Mercer introduces Greg Gary, who followed Purdue’s loss with: ‘Man, let’s get to Macon right now’
Rather than mope about Purdue's tough loss in the NCAA Tournament, Greg Gary started thinking of his new job before the night was over.
Video: Michael A. Lough/The Sports Report of Central Georgia, www.centralgasports.com
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
This was going to be a good day for Greg Gary no matter what.
The first preference, of course, would be to still be huddled in an office watching video of Auburn or on the practice floor at Mackey Arena helping Purdue get ready for its first Final Four since 1980.
A lucky tipped rebound, long pass, buzzer-beating shot to force overtime took care of that, Virginia slipping past Purdue 80-75 in overtime Saturday night.
The second option was pretty good, too, his introduction as Mercer’s new head men’s basketball coach. He was more than ready, trading mourning of a loss for anticipation of the future.
Quickly.
“That night, I didn’t go to bed until about 4:30 (a.m.),” Gary said in a press gathering after a public ceremony on the concourse of Hawkins Arena around lunchtime Wednesday. “I said to my wife, and I told one of other guys that was there that had already graduated, I said, ‘I want to get there tomorrow and practice. I want to get going, so they can see my energy and how hard … so we can get this thing going.’
“It did motivate me, like ‘Man, let’s get to Macon right now.’”
What they’ve written
Lafayette Journal & Courier
On the hiring
Things to know
A look at Gary's career
Gold and Black (Rivals)
Q&A with Gary (mid March)
Purdue's keys to success
Indianapolis Star
Purdue's secret weapons: the assistants
Gary will be going to Minneapolis to the Final Four, where the National Association of Basketball Coaches meet every year in what is one of the biggest unofficial employment meetings in sports. He’ll be back in town next week to start with individual workouts while looking to build a staff.
Gary met with the returning players on Tuesday, and said he seen a fair amount of video of what he’s walking into.
“I watched video, even before the last couple days,” he said. “Seeing there are good pieces, and they’re really good kids. They’re really, really good kids, which is a good start. Now we gotta get ‘em all in there and get ‘m on the same page, and add a few pieces here and there, and we’ll be fine.”
A crowd of nearly 200 or so gathered in a corner of the concourse inside Hawkins Arena for the public introduction.
Gary was joined by his wife Claudia, mother Becky, and older brothers Jeff and Mark. Jeff played basketball at Vanderbilt and Mark at UNC Wilmington.
The Garys have four daughters – Gabby, 21; Logan, 19; Alex 18, and Brooklyn, 8 – and a son – Nash, 4.
“We do have five kids; the first four were girls and the last one was a boy,” Gary said. “If he was born second, we probably would have only had two (kids), because that little son-of-a-gun is quite energetic.”
Athletics director Jim Cole presented a bouquet to Claudia Gary, and one may be en route soon to Gary’s mother.
The closeness of Gary’s family stood out to Cole during the process as much as the basketball acumen.
“I asked Coach Gary who his mentors in life were,” Cole said. “Most people had coaches and others. Coach Gary was honest and told me Jeff and Mark, his two brothers.
“Right there told me that he has a strong, wonderful family. You can tell about his family unit and their dedication to making each other successful.”
Gary said he hesitated in letting his mom in on the negotiations and situation. Growing up in Indiana, basketball is serious.
“I am from a basketball family and our guys will understand that it is all about basketball,” he said. “Friday and Saturday nights, we went to games and I went and watched my brothers.
“My mom was always a nervous wreck. She would always pace around during games and sometimes she’d go outside and keep pacing. So, I didn’t want to give her too much information because I didn’t want to stress her out.
Finally: “I called my mom when it was already done and said, ‘Hey, by the way, I’m moving to Macon.’ ”
Mercer struck just in time.
Gary's name had been attached in recent weeks to openings at his alma mater, Tulane, as well as LSU, Southern Illinois, Ohio, among others, in some form or fashion.
