Georgia Basketball: 8 candidates to replace Tom Crean as head coach

Grant McCasland

It’s important for Georgia to cast a wide net in finding their next head basketball coach, and it’s certainly something they’ve done in the past. When they hired Mark Fox, they were nabbing a mid-major coach from all the way out in Nevada based on his recent success. When you consider McCasland, he might not have exactly the same pedigree that Fox had thirteen years ago, but he’s certainly in the same ballpark.

McCasland played and has coached at Baylor, recently spending five years on Scott Drew’s coaching staff. He’s been a head coach at four different schools, leading Midwestern State to D2 success and starting a turnaround at Arkansas State. McCasland has been at North Texas since 2017 and the results speak for themselves: two regular seasons C-USA titles, a CBI championship in 2018, and a first-round NCAA Tournament over 4-seed Purdue last season.

In the span of five years, McCasland has built North Texas from middling program to one of the very best in Conference USA. Most of his coaching experience has come in Texas, so Georgia might be a little outside of his map, but why should that be cause for concern? He’s shown his ability to build a competitive team and also to coach them into fantastic shape. One day soon, he’s going to be hired as a power conference head coach; will Georgia be the one to make that move?