Many were ready to jump off her bandwagon after a couple of years, but her team has aged into being pretty good, and recruiting has picked up. McGarity stuck with her. Same with baseball coach Scott Stricklin. It took him awhile to get going, but things have gotten better for the team (though losing last year to COVID really hurt because we could have contended for championships). Perhaps the same will happen with Crean if we are patient enough. How long we will be patient will be up to Josh Brooks, and no one knows but him.

I looked up her records relative to Landers. There can be no argument we are not at the levels Landers had us until his last two years. We were NCAA automatic and usually there for a stretch.

But is she that far off? No, not dramatically like gymnastics has fallen.

And has the rest of the conference elevated beyond UT and UGA in the interceding years? Oh hell yes.

She just needs to build on this to the next level.

The landscape of women's college basketball is totally different than when Landers got to UGA. I was an undergrad at the time. The powers were Old Dominion, Delta State, La Tech, etc. Tenn and UConn were just beginning to be powers. There was very little competition in recruiting for the top players, and Landers recruited very well early on. As the women's game got more competitive, Landers began to tail off. It's a different environment today. Much harder for Joni to make an impact early.