I had a nice chat with new USF men's head basketball coach Brian Gregory after the USF Athletics Radio show at the World of Beer near the USF campus, this evening. He has a definite plan and understands the difficulty he faces implementing it.

 

He wants to build and maintain a solid foundation of upperclassmen made up of character players. He then will bring in freshmen that can impact the program immediately, but may need the guidance of older players. He admits it is going to take a while. We have to sell recruits our vision, because we have no success to build on. He said, we want to get old and stay old. He want guys with a chip on their shoulder, ready to take a program like this and make it something better, give them owner ship of what they are building, something of their own.

 

I said, "What you want sounds more like Tom Izzo and less like John Calipari." He said, "I've learned so much about basketball and life from Tom Izzo. I think I can bring that culture to this university. I want to bring that culture here."

 

He said, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with how John Calipari runs his program. It works for him." Then he asked, "But what helps make his best teams come together?" I said, "Josh Harrellson, Darius Miller, and this season Dominique Hawkins."

 

He said, "Exactly and that is the type of the foundation we want to build here. Guys committed to USF and committed to making USF better. When we achieve that, we can build something special here."

 

I want to watch the adventure. The build is the fun part. He got at least one Season Ticket Package renewal this evening.

 

A picture I took of Gregory being interviewed by Jim Louk, the radio voice of USF.

 

If I was a head coach at any program, other then Kentucky, Duke and Kansas, then Tom Izzo is exactly who I'd want to model after.

I like Gregory. I didn't feel he was particularly inventive in his time at Dayton and it led to a lot of disappointing seasons. It's just one of those things: I wish him well but I'm glad he's not my team's head coach anymore.

Sat next to he and his LOVELY wife at Matt Farrell's wedding (former DBO for UD under BG) -- great guy, fun, intelligent...but an under-achiever between the lines. It is a fact. He had some great players at UD: Chris Wright, Chris Johnson (biggest miss of Sean Miller's tenure at Xavier, dude was BEGGING to come to Xavier but Sean chose Brian Walsh over him...oops), P-Willy, London Warren, Brian Roberts, etc.

Gregory has been frequently asked why he took the job, here, and he gives all the politically correct, pat, answers.

 

I've wondered about this since his hire, but I simply forgot to ask him about his relationship with former USF HC Stan Heath. Josh Heath played for Gregory at Georgia Tech. Josh transferred to GT from USF after his father was fired. You would think Stan and Brian would have spoken at some point and any bad feelings of the South Florida program would have been relayed by the father or the son. Yet, Gregory still took the job.