Well, we finally have a basketball coach. It certainly took a while between the day the Athletic Director informed us that Ricky Stokes was out and last week�s introduction of Seth Greenberg. Through the process of being spurned by Jeff Lebo and the embarrassment of Jim Baron "Franking" us for the A-10, of all places, some of us were provided reinforcement of what we thought all along: Virginia Tech is not viewed as an attractive place to coach basketball by quite a few people. 

I would have much preferred that Mike Krzyzewski heed my advice and give up the Duke gig to take over at Tech, or that Roy Williams consider coming to Tech rather than returning to Chapel Hill, or if Tubby Smith feels the administration situation at Kentucky has become onerous that maybe he would find a more amiable climate in Blacksburg, but that didn�t happen. In large part, Seth Greenberg was hired because he was somebody who would actually take the job. There were a lot who would not even consider it. 

There are a lot of things that at this time are working against Tech basketball. First and foremost, we are a football school. A relatively large amount of our athletic budget is devoted to the program of Frank Beamer, and he has certainly made it worth our while. The downside is that there hasn�t been enough money to go around. Tech remains the only member of a BCS conference not receiving a substantial check each year for basketball television revenues, a circumstance that will continue for a while longer. To maintain the level of financial commitment to our football program meant that something had to give, and it was men�s basketball. By Big East standards, Tech was a men�s basketball version of Temple in football, and look what happened to the Owls' football program. This is not lost on basketball coaches.

There are other things working against a successful basketball program. There is location, both the remote Blacksburg one and the fact that we are in the geographic area of that most basketball-centric of conferences, the ACC. Even being a member of that conference and located within its sphere does not guarantee basketball success. When I see Tech basketball in the Big East, I see Clemson, another school whose remote location has made it very difficult for the parade of coaches who have been unable to recruit away from the Dukes and Carolinas the quality of player necessary to get the Tigers out of their usual place of residence, the bottom of the ACC standings. And we have seen that even Clemson is considered a better basketball environment than Tech, as Oliver Purnell, after stating publicly that he had no interest in the Tech job, took the Clemson one. 

Tech is not particularly attractive in basketball from a facilities standpoint. This generates hot debate, but those who remember Cassell as possessing a serious home court advantage are remembering over fifteen years ago, almost a lifetime to today�s high school players, who see Cassell as antiquated. It was a terrific facility when it was built, but that was four decades past, and while Tech has attempted to keep pace in the football facility arms race that is sweeping college sports, it has not in the same one that is running through basketball.

For any Tech coach to succeed in men�s basketball, some players are going to have to be recruited away from the ACC programs in the area. Take a look at the RBC Center, the Joel Center, the Dean Dome or the Comcast Center and contemplate how Cassell stacks up. It is not a positive comparison. The Hoos have a new basketball facility on the way, which will further put Tech behind. There is one arena around that is older than Cassell, but while Cameron Indoor Stadium might be a dump for the fans, and it is, the players are pampered in the adjacent Schwartz/Butters Building.

Merryman is a fine facility, but the ambience is definitely one geared towards football. Duke, like most ACC programs surrounding us, have separate buildings for the two sports. Replacing Cassell or building a basketball training facility ain�t gonna happen anytime soon at Tech. This is not lost on potential recruits. Or coaches. And so we end up being attractive to the Seth Greenbergs of the coaching world.

To tell the truth, I am not all that displeased with the hiring of Greenberg by Tech, despite the somewhat less than enthusiastic reaction his hiring has generated. Message boards tend to prove irresistible for two types of posters, those desiring to weauxf or complain, and like every other message board I have ever glanced over, TSL has no shortage of the latter. I prefer not to expend energy worrying that the correct coach was not hired, in part because I am basically lazy and it takes too much work to greatly concern myself with circumstances over which I have no control. It is much easier to take an optimistic view, and there is much to recommend Seth Greenberg. 

He springs from impeccable coaching bloodlines, with time spent as an assistant in some top-shelf programs, including the one run in Hooville by Terry Holland back when the Hoos actually were a dominant force in basketball. Seth went to Long Beach State and revived a moribund program, winning his conference and taking teams to the NCAA.

He then moved on the South Florida, which is where the trouble started. While an overall winning record and a few NIT appearances would certainly be a step in the right direction for Tech these days, these were deemed unacceptable results for a good chunk of the Bulls fan base. A buddy of mine who is a USF alum was ecstatic at the news that Tech had hired Seth away and media reports carried a positively gleeful tone at their perception of USF managing to foist Greenberg off on Tech. They may be correct in their assertions that Seth can�t coach a lick, but an examination of Greenberg�s situation at South Florida would seem to indicate otherwise.

The basketball budget at USF is roughly $1.2 million. This is a skimpy figure, and indicates that either South Florida had very little commitment to winning basketball, or couldn�t afford one. A lot of fans and sportswriters are either unaware of the importance of budgets in athletic success, or simply don�t care, but standings generally follow budgets. In the Big East the largest basketball budgets belong to Syracuse and UConn, and the smallest to Tech and West Virginia. Those numbers speak for themselves. In CUSA, South Florida�s budget was near the bottom, even in that revenue-challenged conference.

Tech�s tiny budget caused problems for Ricky Stokes, especially in recruiting, and the fact that Seth Greenberg was able to achieve any success with an even smaller one tells me that the guy just might know a thing or two about coaching. Tech got exactly the basketball program for which we were paying, but it seems USF got a better one than they had a realistic right to expect with their puny financial outlay. That Greenberg was able to accomplish anything at all under such constraints is a recommendation to me, more so than that claimed by Ron Everhart, whose primary qualification seems to be that he is an alumnus and just might achieve the same results as fellow alum Frank Beamer. This required a leap of faith that the Athletic Director was unable to make. 

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