That Arky game was a beat down. We hung with them for about a half, despite repeated backcourt TOs and then couldn't keep up in the 2nd half. 19 TOs for the game. Defensively, we gave up 54% shooting from 3 and 56% overall. They were able to constantly create and take advantage of mismatches on our defense. They scored 48 pts in the paint and 26 pts off our TOs. It was not pretty.

I had identified Feb. 1 as a temperature check on whether both sides might be looking for a negotiated buy-out exit. Looks like Brooks is going to let (force) him to ride the plane all the way down.

Meh. What's another 30 days . . .

30 days to save $4 million - probably a good call. And really, when a coach's team is playing badly, that coach deserves to coach them to the end. Reap what you sew....

I got to admit I'm surprised. Not about this year alone since we have the last 3 as precedent, but about the whole tenure. As many have said, he has the pedigree of a final four and multiple sweet 16's.

Supposedly TC was to bring a fast-paced, fast break offense here. Never saw any evidence of it. To have that kind of offense, you have to have run-outs from steals and defensive rebounds with a quick outlet and sprintback to beat the other team down the court. But to get rebounds you have to have bigs who are big, strong and skillful enough to box out, and quick enough to get to the ball. That takes raw size and talent in your big men, which we didn't emphasize in our recruiting.

Steals are the result of precise defensive schemes, and emphasis on defensive willingness, skills and quickness, also absent from our recruiting priorities.

Generally Tom's players have been decent enough overall, as shown by what the transfers have done in other programs. But there has been no coherent scheme on offense or defense, other than the announced fast break offense which has been absent from the beginning.

Did this problem just happen once TC came to Georgia, or would it have been evident if the AD or his people had watched his teams play, in person or on film? I would bet the latter.

I have been a fan of some teams who were consistently mediocre or bad for years. I must take some masochistic pleasure in it. But this program has put them all to shame. Gotta hope our present AD and his staff will put in the effort to bring in someone who can turn this thing around quickly.

We were up 43-39 before getting out scored 60-30 from there. Crean's epic failure has been in every aspect but the lack of defense stands out the most.

The four years prior to Crean our Defensive Efficiency Rankings were: #59, #103, #87, #61. Compared to Crean's
#197, #247, #226 and this year #328. Does anyone believe this isn't on Crean and Staff(s)? Crean's first year we went from #61 to #197 in DE. And it's only gotten worse. But certainly our offense was better, you ask?? NO, we went from #224 to #242 under Crean that first year and we're sitting at #186 this year.

The lack of respect given to those players and teams from 2013 - 2018 that played DEFENSE AND WON is ridiculous. The one trick pony excuse of "the league being weak" is equally ridiculous. When any team in any conference goes from 49-41 to 15-48 under the new coach…. That's one helluva weakazz excuse.

Microwave said:

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I got to admit I'm surprised. Not about this year alone since we have the last 3 as precedent, but about the whole tenure. As many have said, he has the pedigree of a final four and multiple sweet 16's.

Supposedly TC was to bring a fast-paced, fast break offense here. Never saw any evidence of it. To have that kind of offense, you have to have run-outs from steals and defensive rebounds with a quick outlet and sprintback to beat the other team down the court. But to get rebounds you have to have bigs who are big, strong and skillful enough to box out, and quick enough to get to the ball. That takes raw size and talent in your big men, which we didn't emphasize in our recruiting.

Steals are the result of precise defensive schemes, and emphasis on defensive willingness, skills and quickness, also absent from our recruiting priorities.

Generally Tom's players have been decent enough overall, as shown by what the transfers have done in other programs. But there has been no coherent scheme on offense or defense, other than the announced fast break offense which has been absent from the beginning.

Did this problem just happen once TC came to Georgia, or would it have been evident if the AD or his people had watched his teams play, in person or on film? I would bet the latter.

I have been a fan of some teams who were consistently mediocre or bad for years. I must take some masochistic pleasure in it. But this program has put them all to shame. Gotta hope our present AD and his staff will put in the effort to bring in someone who can turn this thing around quickly.

---

As I have said before, I did not favor Crean's hire, but once he was hired we have an obligation to support him, which I have done. We heard from IU fans early on about their complaints with Crean. Their warnings have proven prescient. He's a bit of an odd duck and sees himself as more of an offensive coach than a defensive coach. He really emphasizes offense to the extreme. Now, I love exciting offense as much as the next fan, but you gotta play defense. One of the knocks on Fox is that he was defensive oriented with not much scheme offensively. Crean has been the reverse. But you can't be uptempo successfully if you turn the ball over like we have under Crean (and Fox, too). We have not had the guard play necessary to play at a breakneck tempo.

