. Doesn’t really highlight a commitment to basketball.

I admittedly haven't been to Steg in a few years, I'll refrain from any negativity until I actually see it again. I'm moving it up on my priority list of things to do this year.

quote:

---

We are in an arms race

---

Not really

quote:

---

We want to bring in a proven winner, but they won’t want to come here as recruiting, for whatever reason, has never been easy.

---

Recruiting is easier at UGA than it is at most other schools in teh SEC, the issue is we've majorly struck out on our last 2 coaches. That's not a UGA thing, it's a "we hired subpar coaches" thing. Get a good coach who knows what he's doing and magically, somehow we will start recruiting better.

quote:

---

By having “good enough facilities and a lower tier budget for hoops, why would they come?

---

Lower tier budget? We just offered north of $3M a year to a guy which would be 2nd in the league. I wouldn't call that lower tier. IMO the success of throwing so much money at football and seeing the ROI has actually opened mcgarity's eyes to see what opening the checkbook can do down the road. Unless we utterly strike out and hire a mid-major, we are going to spend money on a coach and his assistants.

quote:

---

Even when we had our best runs, it doesn’t seem like we pulled our share of the top 10 players from the state. Something fundamentally has to change for that. A coach is a good start, but so far, we have not found a formula that works.

---

There is no magic formula, it's as simple as getting a good coach. Durham was a good coach, hey we won a tourney game. Tubby was a good coach, hey we won a tourney game. Jirsa was not good. Harrick was good, hey we won a tourney game. Felton adn Fox aren't very good, whaddaya know we didn't win a tourney game.

As I said earlier, get a coach who actually knows what he's doing and even has a little bit of personality and likeability from the masses. He'll start winning a little...I mean we've probably lost 4-5 games a year the last few years that a better coach than fox would've won. At that point you're a tourney team. It's not like we need a complete overhaul from scratch. Ok now you're winning a few more games a year. Now you look better to the myriad of good recruits within 2 hours of campus. Now the fans are interested and start spending more money. You can say we need to do xyz to start with but ultimately it all starts with simply getting a good coach. The last 3 coaches we've had that most people would be in universal agreeance as being good have all won tourney games, and we have a much better foundation right now than any of them had.

We found it once With harrick. We were winning, steg was packed, getting high seeds, and signing 5 stars. All in a much better sec than we saw from 09-16. Then Tony cole happened.