We'll see where we end up this year and we have alot of tough games to play but Pastner is here through year 5 imo, that is how his contract is structured and how GT wanted it structured.
If he doesn't have an NCAA team by year 5 I expect him to be replaced, but right now it is too early to make that call.
More importantly, firing him before that time is likely to do more to hurt GT basketball in the long term than help it.
First, if we fire him before year 5 his contract is fully guaranteed through year 5 so we would have to pay him the full remaining value of the contract plus hire a new staff. that would almost guarantee we would have to go cheap again (I believe currently only Christian at BC makes less than Pastner currently does).
Second, If you fire him after 3 seasons you are going to have a really difficult time hiring any coach to come here as they will see a school that doesn't really have their back when they know they were going to rebuild.
If after year 5 we have to replace him I believe we will at least be in the best position to hire a new coach as we have been in my lifetime. First, we have no other buyouts to pay. Second Pastner's buyout becomes pro-rated. Third, we are likely to be in a better place than we have been with our 3 previous hires. We may not be great, but I don't think we will be awful.
If we get to that point we have to be willing to offer at least $2.5MM and possibly closer to $3 for the next coach.
I don't know yet whether he is going to be the right long term answer - there are parts of the last 2 1/2 years that suggest yes and parts that suggest no. Keep in mind he already has more wins both overall and in conference than Gregory or Cremins had at the end of their first 3 years. 4 more wins would give him more overall wins than Hewitt's first 3 years and 5 more wins would give him as many ACC wins as Hewitt had his first 3 years (more losses also).
It's never been 'easy' to win at GT. We've had some strong stretches, but never a really long term sustained excellence. We've never had more than 3 consecutive seasons of 20+ wins (87-88 to 89-90).
Our best sustained stretch was from 84-85 to 89-90 where we had 5 20+ win seasons in 6 years. That's almost 1/3 of the 16 total seasons of 20+ wins we have had in school history.
Cremins had 1 20+ win season his last 8 years. Hewitt had 2 20+ seasons his last 6 (and 4 losing seasons), Gregory had 1 20+ win season in his 5 years (and 3 losing seasons).
In terms of having to rebuild i'd rank it like this
Cremins (GT was 1-27 in the ACC the 2 years before he arrived, included 4-23 overall, 0-14 ACC the year before). People didn't think GT could compete in the ACC, much less win.
Pastner (He came in off of Gregory's only 20 win team, but he was losing the top 4 players - and 5 of its top 8 - from that team with just one 4* returning player in Tadric and no 4* recruits and losing 75%+ of its production)
Gregory (he came in off of an awful 11-20 team, but one that did have talent as he had 4 4* players on his first squad - Rice, Udofia, Holsey, Royal - unfortunately Rice was a knucklehead and Royal overrated).
Hewitt (Cremins last squad went 13-17 and was the end of Jason Collier's time but Hewitt did have 3 Top 75 players on his first roster with Akins, Jones and Marvin Lewis and returned most of the team from the previous year.)
What Pastner has done so far is not out of line we any of the previous modern era coaches, until he moves one way or the other it is simply too early to make any decisions.
