The circumstances under which Anthony Grant became the head basketball coach at the University of Alabama are, weirdly enough, the very reasons why the Crimson Tide need to start fresh with a new basketball coach at season’s end.
Following a loss at home on Tuesday night to Billy Donovan and the Florida Gators, it’s clear more than ever that Grant is not working out in Tuscaloosa.
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Grant took over an Alabama program that had stagnated in 2009. The Crimson Tide made five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances under Mark Gottfried from 2002 through 2006, but in the next three seasons, that track record of Dancing every season did not translate into continued quality. The Tide had ebbed, and so even though Gottfried had reached the Elite Eight in Tuscaloosa in 2004, he and the school parted ways… and this was a coach who had made five consecutive NCAA tournaments.
The Gottfried story is a representative example of how fatigue can pervade a program and its surrounding community, despite a substantial body of achievement. There are no exact metrics to this — there’s no official handbook or owner’s manual for when to fire a coach based on “X number of stagnant seasons following Y number of big achievements.” However, if you were to ask me, I’d tell you that at a program such as Alabama, five straight NCAA tournaments should mean a little more rope than three NCAA-less seasons following that successful run.
Yes, Gottfried’s teams were exasperating to watch, even when they made the Dance all those years. Alabama attained a high (protected, aka, 1-4) seed only once in its five NCAA seasons under Gottfried, a 2 seed in the 2002 tournament. The Tide couldn’t make it out of the first weekend. Their run to the 2004 Elite Eight came as an underdog-level seed, an 8. The Tide beat top-seeded Stanford in Seattle in the round of 32, in a year when only one top seed — Duke — made the Final Four. Gottfried’s teams played better in the tournament as lower seeds than as favorites, a pattern which continued with No. 11 seed North Carolina State’s run to the Sweet 16 under Gottfried in 2012.
Yet, the reality of a coach (and/or his teams) being exasperating should not e enough cause to fire him if he’s achieved reasonably well. We can all apply our own standards of what “achieving reasonably well” means at a given program. At Alabama, five straight tournaments would seem to be good enough.
Why mention this background with Gottfried, Anthony Grant’s predecessor?
It’s very simple: Under Grant, Alabama has stagnated in much the same way it did under Gottfried… only Grant can’t point to the same body of achievement Gottfried compiled on the job.
Grant patiently built the Alabama program upon his arrival before the 2009-2010 season. In 2011, Grant and the Tide reached the championship game of the NIT but lost to a coach who had his own aspirations and dreams: Gregg Marshall of Wichita State. In 2012, both Grant and Marshall made the NCAA tournament at their respective schools, offering compelling evidence that new ascendancies were taking flight in each location.
It’s in the 2013 season when Grant began to dig his grave at Alabama, all while Marshall’s career acquired a completely different trajectory.
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In 2013, Marshall guided Wichita State to the program’s first Final Four since 1965, leading another mid-major to college basketball’s promised land. Wichita State was knocked out in a close Final Four semifinal by Louisville, which then beat Michigan in the title game two days later in Atlanta. Michigan had reached the Final Four by beating Florida, coached by Billy Donovan. The circle of this story is completed by noting Florida’s place in the larger scheme of things.
Grant was Billy Donovan’s assistant for 10 straight seasons (1997 through 2006) at Florida, before he took the head coaching job at VCU and used it as a springboard to Alabama. If any SEC coach in 2009 knew what Donovan did better than any other, it was Grant. Going through Florida and Kentucky — at least being able to register some victories over those two schools — was part of Grant’s mandate when he came to Tuscaloosa. Beating Florida or Kentucky at least once a season figured to give Alabama an NCAA tournament-worthy resume.
Why did the 2013 season truly mark the beginning of the end for Grant? First of all, he was bitterly unlucky that Kentucky decided to regress and become an NIT-level team. Beating UK, which Alabama did that season, did not transform the Tide’s resume the way they hoped it would. Had UK been a No. 1 seed-level team in 2013, Alabama would have gone Dancing. Alas, Grant received bitter luck in that respect.
However, Alabama still had a chance to do something with its season… by beating Donovan and Florida. The Tide got two cracks at the Gators in March of 2013. One loss came in Gainesville near the end of the regular season, but the prime opportunity to break through was in the 2013 SEC Tournament, on a neutral floor in Nashville, with other fans cheering against the big, bad Gators.
Alabama took a 37-29 lead with 14:56 left, frustrating Florida with an inspired defensive effort. The Crimson Tide just needed 15 minutes of integrated, focused basketball to get the top-shelf win they needed in order to make their way to March Madness.
Instead, the Tide — in a scenario that has replicated itself far too often during the Grant era — collapsed down the stretch. Florida won with a small degree of comfort at the end, 61-51.
Alabama and Grant have truly not recovered from that moment. The team failed to make the NIT final four and get a trip to New York in the 2013 postseason. The 2014 and now 2015 seasons have become dreary, aimless slogs bereft of hope. The final symbolic nail was driven into Grant’s coffin Tuesday night, when the worst Florida team since 2009 still managed to win on Alabama’s home floor. The fact that Grant has never beaten Donovan as Alabama’s coach is reflective of his tenure’s inadequacies. Instead of building on one NCAA appearance (not five, only one…) in 2012, Alabama’s program has steadily declined.
When the 2012 season ended, Grant had a young core of Trevor Releford, Levi Randolph, Nick Jacobs, Rodney Cooper, and Trevor Lacey to work with. Alabama seemed to have the tools needed to become an annual NCAA team the way it had been under Gottfried.
The program’s wrong turn into barren and bumpy fields instead shows that the Tide won’t ever reach a Gottfried-level standard of achievement.
If Gottfried became an embattled coach without due cause, Grant — whose accomplishments don’t begin to rise to the level of his predecessor in Tuscaloosa — can’t enjoy the same benefit of the doubt.
Time has run its course, with the acute irony being that much as Steve Spurrier got a Florida football coach fired this past year (Will Muschamp), Billy Donovan has created a situation in which one of his prized proteges has no leg left to stand on at Alabama.
Grant’s tomb is ready. Roll (the stone), Tide.