That's a good point you make about long, athletic bigs. Crean just hasn't been able to recruit those guys consistently. We have taken flyers on a couple of kids that we hoped would develop into that kind of player, but these experiments have so far failed. You have to be able to defend the post and get rebounds to run. We just don't have the personnel to do it. We can generally hang for about a half, and then lack of depth takes its toll.

I think Crean's shortcomings would have been evident had we watched enough of his film - at least to people who know basketball. I have a friend who spoke to a number of Crean's former players and coaches. None of them liked him or wanted to work with him again. That tells you something. And that indicates a lack of due diligence on our part in the hiring process. McGarity wanted to make a splash hire. All the media types were pushing Crean for our job. We needed to look closer. And I hope we do with the next hire.

SidViciousDawg said:

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We were up 43-39 before getting out scored 60-30 from there. Crean's epic failure has been in every aspect but the lack of defense stands out the most.

The four years prior to Crean our Defensive Efficiency Rankings were: #59, #103, #87, #61. Compared to Crean's
#197, #247, #226 and this year #328. Does anyone believe this isn't on Crean and Staff(s)? Crean's first year we went from #61 to #197 in DE. And it's only gotten worse. But certainly our offense was better, you ask?? NO, we went from #224 to #242 under Crean that first year and we're sitting at #186 this year.

The lack of respect given to those players and teams from 2013 - 2018 that played DEFENSE AND WON is ridiculous. The one trick pony excuse of "the league being weak" is equally ridiculous. When any team in any conference goes from 49-41 to 15-48 under the new coach…. That's one helluva weakazz excuse.

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We are very poor defensively. There's no question about that. Of course that's on Crean and his staff. Who would claim otherwise? Do you think 49-41 is good in conference? Should we not aim higher? Fox's teams were dull as grits, and Fox needed to move on. We were not respected by people who picked the NCAA field. We couldn't get in no matter what Fox's record was. That is the better measure. 2 NCAA tourneys in 9 years and no wins. You think that is acceptable? Not to me. We should be doing what Auburn is doing. That's what I aim for. Not mediocrity.

Greg screwed us royally and bounced.

Monkdawg said:

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Do you think 49-41 is good in conference? Should we not aim higher? Fox's teams were dull as grits, and Fox needed to move on. We were not respected by people who picked the NCAA field. We couldn't get in no matter what Fox's record was. That is the better measure. 2 NCAA tourneys in 9 years and no wins. You think that is acceptable? Not to me. We should be doing what Auburn is doing. That's what I aim for. Not mediocrity.

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I'm pretty sure Sid, under his previous monicker, stated the opinion that it was time for Coach Fox to move on. I believe his objection is to the ill-treatment Coach Fox still receives, given his record at UGA. I agree with that personally. I have ranked Coach Fox as the third best coach I have seen at Georgia, right behind Coach Durham. I did skip over Tubby because he dumped us for what he thought were greener pastures.

Not allowing your team to start the offense until seven seconds left on the clock can make it appear that you are playing good defense. We were not. We were just sitting on the ball to keep the score down. I watched every minute of every game.

Microwave said:

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Monkdawg said:

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Do you think 49-41 is good in conference? Should we not aim higher? Fox's teams were dull as grits, and Fox needed to move on. We were not respected by people who picked the NCAA field. We couldn't get in no matter what Fox's record was. That is the better measure. 2 NCAA tourneys in 9 years and no wins. You think that is acceptable? Not to me. We should be doing what Auburn is doing. That's what I aim for. Not mediocrity.

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I'm pretty sure Sid, under his previous monicker, stated the opinion that it was time for Coach Fox to move on. I believe his objection is to the ill-treatment Coach Fox still receives, given his record at UGA. I agree with that personally. I have ranked Coach Fox as the third best coach I have seen at Georgia, right behind Coach Durham. I did skip over Tubby because he dumped us for what he thought were greener pastures.

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Good memory there. I absolutely posted it was time for Fox to move on. I simply respect what he and staff did and certainly respect those great Dawgs we had for that nice run, albeit by our standards. Still they accomplished a lot of first here at Georgia. We hired Crean to do better, we clearly have not. What I don't understand are the loudest detractors of Fox those years have been the biggest defenders of Crean.

Monk and others have stated numerous times they'd have fired the Staff after year 4. That team won 8 of 12 down the stretch to finish 9-9. Of course that doesn't get a coach fired. Follow that up with 12-6, 11-7, 10-8. Can you imagine UGA firing a Staff after that kinda run? Driller and BMD constantly wanting to fire Fox every year. Throw Dawg44 in the mix and whoever else. Just admit Fox and Staff did a respectable job and Crean & Staff have not.

