I get that he is the sentimental and "easy" default for a lot of fans.

And if it is Jonas ultimately I am all in.

But - and I'm being serious - educate me on what he is bringing OTHER than presumably recruiting.

He's never been a head coach. Anywhere. I don't know that he's ever been a candidate for a head job anywhere.

I don't know that he's been an assistant at a program that has had sustained NCAA achievement or success. I don't know that he's ever been the top assistant at a program.

I don't see that he's killing it in Georgia on the recruiting trail for Xavier.

Maybe it's as simple as he's the right fit for Georgia and that is the golden ticket.

I just don't know or see it. But I want to.

Kirby Smart had NEVER BEEN A HEAD COACH!! He DID COACH under the BEST OF ALL TIME!!

I get that. But a little different. Kirby was DC for a program that won multiple national titles. He also had a vast resume at other schools.

I'm not against Jonas. And Monk have given some solid intel.

I'm just fearful that even though we have been insignificant to borderline wretched since Tubby, if we blow it this time there may be no coming back. Just can't blow this hire.

While I would love for it to work out for Jonas here or elsewhere down the line, my gut says that he needs to chart his own course and be the guy somewhere else first. As you note, Xavier is not exactly killing it on the court or the recruiting trail.

While he can make a leap from assistant to HC without doing a stint at a mid-major first, his resume is a bit thin still. It is not objectively clear that he is ready for this type of challenge (or even near ready). Perhaps interviews will prove otherwise. If he commands a room and he can present a believable plan of attack, then I could see it working. It is just hard to gauge his recruiting chops. It was just okay while here. Hard to know how much of that was driven by the situation with Fox, his age, or his inability to sell UGA.

We are due some luck here, but we cannot expect it. I would have misgivings about his hire (it would seem lazy) but I would be happy to be proven wrong.

I will say that there were a number of kids in GA that the assistants wanted Fox to offer and pursue that he refused to do. 2 of them started in the backcourt for a Final Four Auburn team.

I am very comfortable with the evaluation and recruiting element. Maybe that's the most important element and we let him grow into the job. We got to get the in-state players.

allanhixon@msn.com said:

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He DID COACH under the BEST OF ALL TIME!!

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This is true. Jonas...has not.

Educate me if I'm wrong, but Mark Fox is either the best or second best coach Hayes has worked under, and he has coached exactly one team that went to the NCAA tournament.

If Jonas hadn't gone to UGA - regardless of some past recruiting success - he wouldn't even be close to on the radar. The fact that he is an alum just doesn't close the gap for me...

StevieBuckets said:

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allanhixon@msn.com said:

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He DID COACH under the BEST OF ALL TIME!!

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This is true. Jonas...has not.

Educate me if I'm wrong, but Mark Fox is either the best or second best coach Hayes has worked under, and he has coached exactly one team that went to the NCAA tournament.

If Jonas hadn't gone to UGA - regardless of some past recruiting success - he wouldn't even be close to on the radar. The fact that he is an alum just doesn't close the gap for me...

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My reply is "so what?"

Brooks has got to do one heck of a sales job to get the "right fit" to take the job whomever it may be.

Monkdawg said:

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StevieBuckets said:

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allanhixon@msn.com said:

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He DID COACH under the BEST OF ALL TIME!!

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This is true. Jonas...has not.

Educate me if I'm wrong, but Mark Fox is either the best or second best coach Hayes has worked under, and he has coached exactly one team that went to the NCAA tournament.

If Jonas hadn't gone to UGA - regardless of some past recruiting success - he wouldn't even be close to on the radar. The fact that he is an alum just doesn't close the gap for me...

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My reply is "so what?"

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My reply is if "went to UGA" is the main thing you're looking for in a new head coach, I think Jonas is your guy. I'm not even mad about it.

Personally, if we're going the assistant coach route, I'd prefer someone who has experienced a sustained level of success under a great head coach.

I'm not even being snarky here. Different strokes for different folks.

StevieBuckets said:

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Monkdawg said:

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StevieBuckets said:

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allanhixon@msn.com said:

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He DID COACH under the BEST OF ALL TIME!!

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This is true. Jonas...has not.

Educate me if I'm wrong, but Mark Fox is either the best or second best coach Hayes has worked under, and he has coached exactly one team that went to the NCAA tournament.

If Jonas hadn't gone to UGA - regardless of some past recruiting success - he wouldn't even be close to on the radar. The fact that he is an alum just doesn't close the gap for me...

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My reply is "so what?"

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My reply is if "went to UGA" is the main thing you're looking for in a new head coach, I think Jonas is your guy. I'm not even mad about it.

Personally, if we're going the assistant coach route, I'd prefer someone who has experienced a sustained level of success under a great head coach.

I'm not even being snarky here. Different strokes for different folks.

