Greenberg Fired from Virginia Tech

[Don Quixote]

Virginia Tech today fired men's head basketball coach Seth Greenberg with four years remaining on his contract, the announcement coming at a hastily arranged news conference at 4:00 this afternoon.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...sketball-coach

[Frobby]

I'm going to miss him. VaTech always played Duke tough and I thought Greenberg's personality had a lot to do with it. I guess he fell just short of the NCAA tournament once too many times. I don't think it will be that easy for VaTech to find someone better, though.

[Floater]

He eventually turned into a huge Bubble and couldn't coach anymore because of it.

[Lucky Jim]

What a terribly managed firing. Makes the Terps look almost professional.

[SteveA]

The way it was handled was a disgrace.

And the reasons for it are pretty disgraceful too. It isn't the won loss record, or the missed bubbles. It's a bunch of damn good ol' boy donors who contribute to the program who felt he wasn't "one of us" because he was brash, from New York, and was demonstrable and emotional on the sideline. The losing season (when we happened to be breaking in a ton of freshmen that comprised the highest rated recruiting class at VT in 30 years) was just the excuse needed.

Midway through the season word got to Greenberg that the big money boys didn't like his demonstrative antics on the sideline, and from about early February on you could see him tone down his emotions. Which is essentially forcing him to be a different person, someone he isn't. He's a guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve, for better or for worse.

So we have to sit through this press conference and hear that the assistant coach turnover is due to Greenberg's not having the "family" type of atmosphere that VT has in its athletic department. This is a code word for the fact taht Frank Beamer (an alumnus) has had very little coaching staff turnover in 20+ years. Well, it doesn't always work that way with basketball. And saying he isn't part of the Hokie family is a slap in the face to a guy who has spent 9 years in Blacksburg, sent both his daughters to school at Tech, been through 4/16 with everyone on the team, supported his players through any number of personal problems including losing a player to cancer, having our center lose his father to a long, gruelling illness during the middle of our season, and having a player's mother relocate to Blacksburg after Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home.

The results on the court (1 tournament in 9 years, the losing season this year) had lost him the support of some of the fanbase. I was in the minority feeling that, while we had some disappointing results, we also had some serious mitigating circumstances in terms of major injuries and bad breaks. I felt he should be given a chance, with the class we had coming in last year and Harrell coming in next year, to make the tournament a couple times with this bunch of kids. Fail then and I would have joined the crowd saying we needed a change. But I wasn't there yet. His teams always played with strong defensive intensity and hustle and were fun to watch. After going 18 years between the Charlie Moir era and joining the ACC, in teh wilderness of the A-10 and the basement of the Big East, Greenberg came and made VT basketball relevant again. I'm gonna miss him.

I'm disgusted with the way that this went down, but at this point we have to try to make a good hire, make sure we don't lose any players or recruits, and move forward.

[glenn__davis]

Gotta say I've never really liked Greenberg, but I am surprised at this. I think he was pretty darn good there.

[Flosman]

Wonder if they are going to release all their recruits from their LOI. It is simply not fair for them not to even get one year with the coach they agreed to play for. Especially if there we any late signers.

[ccbird]

I'm going to miss him. VaTech always played Duke tough and I thought Greenberg's personality had a lot to do with it. I guess he fell just short of the NCAA tournament once too many times. I don't think it will be that easy for VaTech to find someone better, though.

This, VaTech has to know their stature and limits of their basketball program. Greenberg did about as well as you can do at that school. Is it possible they can do better??? Sure, but I find it pretty unlikely.

[Frobby]

So we have to sit through this press conference and hear that the assistant coach turnover is due to Greenberg's not having the "family" type of atmosphere that VT has in its athletic department. This is a code word for the fact taht Frank Beamer (an alumnus) has had very little coaching staff turnover in 20+ years. Well, it doesn't always work that way with basketball.

The AD pretty much said that the reason he decided to make the change was he was concerned about all the turnover among the assistant coaches. That seemed like a fairly valid point when I read it in the paper. I'm not aware of how many assistants have come and gone at VT over the years and how that compares with other mid-tier programs in the ACC or other major conferences, but losing three in one year does seem pretty unusual.

[SteveA]

The AD pretty much said that the reason he decided to make the change was he was concerned about all the turnover among the assistant coaches. That seemed like a fairly valid point when I read it in the paper. I'm not aware of how many assistants have come and gone at VT over the years and how that compares with other mid-tier programs in the ACC or other major conferences, but losing three in one year does seem pretty unusual.

I think there is a chicken/egg situation at work here. We lost 3 assistants this offseason -- but was that because they saw the writing on the wall and new Greenberg was gone soon, if not now than in another year, and they would be gone with him, so they took opportunities that were available?

But yes, even before this year, we have had considerable assistant turnover. Maybe 4 in the past 5 years, and only one of those was going to a head coaching job. I'm not sure if the others left for "better" assistant jobs (i.e. associate head coach or something like that) elsewhere. I do know that our assistant pay was compatible with other major programs.

So there's probably some truth to the fact that Greenberg's hard driving personality makes him tough to work for and cost us some assistants over the years, but I tend to believe hte massive bailout this year was more a matter of guys reading the tea leaves and realizing they were soon to be unemployed so they took opportunities elsewhere.

All I know is right now is a recruiting period where you can talk to recruits and we don't have a coach to do so. It's a bad situation.

[Frobby]

Here's an article from John Feinstein excoriating VT for it's handling of the Greenberg situation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports...vgT_story.html