Clock running out on Tom Crean at Georgia, basketball liftoff challenging at football school

Tom Crean came to work on Tuesday focused on his Georgia basketball team finding a way to beat Vanderbilt, even as it seems his firing is imminent.

“I’m really just focused on doing my job,” Crean said on his Tuesday morning Zoom call, shortly before boarding an aircraft bound for the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament.

“I think any questions about my future would have to go to the athletic department because I’m locked into what I’m trying to do.”

The Bulldogs (6-25, 1-17 SEC) play the Commodores (15-15, 7-11) at 8 p.m. on Wednesday in Tampa, Fla., looking to make an improbable run in the SEC tourney.

As for Crean, his hopes of leading Georgia to its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2015 essentially ended before the league slate started this season.

The generous one-time transfer rule taketh and giveth away, and the Bulldogs ended up being big losers in an unprecedented college basketball free-agent market that saw Division I teams average seven transfers per team.

Georgia’s leading scorer and rebounder, 6-7 Florida Atlantic grad transfer Jailyn Ingram, went down with a season-ending knee injury in a Dec. 7 win over Jacksonville.

It was the one injury the Bulldogs could not afford, having already lost veteran power forward P.J. Horne — the team’s leading returning scorer and last season’s top 3-point shooter — to a knee injury in the preseason.

To boot, UGA most notably lost guards K.D. Johnson (Auburn) and Sahvir Wheeler (Kentucky) to the NCAA portal, along with blue-collar forward Toumani Camara’s transfer to Dayton.

Thus, Crean’s pending job status — and the details of a buyout clause that falls from a reported $7.2 million to $3.2 million at the end of this season — will likely be the preeminent first-day storyline from Amalie Arena until the SEC heavyweight programs play on Thursday.

Georgia athletics director Josh Brooks has not met with Crean or informed him of any decision by the program at this time.

But that’s not surprising when one considers how the second-year athletic director has gone by the book to this point in his early tenure.

Coaching reviews and evaluations are to be conducted at the end of the season, and in the case of UGA basketball, it will be more important to find a perfect hire rather than a quick easy, or popular one.

The Parker Executive Search firm, founded and run by Georgia graduate Dan Parker, is likely already on the case, albeit, in a somewhat unofficial capacity.

That’s the beauty of the search firm: it’s always at work, and as a private entity, immune from the sort of telltale public information requests we’ve seen reveal circus-like coaching searches of yesteryear at other SEC schools.

Brooks knows the shark tank nature of the SEC basketball landscape and the challenge ahead of luring a proven basketball coaching staff to his football school.

Georgia’s lack of NCAA tournament appearances and success tell the story:

• 2015, first-round loss to Michigan State

• 2011, first-round loss to Washington

• 2008, first-round loss to Xavier

Even in 2002, when Georgia beat Murray State in the first round before losing to Southern Illinois in the second round, the win over Murray State was later vacated because of NCAA violations with former UGA coach Jim Harrick.

As noted in a recent ESPN dive in Georgia’s basketball failures, the program hasn’t technically won an NCAA tourney game since 1996 when it reached the Sweet 16.

Crean, himself, likely would not have gambled on the job at Georgia had he known former Bulldogs’ AD Greg McGarity had one foot out the door and would be leaving the school two years after hiring him.

Whoever runs the Georgia basketball program has heavy lifting ahead.

Georgia basketball is a tough sell, to be sure, though the recently launched Classic City Collective would seem to offer some hope.

The Classic City Collective serves as a NIL-friendly vehicle that will serve to connect UGA athletes to endorsement deals and above-board funding.

That could open the door for Georgia basketball to play catch-up in the respect of getting players paid, although maybe not to the extent of the Porsche NIL deals a program like Kentucky basketball can and does offer.

But will UGA boosters or prospective associated businesses attach their hard-earned dollars or advertising budgets to UGA basketball when sponsorships for the national championship football program are readily available?

Georgia baseball has its hand out as well, looking to get its outdated but charming facility up to par in the ultra-competitive SEC.

Everyone loves a winner, and Georgia basketball is anything but that, with just one regular-season SEC championship in school history.

It’s no wonder there’s a billboard in Athens for backup quarterback Carson Beck but not so much as a flier on a telephone pole for rising basketball star Kario Oquendo.

Beck’s claim to fame at UGA thus far is failing to pursue a defender on an interception Pick -6.

Oquendo, meanwhile, anonymously ranks No. 4 in the SEC in league scoring average (18.3 points per game), even if more than half of Georgia sports fans don’t know his name, much less are able to pronounce it.

And, did you know Georgia post Braelen Bridges — the only rotational player over 6-7 on Crean’s undersized bunch — leads the SEC and ranks No. 4 in field goal percentage?

Of course not, because this season’s Bulldogs’ basketball team has been just good enough to lose all but one SEC game and play then-No. 1 Auburn to a last-second loss.

For all the coaching and Xs and Os wizardry, and all-out hustle and good attitudes, there’s just not enough talent or depth on the floor to win games in what has became a good basketball conference.

Crean, 55, inherited a losing culture of indifferent leftover players from Mark Fox’s mediocre tenure hoping to recreate the reconstruction project at Indiana that led him to Big Ten Coach of the Year honors in 2016.

Crean generated some excitement at Georgia, but not enough success for Brooks to extend his contract after last season, essentially sending a message this would be a do-or-die campaign.

The next coach will have evidence of a fanbase ready to engage a winner at the surface level.

Crean’s UGA teams set total attendance records in the cozy, little confines of Stegeman Coliseum his first two years.

The 2019-20 season, featuring No. 1 NBA Draft pick Anthony “Antman” Edwards, ranked No. 2 in program history for average attendance at 9,651.

Crean’s previous two Georgia teams also ranked in the top four of the 2000s in scoring average, at the very least producing an exciting style of basketball.

Brooks will want to maintain that excitement while looking for NCAA tourney appearances from his next men’s basketball head coach.

Cleveland State’s Dennis Gates is the top name emerging, even before the search becomes official.

Former Georgia players and current team announcers are also campaigning for former UGA player and current Xavier assistant Jonas Hayes to be the feel-good hire.

Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes, recently crowned ACC Coach of the Year, is likely outside of Georgia’s budget for a head basketball coach.

Brooks and the Bulldogs’ fans will say they want a winner, but it will be interesting to see just how much the program is willing to invest to that end.

If there’s a recurring theme in college basketball, it’s that you get what you pay for in players and coaching staffs.