In my continued re-railing attempts, here's a quick little interview with coach ...
Not much we haven't heard but here's a little recap:
- Besides NBA, ACC is best basketball you can find.
- GT going to be a rebuild, gonna take a step back to take 2 steps forward.
- Was a quick courtship, happened within hours basically; Said "they wanted to move quick, so it moved quick".
- THU morning was recruiting for MEM, by FRI morning was on a plane as GT coach.
- Said MEM is the most intense job in cbb due to microscope you're under in that 50-mile radius; following Cal was hard blah, blah, blah... every mistake was in the 24/7 news cycle.
- Cal said GT is a great job, will take some time to rebuild; talked about Crem and Hew having done great jobs here. Mentioned Gregory did a good job improving culture.
- Needs to put 2/3 classes together to build the right way; no quick fixes, focused on sustaining the program.
- Asked why has GT struggled to make the NCAA's? Need to recruit at a high level, put classes together. Gotta get the 'right ones' at a high level; all recruits aren't built for GT
- Lauded the guards we've had; said GT is a combo of guard-U and point guard-U; wants to get our former pros back involved.
- In no rush to make staff hires, working in a "partnership" with AD
- Said usually you have a chance to learn/grow/work through things in your first job; has learned from MEM mistakes
- Said he'd rather not share specifics on what he would've done differently at MEM; was proud of the program.