As to Fox's low offensive output… take a look at your high-powered offensive genius Crean's #'s in conference play that first year. We opened scoring 50 against UT while they scored 96. We scored 50 v UT, 49 v KY, 52 v FLA, 60 v Ark,
52 v A&M, 55 v FLA, 39 v Mizzou (THIRTY-NINE!!), 46 v SC. So, we opened with FIFTY and and closed with THIRTY-NINE & FORTY-SIX. And, y'all wanna harp on Fox's offense?

Fox was not embarrassing, but his brand of basketball was not enjoyable to watch. Fox can be an a-okay coach and yet still not good enough to those of us hoping and wishing for far more. We need to stop re-visiting the past and start looking forward. Our basketball program has sucked for a lifetime. All of our coaches have been flawed. No need to anoint one the least sucky of the bunch.

Remarkably, the program is now at one of its lowest points in recent memory. Besides the familiar (Jonas, Bliss, etc) who does the board want to interview? Are we all open to assistant coaches in the NBA and college? What mid-major coach should we consider? It is early, but it looks like Wes Miller would have been a good pick last year. Who is our guy or gal this year? Do we overpay to get someone like Miller now?

I am in the minority for sure, but if there is no traditional fit out there for us, I would be all for Dawn Staley. Whomever it ends up being has a helluva challenge facing them - we can sell playing time and the University at large. We have next to nothing else to sell or offer. Next staff has to do a complete rebuild with near zero NIL sponsor dollars at their disposal. Unless the next coach is the basketball savior that we have long sought, I am not sure this is a competitive program again for quite some time.

We have had worse than Dawn.

Great minds. As a totally out of the box candidate Staley was on my radar.

It would be super high risk without the known high reward.

Can she translate to the men's game - recruiting, X's and O's, the actual locker room.

I'm not oppose to a conversation. At all.

Nostradawgus said:

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Great minds. As a totally out of the box candidate Staley was on my radar.

It would be super high risk without the known high reward.

Can she translate to the men's game - recruiting, X's and O's, the actual locker room.

I'm not oppose to a conversation. At all.

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Come on, guys. This is UGA we're talking about. Does anyone think that the powers that be at UGA would take such a daring step as to hire Dawn Staley to coach our men's basketball team? No way that would happen.

You are almost 100% right. But we did hire a woman to be the men's T&F coach just recently . . .

True, but she ran both programs at USC and had won nattys there. So, our move was not unprecedented. There is no major school that has a woman as its men's coach. UGA won't do it.

SidViciousDawg said:

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Good memory there. I absolutely posted it was time for Fox to move on. I simply respect what he and staff did and certainly respect those great Dawgs we had for that nice run, albeit by our standards. Still they accomplished a lot of first here at Georgia. We hired Crean to do better, we clearly have not. What I don't understand are the loudest detractors of Fox those years have been the biggest defenders of Crean.

Monk and others have stated numerous times they'd have fired the Staff after year 4. That team won 8 of 12 down the stretch to finish 9-9. Of course that doesn't get a coach fired. Follow that up with 12-6, 11-7, 10-8. Can you imagine UGA firing a Staff after that kinda run? Driller and BMD constantly wanting to fire Fox every year. Throw Dawg44 in the mix and whoever else. Just admit Fox and Staff did a respectable job and Crean & Staff have not.

As to Fox's low offensive output… take a look at your high-powered offensive genius Crean's #'s in conference play that first year. We opened scoring 50 against UT while they scored 96. We scored 50 v UT, 49 v KY, 52 v FLA, 60 v Ark,
52 v A&M, 55 v FLA, 39 v Mizzou (THIRTY-NINE!!), 46 v SC. So, we opened with FIFTY and and closed with THIRTY-NINE & FORTY-SIX. And, y'all wanna harp on Fox's offense?

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Let's go back to 2012-13 (Fox's fourth year) to analyze how that staff ended up surviving and eventually getting five more seasons (and how Tom Crean deserves no such current leeway in a way tougher environment).

In a putrid SEC that netted just three NCAA Tournament teams (not including Kentucky, which suffered injuries and a rare down year), Georgia won five in a row midway through the conference schedule to somewhat right the ship.

The Bulldogs followed that winning streak by losing four of five before rallying for home wins over Tennessee and UK. Fox's fourth season concluded with a road loss to Alabama and a first round SEC tourney loss to LSU. On January 26, 2013, Georgia was sitting at 7-11 (1-4). They managed to finish 15-17 (9-9) and were competitive in virtually every loss down the stretch.

