This past week the University Of Georgia officially hired Tom Crean to become their next basketball coach. Crean has had tremendous success in his coaching career, including several appearances in the NCAA tournament and a few regular season conference championships. Now that he has returned to the coaching side of things, let us look at his accomplishments and determine whether he will be the coach that could propel Georgia to the next step.
Tom Crean’s coaching career
Tom Crean started his college coaching career at the University of Marquette in 1999.
During his time there he led the Golden Eagles to five NCAA tournament appearances, one regular season conference championship, and one trip to the Final Four in the 2002-2003 season. He then was hired by the University of Indiana during the 2008-2009 season. Indiana has always been known as one of those historic programs that have had a wealth of talent and a ton of success. During his time at IU Crean led the Hooisers to four NCAA Tournament appearances and two Big Ten regular season championships. Crean was then fired in the 2016-2017 season after going 18-16 and missing the postseason tournament.
Why Tom Crean will turn Georgia basketball around
First, let us look at former coach Mark Fox.
During his nine-year tenure at UGA Fox set a school record for the most 20+ win seasons for the Bulldogs. The problem is he only made two appearances in the NCAA tournament. While Georgia has had some very talented players recently, they just could not seem to take that next step with Fox as the coach.
Like football, during Mark Richt’s tenure, he had a wealth of talent, but only managed to win one SEC Championship and never made it to a National Championship game.
Do not get me wrong, Mark Richt is still an amazing coach and will forever go down in UGA history, but a change had to be made, and this past year the world saw what Georgia football can do with the right man at the top.
Now enter Tom Crean, who has taken a year off from basketball to be an analyst. According to Charles Odum from the Pharos Tribune, Athletic Director Greg McGarity was quoted as saying, "His teams have consistently been participants in postseason play, and his players have been extremely successful in the classroom.” With the success Crean has had in the past and the enthusiasm he brought for just the press conference alone, there is a real chance that Tom Crean could lead the Georgia Bulldogs to an elite level in basketball in the coming years.
For Crean to do this he is going to need to attract young players from the state of Georgia. Georgia has a ton of talented basketball players, but they always seem to pass on Georgia because they are not known for their success in basketball. Seeing a coach like Tom Crean enter the scene, it may change the mindset for these recruits and allow Georgia to bring in a wealth of talent that they have not seen in a while.
