DESTIN, Fla. – John Calipari was standing against a pillar, holding court with a few media members. Rick Barnes sprinted by, then sprinted back. Ben Howland walked by a minute later, followed by Bruce Pearl, Frank Martin and Avery Johnson.
Amid all that coaching star power, most of it new to the SEC, Georgia’s Mark Fox emerged quietly from a conference room, grabbed some lunch and plopped down at a table.
Maybe Fox is secretly worried about all the competition. But he also just received a raise and a contract extension and is coming off an NCAA bid. Schools around the SEC are attempting to jump-start their basketball programs with big-name hires; Georgia has its faith in Fox, who has shown there’s another way to build a winner.
“Every situation at every school is probably different,” Fox said this week, during a break in meetings. “I think it’s most important for us, if we were going to have a good program, and one that could sustain success, is we had to build it the right way. You have to have an administration, a school, a fan base where everyone is committed to doing that.”
Georgia has made two NCAA tournaments in Fox’s six years, and returns a team capable of going again next year. The Bulldogs have been a top four seed and SEC tournament semifinalist each of the past two seasons. They’ve won 57 percent of their conference games the past three seasons.
But the going is set to get tougher. The infusion of coaching talent this offseason — Barnes at Tennessee, Howland at Mississippi State and Johnson at Alabama — points to a renewed commitment to basketball. It comes on the heels of Martin’s hire at South Carolina three years ago, and Pearl’s return to the SEC a year ago at Auburn.
This is what outgoing SEC commissioner Mike Slive has long wanted. Formerly the head of the NCAA basketball selection committee, Slive always beamed at his league’s football rise, but hurt for its basketball fall.
“It was really a priority to improve basketball, but also to improve the perception of basketball,” Slive said, pointing out that with Florida and Kentucky the SEC had three national championships in a 10-year span. “But we don’t get the credit for that, right? So by doing all the things we’ve done I think we have elevated the league in terms of just about everything. And the end result is we now have a well-known group of coaches. We also have some outstanding kids coming in.”
Of course one big-name coach exited the league: Billy Donovan took his two national championship rings to the NBA. Florida chose not to go the high-profile replacement route, instead tapping Mike White, whom many consider a rising star.
There may be a lesson in that. Pearl wasn’t a big name when he was hired by Tennessee, where he won and became a big name.
“I think star power’s overrated,” Pearl said. “I’d rather win the conference than win the press conference.”
Calipari, the biggest star in the coaching room, said the coaches told the SEC Network to promote the players, not the coaches.
“We don’t need to talk about the coaches,” Calipari said. “We need to talk about our kids and the players and what they are and what they’re about, until it becomes cool to be in this league basketball-wise.”
Players help, but so does stability: Andy Kennedy pointed out that since he was hired by Ole Miss in 2006 there have been more than 30 other coaches in the rest of the SEC. Kennedy, meanwhile just made the NCAA tournament for a second time, following much the same slow-but-steady script that Georgia has with Fox.
“When you do it right there’ll be some bumps in the road — and there will always be bumps in the road,” Fox said. “But I think the only way to really stand for a long time is to build it with a strong foundation, and that’s what we’ve tried to do.”
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