The non-conference schedule for Georgia in 12-13 featured two ranked opponents, including none other than Tom Crean's #1 ranked Indiana squad. It seems like Crean's guys must've played a little defense in that one as they rolled 66-53. Georgia lost non-conference games to Youngstown State, Southern Mississippi, South Florida, Georgia Tech and Iona (which made the NCAA Tournament).

Other than sophomore star Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Georgia didn't have a whole lot of players ready to provide consistent immediate help, so growing pains were expected.

I realize that direct comparisons are impossible, but given the vastly different environments and circumstances, I don't understand how Fox gets nine years and Crean gets four. And I am NOT trying to knock Mark Fox. My point is the same that it has always been. The job is extremely difficult and the margins really aren't as big as most think. But time is often required to establish anything. As Sid put it, people were panicking and crying for Fox's job on a yearly basis back then. It's just not rational. I guess rational doesn't cut it nowadays.

Monkdawg said:

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Microwave said:

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I got to admit I'm surprised. Not about this year alone since we have the last 3 as precedent, but about the whole tenure. As many have said, he has the pedigree of a final four and multiple sweet 16's.

Supposedly TC was to bring a fast-paced, fast break offense here. Never saw any evidence of it. To have that kind of offense, you have to have run-outs from steals and defensive rebounds with a quick outlet and sprintback to beat the other team down the court. But to get rebounds you have to have bigs who are big, strong and skillful enough to box out, and quick enough to get to the ball. That takes raw size and talent in your big men, which we didn't emphasize in our recruiting.

Steals are the result of precise defensive schemes, and emphasis on defensive willingness, skills and quickness, also absent from our recruiting priorities.

Generally Tom's players have been decent enough overall, as shown by what the transfers have done in other programs. But there has been no coherent scheme on offense or defense, other than the announced fast break offense which has been absent from the beginning.

Did this problem just happen once TC came to Georgia, or would it have been evident if the AD or his people had watched his teams play, in person or on film? I would bet the latter.

I have been a fan of some teams who were consistently mediocre or bad for years. I must take some masochistic pleasure in it. But this program has put them all to shame. Gotta hope our present AD and his staff will put in the effort to bring in someone who can turn this thing around quickly.

---

As I have said before, I did not favor Crean's hire, but once he was hired we have an obligation to support him, which I have done. We heard from IU fans early on about their complaints with Crean. Their warnings have proven prescient. He's a bit of an odd duck and sees himself as more of an offensive coach than a defensive coach. He really emphasizes offense to the extreme. Now, I love exciting offense as much as the next fan, but you gotta play defense. One of the knocks on Fox is that he was defensive oriented with not much scheme offensively. Crean has been the reverse. But you can't be uptempo successfully if you turn the ball over like we have under Crean (and Fox, too). We have not had the guard play necessary to play at a breakneck tempo.

That's a good point you make about long, athletic bigs. Crean just hasn't been able to recruit those guys consistently. We have taken flyers on a couple of kids that we hoped would develop into that kind of player, but these experiments have so far failed. You have to be able to defend the post and get rebounds to run. We just don't have the personnel to do it. We can generally hang for about a half, and then lack of depth takes its toll.

I think Crean's shortcomings would have been evident had we watched enough of his film - at least to people who know basketball. I have a friend who spoke to a number of Crean's former players and coaches. None of them liked him or wanted to work with him again. That tells you something. And that indicates a lack of due diligence on our part in the hiring process. McGarity wanted to make a splash hire. All the media types were pushing Crean for our job. We needed to look closer. And I hope we do with the next hire.

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Monk, I won't disagree with much of what you said. Crean clearly is not for everyone. I'll add that basically everyone in Indiana and most national media lauded Archie Miller as being a light years better coach than Crean. They said he would emphasize defense and rid IU of the Crean turnover issues. Archie was a significantly better Xs and Os guy than Crean, they said. He would prioritize in-state recruiting...On and on and on. Other than an initial bump in in-state recruiting (which turned out to be a mixed bag), basically none of those things happened or were borne out in the on-court product or results.

In year two, with a versatile senior star forward in Juwan Morgan (inherited from Crean), freshman stud guard Romeo Langford and several other good pieces, IU lost 12 of 13 Big Ten games at one point.

Excuses from the likes of former ESPN analyst Jeff Goodman flowed for three years. "Tom Crean left the cupboard bare." Archie didn't get to utilize Thomas Bryant, OG Anunoby or James Blackmon, all of whom turned pro (but were technically left for Archie), but he did inherit junior Juwan Morgan, who would blossom into one of the best players in the Big Ten, along with senior sharp shooting guard Robert Johnson, sophomore talent Devonte Green, capable senior guard Josh Newkirk and others.