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My reply wasn't intended to be snarky either. I literally meant that none of that matters. If Jonas can recruit GA and sign up a good staff, which I feel confident he can, he is likely to be successful. Jonas cannot be held responsible for Fox's failures, particularly since Fox would not take suggestions as strategy and who to recruit from his assistants. I have some firsthand knowledge about Fox and how his regime ran. I dare say Jonas would not run his team the way Fox did. It would be more akin to how Harrick ran his program. I don't think we would complain about that.

Quote:

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If Jonas can recruit GA and sign up a good staff, which I feel confident he can, he is likely to be successful.

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Is Penny Hardaway a cautionary tale here? A guy who has recruited lights out, seemingly assembled a winning staff, yet still can't win at a more traditional power.

Or should we consider him an anomaly?

I lean towards the latter, but am interested in opinions on the board since he's a recent and close parallel to the "hire an alum who can recruit" strategy.

I saw a segment on ESPN that Memphis may be the hottest team right now and trying to overcome losses piled up when they had injuries to get to ncaa. This is not dispositive on Jonas either way but the segment caught my attention.

It's a crap shoot with whoever you hire. No way - at all - I figured we'd be where we are right now when we hired Crean. Hell I thought we got lucky when Matta gave us the hard pass.

StevieBuckets said:

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Quote:

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If Jonas can recruit GA and sign up a good staff, which I feel confident he can, he is likely to be successful.

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Is Penny Hardaway a cautionary tale here? A guy who has recruited lights out, seemingly assembled a winning staff, yet still can't win at a more traditional power.

Or should we consider him an anomaly?

I lean towards the latter, but am interested in opinions on the board since he's a recent and close parallel to the "hire an alum who can recruit" strategy.

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I would agree that Hardaway has not done a great job at Memphis. I just don't see him as a very good coach. But any hire can fail. Every hire is a gamble. Who knew Miller would fail at AZ, for example. He had tons of experience and recruited well, too. Crean looked like a solid hire on paper. He had tons of experience, too. Anthony Grant failed at Bama. It's all about the character and the fit of the person you hire.

Just don't make a hire where we will be a proving ground for Kentucky or Duke.

Anyone know who Ben Egger favors as a potential coach? As I remember, he favored Eric Musselman and Buzz Williams when our last opening came up. As it turns out, either of those would have been fine hires.

friendofbob said:

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Just don't make a hire where we will be a proving ground for Kentucky or Duke.

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I don't get this. We have lost exactly 2 coaches in any sport we would like to have kept. Ron Polk returned to MSU in baseball, and Tubby went to UK when Dooley basically told him he had to take the job and we didn't even try to keep him. I want any coach at UGA to be the envy of every other school in the country. I want them to try to come get him, and I want us to do what we can to keep him. To worry about losing a coach because he is too successful is just ridiculous....

100%. We will never win if we are aiming for a candidate that is good but not too good, or more loyal than good. We have just got to pony up to keep a good one should we stumble into one. End of story.

Jay McAuley (head coach Wofford) would be a good hire. Played at UGA for 4 years, has been assistant under successful coaches including current Ohio state coach Chris Holtman as well as Niko Medved at Colorado state. He's from Ga I believe. Not sure why his name hasn't been mentioned more

McAuley's results in his 3 years at Wofford have not been great - just mediocre. McMahon's record at Murray St is much superior, if we are talking mid-majors.

The southern conference is a stronger conference than Ohio valley and McMahon likely has little to no experience recruiting Georgia. For example, Murray state got blown out by ETSU this year who finished near the bottom of the Socon. All I'm saying is I think McAuley should be in the conversation given his roots to UGA, his experience under successful coaches, his moderate success in a tough league, and his ability to recruit Ga.

McMahon has had 1 kid from GA in the last 4 years, but he has had players from all over the south. Ja Morant was from South Carolina, for example. I went back over Wofford's last 4 rosters. Only 1 player from GA, with 1 from Aiken, SC. McAuley has kids from all over, including up north, but none really from GA either.

Whoever they hire better be adept at utilizing transfer portal. It's completely changed how coaches have to operate. Would be a huge mistake to not hire a "players coach" given the new rules.

Godawgs101 said:

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Whoever they hire better be adept at utilizing transfer portal. It's completely changed how coaches have to operate. Would be a huge mistake to not hire a "players coach" given the new rules.

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Yes, the portal is the fastest way to stock your bench and improve your team.

Can someone explain how Jonas is a better candidate than McAuey? He has no HC experience and Xavier has a sub 500 conference record.

I am not sure one is better than the other. They have both accomplished a lot. I think it is just that Jonas is beloved and folks yearn for a return to the Harrick years where Jonas was more the face of the program. He was also here for many years as an assistant. Objectively, McAuley may have accomplished more in his career by becoming a head coach, but he is also saddled right now with a less than remarkable W-L record.

