Why do our college hoops teams struggle so?
Well here we are again. It’s late February, the college basketball regular season is winding down, and our local teams figure to be on the outside looking in when March Madness starts.
In all likelihood, the only path to the NCAA tournament for Georgia, Auburn and Alabama is to win the SEC tournament. Likewise for Georgia Tech in the ACC.
The question is … why?
The short answer is recruiting.
Talent matters. It might not be all about the players, but talent is a prerequisite.
Georgia has two really good players in guard J.J. Frazier and forward Yante Maten, and now Maten is out indefinitely with a sprained knee. But that’s about it.
All of these programs have enjoyed their runs of success. Tech went to nine consecutive NCAA tournaments under Bobby Cremins, highlighted by that Final Four appearance in 1990. Cremins defied all odds and signed some of the top players in the country: from Mark Price to Tom Hammonds to James Forrest to Dennis Scott to Kenny Anderson to Stephon Marbury.
But the last great Tech player was Jarrett Jack, who has been gone for 12 years now.
Wimp Sanderson took Alabama to the NCAA tournament 10 times in 11 seasons. They were less successful under his successors, David Hobbs and Mark Gottfried. Even so, they went to seven NCAA tournaments in 14 seasons. This prolonged stretch included Derrick McKey, Jim Farmer, Latrell Sprewell, Robert Horry, James Robinson, Jason Caffey and Antonio McDyess – all NBA first-round draft picks.
Georgia and Auburn had their runs as well.
But for all four schools, such success seems so long ago.
The deeper question is why do these schools continue to struggle attracting some of the top players?
The easy answer is coaching. But that’s too easy. The fact is even Cremins and Sanderson would struggle to recruit as well now as they did back in the day.
As long as the fan bases remain apathetic toward basketball in Georgia and Alabama this is not going to change.
The problem isn’t coaching. The problem is a lack of commitment from the highest levels of administration and from the fans.
And changing coaches every four or five years is not a commitment. Along the same lines, disgruntled – and often delusional – fans wanting to fire highly competent coaches such as Georgia’s Mark Fox does not constitute commitment or support. If anything, it undermines the success of the program.
Georgia and Alabama scarcely produce enough elite-level talent to support the flagship programs. What has compounded the problem in the last 10 or more years is that the programs can’t even retain half of the top level players.
So they are going out of state to tradition-rich programs.
If they can’t keep some of the best players in state, how attractive can they be to bringing in top players from other states?
That’s not to say that these schools should just accept mediocrity year after year after year. Sometimes change is necessary. Georgia Tech parted ways with Brian Gregory last year and hired Josh Pastner, which was a good move. Nothing against Gregory, but Pastner is an energetic coach and solid recruiter.
Alabama did the same two years ago, firing Anthony Grant and hiring Avery Johnson, a former NBA Coach of the Year.
Auburn hit a home run when it hired Bruce Pearl, who had restored Tennessee’s program to national prominence.
But even at the very best, winning is going to come in cycles at all of these schools. When they do manage to land a great recruiting class, it will be difficult to follow that up with another one because one of their primary selling points is immediate playing time.
Georgia, Auburn and Alabama never be on par with Kentucky, or even Florida. At least not on a consistent basis. Tech is a little different. At least the Yellow Jackets can sell recruits on playing in the ACC. But not even Cremins could enjoy the consistency of North Carolina and Duke.
Some things will never change.
This story was originally published February 25, 2017 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Why do our college hoops teams struggle so?."