To say the Tom Crean experiment is off to a rough start in Athens would be a ridiculous understatement.
The former Indiana and Marquette men’s basketball coach has slightly improved the team’s record year-to-year from his disastrous first season at Georgia, but that’s not the problem here.
The problem is Crean was brought in to lock down the state of Georgia in basketball, or at least pluck a handful of in-state products from the likes of Auburn, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama and others.
Mark Fox did a solid job getting the most out of his players at Georgia prior to Crean, but many wanted to see the program take the next step with a guy like Crean who was expected to recruit.
Many fans’ frustrations boiled over by the midpoint of another disappointing season in 2020-2021.
However, most were on board with trusting Crean for another year, given he had developed Sahvir Wheeler, Toumani Camara, Tye Fagan and others now.
Then, over half of the Bulldogs’ leading scorers left the program.
Crean is left with an empty cupboard in Athens, while managing to recruit 13th out of 14 teams in the SEC for 2021.
As of right now, the leading contributor returning outside of KD Johnson is walk-on Jaxon Etter.
The program has hit rock bottom, even with any COVID-19 or transfer rule excuses that Crean keeps pumping along. The fact of the matter is, the Dawgs are in trouble.
Every SEC team has won an NCAA Tournament game since Georgia last did in 2002, which was also vacated. The Dawgs have not won a tournament game that counted in the record books since 1996.
Athletic Director Josh Brooks has been excellent with fan engagement, communication and just about everything else during his tenure as the head guy at Georgia.
It’s time to see what Brooks can do with a hire in the basketball realm now.
Just look at these tweets from former players within the program and members of the media.
Who would want to play for this guy?
And for the ‘Georgia is a football school’ crowd …
Obviously the Dawgs aren’t going to be a blue blood like a Duke, UNC or Kentucky. They aren’t going to be able to get a coach like Mick Cronin who went and found success in fixing UCLA.
However, they can do better than Tom Crean.
Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee and Vanderbilt have all won at least a share of the regular season SEC title or the tournament in the past decade.
The Tigers and South Carolina, two of Georgia’s primary basketball rivals, have made Final Four runs in the past 5 years.
Georgia doesn’t have to make a run at a Final Four, but you can’t tell me the program is the best it can be right now. Especially under a guy making $3.2 million a year to do this.
Look around the region. Georgia Tech, Clemson, Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida State and South Carolina all seem to have figured it out to some degree.
Heck, Nate Oats is over at Alabama, a perennial football power, with an arena in worse condition than Georgia’s, winning both the regular season and conference tournament title.
Oats took his Tide to the Sweet 16 in year two and is recruiting with the likes of Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and UCLA.
A little further to the South, you will find Auburn. Bruce Pearl and company just plucked five-star Jabari Smith out of the Atlanta metro, in addition to nabbing Georgia legacy Walker Kessler in the transfer portal.
The Dawgs may never be a legitimate threat in basketball, but getting rid of Tom Crean at least opens the door for some kind of hope.
And look at this. The guy puts his former standouts from other schools on wallpaper in his office, while making the UGA legends of the program a cardboard cutout on the side.
You know, the guys who actually played for the G logo on their chests and in that very building.
It’s time to end this disaster.
Grab Jonas Hayes from Xavier and turn this program around. Hayes has key connections in the recruiting hotbed of Georgia and out-recruits Crean there from 500 miles away.
