🏀 What's your opinion on how you view Avery Johnson looking back...

[TerryP]

The time spent here doesn't match, but I've begun to look at him as Rich Brooks, or Mike Bellotti..and how they set the foundation for Chip Kelly's run at Oregon.

 

[Justneedme81]

He set the culture. He made it work but he wasn't great at lot of things but he was good dude and had he got little more experience else where I think he would've been okay with better staff around him.

 

[Bammerboy321]

My opinion hasn't changed on him. He was a good recruiter and knew how to get his teams to compete against good teams. Plus he did a good job of marketing the program, compared to Grant, who did everything in his power to kill fan interest (if you ever meet Aaron Gordon, ask him about how Grant). He was a mediocre gameday coach and wasn't demanding enough to get consistent play out of his team. Our strength of conditioning was also way behind. Should have easily made the tournament his first year after beating LSU and Florida on the road. Believe we also beat Wichita State, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, and Clemson But he followed it by losing at to bad teams at home (Mississippi State, Georgia, and Arkansas). Kind of a microcosm of his tenure IMO. It was frustrating but fun as a student. Best atmosphere was vs TN in his third year.

Byrne did an excellent job with Avery. Gave him a year to prove himself. When it was evident things weren't going to work out, he negotiated a buyout reduction (with Avery's wife present), and it allowed us to get Oats.

Not that it's any indication of success either, but I had a great feeling about Oats after watching our scrimmage vs Georgia Tech in his first year. Everything was night and day compared to Avery. The pregame warmups, how conditioned our players looked, and the intensity during the game. Shackelford made a bad defensive read and Oats and Charlie Henry lit into him.