Now What?

We haven’t really addressed the “elephant in the room” when it comes to Longwood Basketball much here at LancersBlog. Personally, I thought the conversations shouldn’t begin until the end of the season. We’re one loss away from that reality at this point and my philosophy has always been, in situations like these, that your decision should already be made regardless of postseason outcomes.

We kind of saw this play out last year at Campbell. I really think Kevin McGeehan would’ve been fired if it wasn’t for last season’s postseason run. Now he’s still at Campbell and the Camels still had a .500ish season with the threat of again of losing their transcendent player, Chris Clemons. Do you feel good as a Campbell fan in a post-Chris Clemons world where McGeehan is still there? I wouldn’t.

That’s why I think today and this point of time is the proper time to broach this subject.

Before we dive into the current situation and status of Longwood Basketball let me say that I love Jayson Gee and his staff. My life is better because Jayson Gee became a part of it five years ago. When my first son was born, one of the first calls I received was from Coach Gee and that’s just one of many meaningful moments I’ve had with him on a personal level over the last five years. There is no better man out there to represent Longwood University.

This year has been tough and it’s immensely hard to see people you admire and respect struggle.

With all the being said, this conversation is about a basketball and how Longwood finally becomes a respectable Division I program. Last season was awful, I feel like I was robbed of a promising season because of injuries. There were certainly injuries this year but the roster was supposed to be constructed to persevere regardless of injury. Simply put, there is no excuse for the lack of competitiveness we have seen over the course of this season, especially in the last eight games where Longwood has continually gotten blown out.

Most of all I’m jealous. It really stinks to see the excitement and frenzy around the Big South yesterday as crazy seeding scenarios played out. I want to be part of that, I want to feel something in February, I want to watch meaningful basketball, and I’d really like to make it March.

The Situation

So here is the situation Troy Austin finds himself in. You can justify that Longwood is in need of a coaching change in both the men’s and women’s program. While both may or may not happen on a similar timeline they should both live in a vacuum and one decision should not effect the other.

Jayson Gee just concluded year five of a six year contract (technically it concludes in May). You CANNOT have a lame duck head coach in men’s college basketball, it’s a recruiting death sentence in a year in which the recruiting cycle is supposed to produce at least four or five scholarships at minimum.

So there are only two choices:

1. Move on from the Jayson Gee era
2. Extend Jayson Gee

Moving on from the Gee era

I’m not a contract lawyer but I’m going to do my best using Gee’s current contract. If Coach Gee was to resign then he would owe Longwood $100,000. So a resignation is probably off of the table, although I’m sure some mutual agreement could be worked out.

If Coach Gee’s contract was to be terminated then Longwood would owe him a buy out of about $200,000 for the rest of this year and next year. That’s a number that an athletic department the size and scope of Longwood probably can’t handle, but that amount would also be offset if/when Gee found another job in college hoops. There is no doubt that a lot of head coaches from around the country would be anxious to have Gee join their bench. So a buyout isn’t going to be as much as it seems.

At Cleveland State, Gee was making almost $129,000 his final year. So a buyout at Longwood would probably look like something more along the lines of $60,000–$125,000 for the athletic department. Is that something we can stomach?

Keeping Jayson Gee

Whenever you move on from a head coach you also have to weigh the impending exodus of players from the program. All three players who have signed Letter of Intent would undoubtedly be released and the new staff would have to win those players back. You would probably have 3–6 roster spots to fill with a new coach.

Should that weigh on Troy Austin? I don’t know. I’m more of the thought you have to evaluate the past than put stake in unknown future commodities. Anything can happen between now and this time next year, including freak injuries. Therefore I think you need to make a decision based on what you know.

If Austin wants to stick with Jayson Gee then he likely has to give him some sort of a short term extension. I would hazard to guess that this type of extension would hold no future buyout and would be window dressing so Longwood can recruit next season more than anything.

If we go down this path then there is no doubt that Austin and Gee are firmly tying themselves and their future on the overall performance of the 2018–19 season. That’s a dicey proposition for any athletic director to make and there really aren’t any future excuses that could pop up regarding the on-the-court performance next season.

How to evaluate

Regardless of the decision made in the coming days, Jayson Gee will never get credit for some of the strides he’s made at Longwood. Is a 42–119 record beyond disappointing? Absolutely. But Gee has done a lot of little things to transform Longwood from a basketball team to a basketball program. Things like an expanded budget, small facilities upgrades (locker room), and holding a preseason banquet matter. But they don’t matter enough to ignore the on-the-court performance.

Regardless of how you feel about Jayson Gee, the proper way to evaluate him his using the athletic department’s own “Strategic Scorecard”. In that document the men’s basketball goals and measures are as follows:

1. NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Appearances: Obviously this is a zero.
2. NCAA Postseason Appearances: Another zero.
3. National Television Appearances: I’d say this has gone up a slight uptick, especially the past few years with the ESPNU game at Oklahoma State and the Hoops Marathon against Stephen F. Austin.
4. Big South Men’s Basketball Financial Units: Finishing in last place doesn’t earn you any of these.

There are obviously other goals ranging from APR to guarantee games, but we can’t really say how good or bad Longwood is doing at some of those.

Simply put, we’re not even close to achieving our goals and we’re closer to 2020 than 2015 (the span of this scorecard).

What challenges do we face?

Let’s face it, Longwood isn’t exactly an attractive coaching destination right now. So if you’re in the camp of moving on from Gee you have to recognize our challenges and identify a viable candidate that could come to Famville.

I know someone can win at Longwood and I actually think some of the budgetary strides Gee has made will make Longwood a bit more attractive then it was during the last coaching search five years ago.

With that being said, there are still plenty of unique challenges:

1. Facilities: We need to do something about Willett Hall, but beyond that we are still in a facilities challenge regardless. Right now the basketball team shares Willett with a number of different stakeholders including PE classes and other sports teams. What Longwood is fighting against are the practice facilities you see at other schools around the Big South or mid-major ranks where players have, essentially, 24/7 access to the gym and the staff offices are right next to that. At Longwood there is no practice facility, the Fitness Center is off limits for all intents and purposes, and the staff offices are on the whole other side of campus in Tabb.
2. Perception: You can’t win at Longwood! You’ll hear that plenty, but that’s a really dumb notion. Powerful recruiting and transcendent players can alter the course of a program. Look at program’s like USC Upstate and Charleston Southern who both sport gyms the size of my elementary school. Both have had postseason success in recent years because they found the likes of Saah Nimley, Arlon Harper, and Torrey Craig. Longwood has found diamond’s in the rough before (hello Antwan Carter), but the infrastructure and coaching wasn’t around them when they were here to push this program over the hump.
3. Local Recruiting: Longwood has never had a player signed out of high school from Hampton Roads in the Division I era. We haven’t signed a high school player from the Richmond area since David Robinson in 2010. Sometimes geographic boundaries are silly and Gee has built a meaningful pipeline in the Raleigh area, but Longwood is beyond irrelevant in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We have to start buying in to more local players and the list I could provide of guys we missed would make this post entirely too long.

The good news is all of these challenges are opportunities more than anything. We can energize alumni to help build new facilities. We can embrace our past while reaching out to former players who are coaching across the state to act as a catalyst for local recruiting. Most of all, we can all change the perception of Longwood Basketball together.

But the question remains…who will be coaching this team next year?

I would welcome the thoughts of others and would encourage you to start this conversation as a community in the comments section and on social media. As always, this site is available for anyone who wants to share their thoughts and opinions. If you would like to contribute a post then email us at LUlancersblog@gmail.com