For new Georgia head coach Tom Crean, the past several months have been a whirlwind.
He’s had to hire a coaching staff, get to know his players, identify key recruits for the future, meet fans and members of the community, and the list goes on, and on.
But from the first day on the job, Crean knew how important all of those aspects were in building for the future.
“The most important thing that can happen is establishing relationships and building the foundation,” Crean said on Thursday’s SEC coaches teleconference. “It’s getting to know the campus community, and the recruiting is paramount.”
Crean takes over a Georgia program that is looking to a step forward in a league that’s as strong as it has ever been. The Bulldogs have made the NCAA Tournament just once since 2011, and only three times total in the past 15 years.
Last season – despite boasting arguably the league’s most impactful player in Yante Maten – the team could only muster 18 wins, which led to the dismissal of former coach Mark Fox after nine seasons.
Expectations are certainly higher with Crean now on board. He took Marquette to a Final Four in 2003, and had three Sweet 16 appearances during his time at Indiana.
As for whether postseason success will happen right away, it all depends on how the Bulldogs replace Maten and how quickly the returners can expand their roles.
And for Crean, he’s learning a lot about his team’s potential through the various training programs they’re engaging in this summer.
“You almost learn more about them there than you do on the court,” Crean said. “It all goes hand in hand. It’s a constant process. The most important thing to try to do in the summer is try and create as many adverse situations for your team inside that training as you can.”
Georgia won’t partake in a foreign tour in the preseason, so the summer months are crucial when it comes to seeing what the Bulldogs’ rotation could look like in the fall.
Of course, Crean and his staff are also concentrating on another huge element that’ll dictate the future of the program: recruiting.
Georgia compiled a solid 2018 class, which according to 247Sports, ranks in the top half of the SEC and in the top-35 nationally.
Luckily for the new staff, the state is among the nation’s best at producing highly-coveted prospects.
And Crean understands how crucial recruiting the area will be to his long-term success in Athens.
“The bottom line is establishing relationships,” Crean said. “We already spent time in this state recruiting, but it’s nothing like living in the state.”
“When you take over a program and you’re new like this, it’s very important that you have people that have been around it. And that’s the hiring of Chad Dollar and Amir Abdur-Rahim. They’re national level coaches and national level recruiters, but they’re from Georgia. They have a strong knowledge base and relationship base of this area.”
Dollar is an Atlanta native who has recent SEC experience after coaching at Auburn a few years ago, while Abdur-Rahim played at Wheeler High School in Marietta and comes over having spent four seasons as an assistant at Texas A&M.
With all these factors in place, Crean should have an opportunity to win big with the Bulldogs.
And even if it doesn’t happen right away, the familiarity of the supporting staff and past success at various stops should be an appealing draw for some of the nation’s – and state’s – best prospects.
“We don’t have a couple years’ experience here to show what we’re gonna do,” Crean said.
“We have to show what we’ve done in the past, and at the same time, show how we’re building in the present with the current players.”
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