The portal is portaling.
I realize that basketball for many of us is a “meh”, but in my time in Athens there were a few short glory years with Tubby Smith, who likewise hit the portal for more money and a school that also seems to take the sport seriously with facilities, resources, and culture.
If Alabama and Florida can do it, Georgia certainly could, too.
Where would it start? What’s the steps that Brooks et al could take to show Georgia is invested in building a basketball program and not just an afterthought to the football season?
as simple as money money and mo money to legally obtain the services of the many talented Georgians and a legit coach
in other words, what chapel hill is doing with football
“They call me Mr. Tibby”…sometimes words spoken or not, speak volumes, no real mention of his developement under UGA basketball HC, sometimes you can test those waters, yet stay at the current address….does the potential for next years roster tell him it’s time to go and go fast…GO DAWGS!!
Damn it to hell. At least I didn’t autocorrect to Titty Smith. She was at Toppers back in the 90s.
Chip Towers has entered the chat
At the Clermont now, with orange hair… a friend told me…
Clermont Lounge did give a unique definition to “dive bar”….
At this point, my expectations of this team is that they will have one great season a decade, but that great season would be considered an abject failure at real basketball schools. This is as good as it gets, folks.
Unfortunately, I think you’re correct. Get us to the tournament every couple of years, and beat Tech every year, and a coach could retire here.
Kind of like a certain football coach at Kentucky
I don’t know. Florida got the right coach in Billy Donovan and kept him from being poached. We got Tubby, and he was gone while the getting was good. We got Harrick, and then his ethical challenges caught up to him.
Georgia basketball is Kentucky football. We can have a good season, but we can be a freaking dumpster fire.
I guarantee you a basketball recruit comes in to see our football facilities compared to our basketball facilities. He leaves and thinks, “They don’t care. Why should I come here when I can go to Auburn?”
On the player in question, if he goes to another school with non-graduate eligibility remaining, he is not a DGD in this fan’s eyes.
That also applies in my mind to a certain WR who decided to leave for his last year of college (don’t care about the circumstances).
Gotta have an unusually gifted HC. As good as CMR was in football, he still couldn’t break through the ceiling for a championship. Having arguably the best HC in cfb with Kirby is the reason we challenged for, and won, nattys.
Tubby was a truly gifted HC. A gem like that only comes along once (maybe) in a generation. Same can be said for Yoculan.
Seems to me that unless you have a HC that is considered one of the best you shouldn’t expect to be more successful than any other program.
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ON
Simply put new facilities and a huge cash infusion into the program. Every time I step into Stegeman I swear I can still smell the rodeos from back in the day. They’ve done their best to put lipstick on a pig but the new Akins Arena in town outshines the Steg. UGA apparently needs to seriously up their NIL game in hoops if Silas’ move is any indication. Additionally I’m not sold on White as a top level coach but that is probably another topic of discussion.
The Steg is 25 years newer and 1000 seats larger than Cameron Indoor Stadium. If you tried to replace Cameron, The Duke faithful would riot. It’s funny how multiple championship banners hanging from the rafters changes your perception of a building. Thier’s is an icon and ours has become an eyesore.
Selling recruits on a shithole with one Final Four banner that is covered in 40+ years of dust compared to a shithole with multiple National championships is a bit different. The question was how do you show that the school is invested in a real basketball program. It takes more than painting the ceiling black and making sure more pieces of said ceiling won’t fall down during a game to show that to top talent that will change the direction of a program.
My point exactly. If you have multiple championship banners hanging from the rafters, you can play in the biggest shit hole and those banners make it “iconic”. Take away the banners (in our case we really don’t have any other than gymnastics) and that same iconic venue is viewed as a dump. We have a dump with nothing to even REMOTELY consider it to be an icon. As others have pointed out, if we go after and land a top tier coach then that old dump won’t look nearly as bad. Keep the same attitude towards basketball and it won’t matter what we build. There still won’t be recruits wanting to head East to old state U.
I think Mike White has the men’s team heading in the right direction, but the women’s team baffles me. Andy Landers built that into one of the top five programs in the country. I understand that there will be some drop-off when you replace a legend, but they just fell off a cliff.
Mike “peewee” White is not the answer!
Andy Landers, I think, points in the direction of a possible solve. Those recruits came to Georgia because of Landers, not because of rodeo barn they play in or the ancillary facilities. Brooks seems to be good at attracting good coaching talent…Mike White feels like a swing and a miss. Pay a good man his money and you might see the recruits and talent necessary follow. Ole Miss did well and their basketball facilities leave a little to be desired. I think getting the right man is key…obviously after Crean anyone looked good, and that ain’t saying much.