Jonas does not have a W-L record. Although Xavier has struggled in recent years, folks can argue it is not his program, just like it was not his here with Fox. He is more of an unwritten book that you can craft a narrative around. He is the hope and change candidate that people just like. That is not a bad thing given where we are right now.

But yes, there is clearly some risk with Jonas. You can be a great guy and still not get it done. While I don't get the Jonas or bust mindset, his candidacy is clearly a galvanizing force for the fan base. I do think a guy who is a name in the state, who has recruited the state, is ideal. I would just like to have seen him been a head coach somewhere and/or seen him have more success as a assistant coach. Perhaps he can be more of a transformative figure as a head coach. We will find out soon enough.

Xavier lost today. We are losing big. Job is going to be open soon and Jonas is going to be available to interview with Xavier in NIT.

Hiring an unproven, feel good coach that we "like", seems like a bad idea to me. Assistants rarely (if ever) are plucked from bad teams to coach power 5 programs.

We need someone who can develop players quickly, and has a real pulse on the portal. College BB is turning into a yearly transfer fest with programs trying to build super teams year in- year out. Players wanna play with their buddies from AAU. It's why all these older coaches are retiring, can't discipline kids because you risk hurting their feelings then they're off to play somewhere else. It's a real mess. The game will suffer for it.

Yeah, I want Jonas here, but I would prefer it to be as an assistant. Although if the search goes poorly, I could warm up to him as the guy. He would be better than Gates (middling results and style of play) or the North Texas guy (style of play).

I am hopeful that we interview Jonas and a number of guys. To get the guy that can be transformative, I think we are going to have to hire a young guy. Younger than we would like. The most established candidates are going to have better options. We don't need to pick from the best of the rest list of mid-major coaches. We need to be using Parker to dive into the emerging names list. Jonas should be on that list.

One last thought on hiring Jonas. Looking at it from an AD perspective, he is too risky. If things go bad in 4 years, the AD will be blamed more for a hire in which the candidate had no real objective positives to his resume as is the case with Jonas. Too risky from an AD perspective

It is fascinating. Brooks can succeed in his role by making great non-revenue hires and facilitating sustained excellence in the football program, but this is truly his only opportunity to make a statement hire (well, unless he can fix gymnastics).

The majority seem to want Jonas. Brooks either needs to knock it out of the park with an established candidate that no one saw coming that wins everyone over, or he needs to hire Jonas. He is going to take a big PR hit by hiring a guy that most have never heard of over Jonas. Perhaps the narrative changes if the Xavier coach gets fired and Jonas is not a candidate there, but an underwhelming "wait and see" mid-major guy may not be sellable to the fan base. It is a bit wild, but the majority seem to want Jonas. If he passes on Jonas and makes a failed hire, the bloom is going to be off the rose a bit.

As I have said in other threads, any hire is a risk. A mid-major coach with no ties to UGA or the state is a risk, even hiring an established name coach is a risk (see Crean), and hiring Jonas is a perceived risk because of lack of HC experience. One thing I know - Jonas will be able to recruit the state. Some players are already saying they want to play for him. He will be able to accumulate talent. He ould be a player magnet. You can doubt that, but he will. And if we take the money we save by hiring Jonas instead of some big name, high dollar guy and put it into assistant salaries, recruiting, etc., we can minimize the risk and have a potentially high upside.

I don't think you are in the minority. It will be fascinating to watch what he does. DawgSports suggests that he might be trying to coax him back as an assistant if he is not the guy. That seems likely to blow up in his face.

The only thing I will say re: Jonas is that if hired, we are dumping him into a tough, tough job that would be un-winnable for most even with experience. He is going to have to learn to swim as a head coach starting a good 10 miles out to sea. Crean has left nothing but challenges. The conference is tougher than it is has ever been. I have no doubt he can do it under normal circumstances, but it is expecting a lot for him to do it under the present circumstances.

https://www.dawgsports.com/2022/3/10/22971960/uga-basketball-search-georgia-new-coach-niko-medved-jonas-hayes-matt-mcmahon

Atowndawg said:

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I don't think you are in the minority. It will be fascinating to watch what he does. DawgSports suggests that he might be trying to coax him back as an assistant if he is not the guy. That seems likely to blow up in his face.

The only thing I will say re: Jonas is that if hired, we are dumping him into a tough, tough job that would be un-winnable for most even with experience. He is going to have to learn to swim as a head coach starting a good 10 miles out to sea. Crean has left nothing but challenges. The conference is tougher than it is has ever been. I have no doubt he can do it under normal circumstances, but it is expecting a lot.

https://www.dawgsports.com/2022/3/10/22971960/uga-basketball-search-georgia-new-coach-niko-medved-jonas-hayes-matt-mcmahon

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No doubt the next coach will be in the fire, and we will likely have to be patient with anyone we hire. The SEC is just a murderers' row....

Jay has never recruited a blue chip player in his career. As assistant or otherwise. So no.