Georgia Tech Head Coach Hot List

Hjacket

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
77
This is a creative and outside the box hire with great upside potential. I slammed Batt for firing Pastner, but I cannot slam him for this hire. Are there potential pitfalls, for sure, but the ceiling looks high to me. And he will be the best player at every pracice.
 
leatherneckjacket

leatherneckjacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,145
Location
Atlanta, GA
YlJacket said:
I would be really surprised if Damon isn't making legit money for assistants and a lot of focus on NIL conditions for him coming. He has been around the game long enough to know that and has enough leverage to say I'll just stay with the Celtics if we don't.
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Agreed!

I do hope he and ADJB call up some of our former players to nudge them to build up the NIL funds, but I imagine it was part of the conditions of his hire.
 
Techwood Relict

Techwood Relict

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,506
majorQ9 said:
Shaka just won the Big East at Marquette. Why would he come to GT?
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Apologies on the late and a dollar short answer, the judge doesn't like cell phones in the courtroom, but the quick answer would have been money and ACC opportunity. We were probably in short supply on the money and the ACC component is well argued on both sides of the aisle.
That aside, I'm excited about Damon taking over. Lots of change recently on the Flats.
Go Jackets! :buzz:
 
kg01

kg01

Get-Bak! Coach
Featured Member
Messages
15,345
Location
Atlanta
Although they didn't overlap in TOR, I bet he and Bosh are familiar with one another. Wonder if this is how the connection happened.
 
ESPNjacket

ESPNjacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,531
kg01 said:
Your oneupsmanship knows no bounds, does it?
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I am a firehose of facts.

kurt angle wrestling GIF by WWE
 

tbglover

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
741
travgt01 said:
Didn’t at Georgetown. Didn’t at bama with Avery, not that nil was around then.
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Funny cause Avery Johnson got 5 star recruit Collin Sexton to come there. He also got 5 star John Petty and 4 star Herb Jones along with 4 star Alex Reece in that class. He also got Kora Lewis to sign.
He had the #25 and #8 classes while he was at Bama
 
Jetdrive3

Jetdrive3

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
211
Location
The mountains of Georgia
slugboy said:
I'll answer the latter part below. As for talented players overcoming bad schemes and schemes just being tools, Shaka Smart's recent experience contradicts that. He was recruiting top-flight talent at Texas and underachieving. Now, he's recruiting players who fit his system and they're playing better. It's not hard to find teams that underachieve compared to their perceived talent, which also argues that talented players often don't overcome their schemes--whether they're good schemes or whether they just don't fit into them.

It's really hard to find anything insightful on why Gonzaga has such a strong team. Most of what I see is "it's a fantastic school and they have a great coach". But, there are better schools with great coaches, so that's not the thing that differentiates them.
Dan Fitzgerald spent a lot of effort in the 1990's building them as a team, and got them to one NCAA tournament as a WCC team. Dan Monson did it again in the late 1990's, making the elite 8 before going to coach at Minnesota.
After Mark Few took over for Dan Monson, Gonzaga went from usually not going to a post season tournament to being the Western Conference representative every year. So, if you're a basketball recruit, you know that if you go there you're playing in the tournament. Not even Duke and North Carolina have that kind of guarantee.
They were a smaller school, and all-in on basketball. They still are all-in on basketball.
They have good optics--they're both a basketball powerhouse and still considered a Cinderella school by some viewers, so they get the benefit of both.
Gonzaga is a Nike school, and has gotten great support from them. That may be one of the reasons that they've had such success recruiting.
They were one of the first teams to emphasize recruiting European players. Now, many schools do that, but Gonzaga was a trailblazer, and has some of the strongest recruiting there.

Lastly, there's the advantage of compound interest. Mark Few has been coaching at Gonzaga since 1999--that's nearly 25 years. He started pretty young, but he's about 60 now. He's been really consistent, and he hasn't gotten distracted by other activities. Every year since 1999 has reinforced their recruiting and their support structure.

If Hewitt had been less distractable by other priorities and we had kept up the quality of his assistant coaching pool, imagine how we might be after 25 years of consistent coaching. Look at what that did for Duke. It's hard to find a coach that doesn't turn their attention to other things. Think of what Memphis might be like if Calipari had stayed there. 25 years of consistent coaching and institutional support can be amazing.
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I enjoyed the explanation
 
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