Give White Auburn level or Florida level NIL money and watch White’s coaching skills look better.
My concern here is that they might’ve already tried that with Newell and it didn’t work as planned.
I care about Georgia basketball to the extent that it would be nice to see them do better but I don’t think about it much.
Still, having Atlanta in their backyard leaves the program no excuse for not at least being good.
Living in the bottom 1/3 of the conference (yes, this year too) is not acceptable. You asked the question so let’s get radical.
1) Fire Joshua Brooks
2) Hire a proven AD with a winning pedigree
3) The school must commit $ as football program has received
4) Hire a high level coach – we’ve missed out on Chris Beard, Calipari, Sean Miller to name a few in recent years
5) CCC must step up!
Could not have said it better
College bb is dead as UGA’s known it. 4 fixes:
1. Hire an assistant coach from the NBA big on player development
2. Recruit Europe heavily. NIL can compete with their pro leagues for the money.
3. Play NBA style to attract eyeballs of young prospects.
4. Knock down the Steg and put up a new state of the art facility.
Unfortunately we don’t have the vision, desire nor investment to do it.
My personal view is that the first thing you have to do is lay the foundation upon fundamentals. You need to “burn down the barn to kill the rats.” Everyone wants to chase the shiny objects. You can’t build a program on one and dones. And you can’t compete in a market of so few against so many going who are going after them.
I say you do it like Indiana under knight and Coach K at Duke. Like Kirby does in football. (I am imagining Hurley has done this in Storrs but since I almost never watch cbb anymore I won’t speculate.) If you can add some of that Erk magic, it wouldn’t hurt.
Protect the ball, pass the ball, make your free throws, defend as if your life depended on it. Lead the conference in forced to, least off TO’s, ft %, lowest fg % allowed. If you don’t play to that standard, you don’t play here. Be the smartest, toughest, physically and mentally, best conditioned team out there. Find a Mahorn or Lambier if need be. Not dirty. Just guys who annoy the fuck out of people and get them off their game.
Be patient. Build a reputation. Build a brand. Rely on guys who are going to play 4 to 5 years and count on the fact that they will whip 18 yo former hs phenoms who are going to the nba after year 1.
Stop searching for the microwave solution. It rarely succeeds.
Replicating some Vern Fleming’s over at the Biology Department wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Vern Fleming was the greatest point guard in UGA basketball history.
The Steg is fine, now. My 60 year observations about UGA basketball is that Georgians never thought the UGA athletic administration gave a big enough shit about basketball. Not enough great players wanted to play for a college that didn’t care enough.
The 2003 disaster reinforced the feelings of the hs and AAU coaches that UGA didn’t care about basketball.
We are doing better now in showing we care. The next step is being one of the most generous NIL schools.
To the “replace the Steg” folks, that would cost a ton and siphon money out of the NIL pool.
Contrarian here. Demary is a good kid who isn’t leaving for another school – he’s going to the NBA (probably). Two years is a lifetime these days in college ball for talented kids. Yeah, the team finished in the bottom third of the SEC, but pretty much every other team in the country would have done that as well. Yes, it is disappointing to get beaten in the first round. I thought we would match up well with Gonzaga on paper. The difference is that we weren’t used to dancing and Gonzaga definitely was so 27-3 to start the first half is what happened. The fact is they outscored Gonzaga the rest of the way. The only way I would be in favor of firing Mike White is if John Wooden came back to earth.
Our group definitely weren’t ready for prime time, that’s for sure. Had the yips. Question is how does White build a roster like Alabama’s that shot 75 three pointers on Thursday and hit 60% of them. That’s a combo of NIL and culture.
What made Kirby successful was only partly due to his talent as a coach and the culture he brought with him. As The Senator pointed out numerous times McGoofy suddenly was caused to open the purse strings. Richt couldn’t get raises for his coaches or an indoor practice field or much of anything. Kirby has gotten what he wanted and it still took him six years to get the battleship completely turned. Brooks has done great things with most of the teams he oversees. Look at the current baseball team, for example. The basketball team last year to this year reminds me of 2016-2017 under Kirby. It’s coming; the worst thing to do right now would be to interrupt the progress. It’s hard, but this is no Fox program.
6 years? he had us one phantom offsides play from a title in year 2.