So forgive me, but I don't think a lot of IU fans that you would've talked to were very rational. The turnover issues were basically always there. That's true. The defensive apathy is overstated though. Crean's best IU teams defended well enough. I would say that the 2013 team was borderline elite. The squads that struggled mightily (2015 and 2017) suffered significant injuries that crippled their interior size and strength. Sound familiar?

TKramer15 said:

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Monkdawg said:

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Microwave said:

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I got to admit I'm surprised. Not about this year alone since we have the last 3 as precedent, but about the whole tenure. As many have said, he has the pedigree of a final four and multiple sweet 16's.

Supposedly TC was to bring a fast-paced, fast break offense here. Never saw any evidence of it. To have that kind of offense, you have to have run-outs from steals and defensive rebounds with a quick outlet and sprintback to beat the other team down the court. But to get rebounds you have to have bigs who are big, strong and skillful enough to box out, and quick enough to get to the ball. That takes raw size and talent in your big men, which we didn't emphasize in our recruiting.

Steals are the result of precise defensive schemes, and emphasis on defensive willingness, skills and quickness, also absent from our recruiting priorities.

Generally Tom's players have been decent enough overall, as shown by what the transfers have done in other programs. But there has been no coherent scheme on offense or defense, other than the announced fast break offense which has been absent from the beginning.

Did this problem just happen once TC came to Georgia, or would it have been evident if the AD or his people had watched his teams play, in person or on film? I would bet the latter.

I have been a fan of some teams who were consistently mediocre or bad for years. I must take some masochistic pleasure in it. But this program has put them all to shame. Gotta hope our present AD and his staff will put in the effort to bring in someone who can turn this thing around quickly.

---

As I have said before, I did not favor Crean's hire, but once he was hired we have an obligation to support him, which I have done. We heard from IU fans early on about their complaints with Crean. Their warnings have proven prescient. He's a bit of an odd duck and sees himself as more of an offensive coach than a defensive coach. He really emphasizes offense to the extreme. Now, I love exciting offense as much as the next fan, but you gotta play defense. One of the knocks on Fox is that he was defensive oriented with not much scheme offensively. Crean has been the reverse. But you can't be uptempo successfully if you turn the ball over like we have under Crean (and Fox, too). We have not had the guard play necessary to play at a breakneck tempo.

That's a good point you make about long, athletic bigs. Crean just hasn't been able to recruit those guys consistently. We have taken flyers on a couple of kids that we hoped would develop into that kind of player, but these experiments have so far failed. You have to be able to defend the post and get rebounds to run. We just don't have the personnel to do it. We can generally hang for about a half, and then lack of depth takes its toll.

I think Crean's shortcomings would have been evident had we watched enough of his film - at least to people who know basketball. I have a friend who spoke to a number of Crean's former players and coaches. None of them liked him or wanted to work with him again. That tells you something. And that indicates a lack of due diligence on our part in the hiring process. McGarity wanted to make a splash hire. All the media types were pushing Crean for our job. We needed to look closer. And I hope we do with the next hire.

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Monk, I won't disagree with much of what you said. Crean clearly is not for everyone. I'll add that basically everyone in Indiana and most national media lauded Archie Miller as being a light years better coach than Crean. They said he would emphasize defense and rid IU of the Crean turnover issues. Archie was a significantly better Xs and Os guy than Crean, they said. He would prioritize in-state recruiting...On and on and on. Other than an initial bump in in-state recruiting (which turned out to be a mixed bag), basically none of those things happened or were borne out in the on-court product or results.

In year two, with a versatile senior star forward in Juwan Morgan (inherited from Crean), freshman stud guard Romeo Langford and several other good pieces, IU lost 12 of 13 Big Ten games at one point.

Excuses from the likes of former ESPN analyst Jeff Goodman flowed for three years. "Tom Crean left the cupboard bare." Archie didn't get to utilize Thomas Bryant, OG Anunoby or James Blackmon, all of whom turned pro (but were technically left for Archie), but he did inherit junior Juwan Morgan, who would blossom into one of the best players in the Big Ten, along with senior sharp shooting guard Robert Johnson, sophomore talent Devonte Green, capable senior guard Josh Newkirk and others.

So forgive me, but I don't think a lot of IU fans that you would've talked to were very rational. The turnover issues were basically always there. That's true. The defensive apathy is overstated though. Crean's best IU teams defended well enough. I would say that the 2013 team was borderline elite. The squads that struggled mightily (2015 and 2017) suffered significant injuries that crippled their interior size and strength. Sound familiar?

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It just goes to show you how hard it is to win consistently at the major college level. The SEC is a tough as hell conference.