When he was an assistant at Michigan State and later the coach at Dayton, Georgia Tech basketball coach Brian Gregory practiced a daily recruiting routine. He tried to make four productive contacts by phone, email and handwritten letter.
Taken from former bosses Tom Izzo and Kevin O’Neill, Gregory shared this approach at a coaching seminar, and one of the attendees was an up-and-comer named Josh Postorino, whom Gregory made his second assistant hire. Sitting in the conference room of Tech’s basketball offices last week, Gregory was reminded of the four-a-day quota.
“Yeah, but now it’s closer to eight or nine,” he said. “It’s just where [recruiting] is at and where we’re at.”
On the job since March, Gregory has to hustle for players this summer. With no holdovers from Paul Hewitt’s staff, he and his assistants are trying to jump into the recruitment of more than 20 local high school seniors to restock a Yellow Jackets roster that figures to be among the weakest in the ACC this winter. The 2012 class in Georgia is unusually strong, but that means that Gregory also is competing with high-profile college programs that have been jostling for position for at least a year.
When the Tech coaches in July attend tournaments in Augusta, Las Vegas, Orlando and Myrtle Beach, they’ll make sure prospects notice them in their Georgia Tech polo shirts, but they’ll also have to decide if they want to keep recruiting these individuals. Gregory has never seen most of Tech’s prospects play in person.
“Are we a little bit behind the eight ball [in] recruiting?” Gregory asked. “Yes, we are.”
The 2012 class is Tech’s most urgent agenda item. Gregory and assistants Chad Dollar, Billy Schmidt and Postorino also are trying to make connections with the junior and sophomore classes and entrench themselves in Georgia basketball circles. Wednesday was the first day that coaches could call juniors. The plan was to approach the roughly 50 prospects on their list for contact information, and sell Tech and their vision. They had a small talk prepared, comparing the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks and their team-first style to Gregory’s philosophy.
This month, while NCAA rules prohibit coaches from going on the road to recruit, Gregory and his staff have made repeated calls to seniors, high school coaches and AAU coaches in hope of persuading prospects to make unofficial campus visits.
Miller Grove High’s Tony Parker and Brandon Morris, two of the top recruits in the state, have noticed.
“What they’re taking from it is these guys are pretty persistent, in a good way,” said Miller Grove coach Sharman White, who has been sought out by Tech, too.
White said Tech coaches have probably called him more than any other school since Gregory took the job. The three-time defending state champion Wolverines were strongly urged to attend the Jackets camp for high school teams, something they had done before, the Miller Grove coach said.
White saw several teams at the camp that hadn’t been involved previously or had stopped coming. He came away impressed.
“They’re relentless in trying to make sure they restore the program back to a level of respectability within the ACC and in the nation,” White said. “That’s what I get immediately when I think of what they do.”
Catching up will require more than phone calls. Duke, Florida, Ohio State and Georgia are among those after Parker. Florida, Florida State and Georgia are pursuing Morris.
“We’re not afraid to roll up our sleeves and get in some recruiting battles, because that’s what you have to do at this level,” Gregory said.
Gregory’s goals for the summer call for his players to have 3.0 grade averages in summer classes, take the ownership of the program and move his family from Dayton when the July evaluation period ends. Securing a couple commitments wouldn’t be bad either.
“If we can check those off, that would be pretty good,” the coach said.
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