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Maybe the Curse of the Blitz gets passed to GT.
I thought we loved this guy last year?
Gregory was definitely among the more-discussed mid-major candidates, along with Brownell, Groce, and Marshall. However, there was a lot of discussion about Gregory's shortcomings and I would say it is a big stretch to say that the board "loved" him.
As I've mentioned before, aside from Brad Stevens there was no consensus candidate last year, and I think GT has discovered that the same is true this year. Once you get past Stevens, Shaka Smart, and perhaps Chris Mooney, there don't seem to be many up-and-coming mid-major coaches that the big schools are targeting. Certainly not enough to fill all the major jobs that are or were recently available (GT, NCSU, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee).
Gregory has won the NIT. He made the finals of the A-10 tournament this year. He has won an NCAA game.
His resume is more impressive than [Redacted]'s.
At least a change really NEEDED to be made with Hewitt... as opposed to ditching a coach who was doing alright for a crap one
If we were within 2 ACC wins of this season's record with Dino at the helm would he still have been "doing alright?"
Hewitt was a massive underachiever based on the talent the put on the floor and he had totally lost the fan base at Tech. Gregory may or may not have been the right hire, but GT had to do something as apathy was setting in with the fan base...
• Hiring Gregory is a questionable move. So let's get this straight: The Yellow Jackets pay $7 million to buy out Hewitt and then hire Gregory, whose Flyers finished 7-9 in the A-10 (eighth place) and 22-14 overall. Gregory did win the NIT championship in 2010 with a victory over North Carolina, but he reached the NCAA tournament only twice in eight years. Hewitt made the NCAAs last season, and won a first-round matchup with Oklahoma State. Hewitt also made four other NCAA appearances, and reached the national championship game in 2004. Should he have been let go? You can make that argument. But to fire him, pay him money and get a coach who hadn't done nearly as much as Hewitt at a lower-level conference? How does this make sense?
Andy Katz's take (thanks to ChillDeac for linking to this Katz blog post in another thread):
• Hewitt made the NCAAs last season, and won a first-round matchup with Oklahoma State. Hewitt also made four other NCAA appearances, and reached the national championship game in 2004. Should he have been let go? You can make that argument. But to fire him, pay him money and get a coach who hadn't done nearly as much as Hewitt at a lower-level conference? How does this make sense?
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bas...dy/id/6265959/vcu-focused-keeping-shaka-smart
Seen on the Dayton campus this morning ... (the 2018 sign was a countdown to the end of Gregory's contract)