But his name wasn't publicly attached to Mercer until the day of the announcement.
More good timing for Mercer: Rick Byrd, the longtime head coach of former A-Sun rival Belmont, announced his retirement on Monday. While former Belmont assistant and current Lipscomb head coach Casey Alexander – playing for the NIT championship - will be a favorite, Gary’s name no doubt would’ve landed high on the candidates list immediately, or at Lipscomb, if Alexander got the job.
Mercer, Gary said, had what he was looking for: academics, administrative support, community support, and some tradition. It’s not a major rebuilding situation, the Bears going 11-20 in 2018-19 with a young team that lost plenty of close games.
“The tradition, again, it goes to all of those boxes I talked about,” he said. “I talked about the people, I talked about the tradition, the Southern Conference is a great conference, so there’s a number of things that I kept checking off.”
A historically good Southern Conference, at least in 2018-19, awaits Gary.
“They talked at one point about potentially four SoCon teams getting into the NCAA Tournament,” Gary said. “That’s fantastic. The coaches are high-level coaches, and that’s the kind of conference I want to coach in. I want to beat those guys.”
And the top four teams in the conference – Wofford, Furman, East Tennessee State, and UNC Greensboro – all return their head coaches and some momentum.
Gary gave predecessor Bob Hoffman plenty of praise.
“Coach Hoffman built this program and I appreciate him,” Gary said. “He is such a well-respected man in this community and in the coaching fraternity and he did a heck of a job, so I really want to reach out to him and thank him for what he built here.
“Coach Hoffman, I want to thank him because he got this program started in the right direction and he is a great, great man. I wanted to make sure that I reached out and thanked him for what he has done for this program. So, if we could give him a round of applause.”
Which the crowd did.
The names of the staff were wiped off the team’s webpage almost immediately after Hoffman’s, an indication that Gary wasn’t going to keep anybody. Jarred Merrill was with Mercer for four seasons. Paul Mrozik was hired last May, operations director Elvis Kisonas in July, and Phillip Pearson in August.
Sources say Pearson had an early interview for the job.
The Gary family.
Photo: Michael A. Lough/The Sports Report of Central Georgia, www.centralgasports.com
As for the team, Mercer lost only two seniors from a preseason media-guide roster of 17 players. Four returnees started at least 14 games, and nine played in at least 25 of 31 games.
Guard D.J. Peavy, a freshman from Texas, is widely considered to be transferring, and four players on the roster – two guards and two forwards – didn’t play last year.
Gary is will likely know in the next few weeks about anybody else looking to transfer.
There may be some adjustments from Gary’s last job to this one, but moreso only on paper.
Purdue is a college of 31,000 main-campus undergrads, Mercer with 3,200 main-campus undergrads.
Mackey Arena seats 14,846, Hawkins Arena 3,200.
But Macon-Bibb County and Houston County have about 300,000 people, while Lafayette/West Lafayette, Indiana metro area encompassing three counties has about 235,000.
Gary, though, has had plenty of experience with smaller programs at Tulane (8,600 students, 4,100-seat arena), McNeese State (6,500 students, 4,200-seat arena), Duquesne (5,900 students, 4,400-seat arena), and Centenary (520 students, 3,000-seat arena).
The Bears of Gary are likely to be pretty similar to those of Hoffman, with perhaps a little more freedom.
“We should do our work in practice to get ready and that game should be our reward,” said Gary, giving plenty of credit to Purdue head coach Matt Painter for paving this road as a colleague and mentor the past eight years. “We’ll make some adjustments, but you are going to see our team play with grit and toughness and smarts. Most of the time that is, not all the time, because it just happens that way in the game of basketball.”
He hopes that leads to a return to the NCAA Tournament.
“There is nothing like it,” he said. “It’s hard to explain unless you’ve gone through it yourself. I want them to feel how special that is, so that’s what motivates me to get them to the level, that hopefully we can achieve that.”
