Georgia Tech Basketball: New Coach Brian Gregory Met With Collective Yawn

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Butler head coach Brad Stevens is the holy grail of mid-major basketball coaches. If you have a coaching opening, you want Stevens. Well you’re probably not getting him. Shaka Smart has VCU in the Final 4. He's a red hot commodity. Chris Mooney of Richmond was also on most AD's hiring short list.

None of them are going to fill the head coaching position at Georgia Tech. Mooney was probably the closest, but he signed a 10 year deal at Richmond. Former Georgia Tech players Craig Neal and Mark Price aren't coming to Atlanta either. Some said they were a package deal, but it doesn't matter now, because Georgia Tech just hired their new coach, Brian Gregory of Dayton.

...and it's met with a collective yawn by the rest of the ACC and most Georgia Tech's fans.

If there was one thing Georgia Tech had to do with their coaching hire, it was create some excitement in their fanbase. A group that has become one of the most apathetic in the ACC. Well, Gregory simply just doesn't create a buzz. At Dayton, Gregory was perfectly decent. There were 4 straight 20 win seasons from 2008-2011, but there was also just 1 winning conference record in the last 6 years in the not so vaunted Atlantic 10 .

Dayton is an underrated program that takes its basketball seriously. There has been one NCAA tournament since 2004. Heck even Paul Hewitt went to 3 NCAA tournaments since then. In defense of Gregory, he did win an NIT Title in 2010 over the North Carolina Tar Heels. He spent time with one of the nation's best coaches as an assistant under Tom Izzo.

I checked out Gregory's recruiting. He's signed one four star player since 2008. That would be PG Juwan Staten, who it's well known didn't see eye to eye with how Gregory was using him. Hmm... not a ringing endorsement from the best player you've signed in four years.

I suppose Georgia Tech fans can cling to the hope that when Brad Brownell was hired at Clemson, it was without much fanfare and he got the Tigers back the NCAAs on their way to a fourth place finish in the ACC. On the other hand, Wake Forest's new coach Jeff Bzdelik led the Deacs to one of their worst seasons ever in the ACC. I don't care who Wake Forest lost talent wise, 8-24 (1-15) was a complete disaster of a year.

The bottom line is, if Brian Gregory wins, the fans will love him, but until then, I don't think the Georgia Tech faithful are very excited.