And since it was never mentioned here, fyi, we signed a solid point guard.
He was only a 3*, but had some serious interest from Florida, UCLA, UNLV, Villanova, etc., and had offers from UNC-Greensboro, Rutgers, Buffalo, Northeastern.
But anyway, here's the article.
http://blog.al.com/press-register-sports/2010/05/new_basketball_coach_tony_barb.htmlNew basketball coach Tony Barbee wants to create connection with Auburn community
By Evan Woodbery
May 19, 2010, 8:30AM
AUBURN -- In the past three months, Tony Barbee has taken his team to the NCAA tournament, been courted by several programs and agreed to a multi-million dollar contract.
But on this day, Auburn's new men's basketball coach is dealing with less weighty issues: Shorts or long pants.
Barbee is attending the Regions Charity Classic in Birmingham and he'll be golfing with a group that includes former Auburn great Charles Barkley. Still new in town, Barbee wants to know what to wear, so a media-relations representative is dutifully dialing a tournament official.
A quick call confirms there's no dress code. Participants can wear what they please. But that hasn't ended the issue.
"Charles always wears long pants," the representative says. "I don't want you to be the only one in your group in shorts."
Barbee agrees from his office that would not be ideal.
"Are we in a cart or walking?" Barbee calls to the hallway.
"In a cart," the assistant replies. "But it's going to be really hot."
"I thought we were walking," Barbee shrugs.
Barbee has few passions other than basketball, but golf is one of them.
Despite his lanky frame, he's got a smooth swing and a genuine appreciation for the game. And the tournament in Birmingham also gives him a chance to do what he has been doing nearly non-stop since his hiring in March -- promoting Auburn's men's basketball program.
After arriving on the Plains from a successful stint at UTEP, Barbee has been aggressive about courting fans and media in his new home. He was an active part of the "Tiger Prowl" caravan last month and has rarely turned down an opportunity to meet with students, fans or alumni.
His office at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum is largely barren. With only a few weeks until his move across the street to the new Auburn Arena, Barbee hasn't bothered to decorate the place with personal effects. But there are other signs that he's settling in at Auburn: A copy of Luxury Pools magazine sits on his desk.
Barbee spoke with the Press-Register last week as part of a round of one-on-one interviews with Auburn beat writers. A media-relations representative monitored each of the conversations, an unusual practice for personal interviews that don't involve student-athletes.
For the record, Barbee ultimately settled on long pants and a Gene Chizik-style untucked shirt (the unofficial uniform of Auburn's athletic department since Chizik's arrival).
His interview, an edited version of which appears here, covered topics other than fashion.
Q: Before you were hired, you had never been to Auburn's campus. What did (athletic director) Jay Jacobs say to sell you on the position?
A. Just like in recruiting, when you're involved in a job search, everybody's doing homework on everybody. Schools are trying to see if coaches are a fit; coaches are trying to see if it's a fit for what they wanted to do. So I did my homework on Auburn and the commitment that I saw from the university toward men's basketball. There were so many things that said this is the right fit at the right time.
Q: Auburn's attendance has been near the bottom of the league for much of this decade. What can be done to boost interest in the program?
A. Winning is always the easy answer. But it's the things that aren't as obvious that are the ones that make the difference. The little things make a big difference on the floor. It's the same thing with trying to put butts in the seats. What I have to do is create a connection. The fans, the students, the alumni, the faculty -- they've got to feel a connection to me and the program. You can't do that sitting behind a desk. You've got to be out and about and meeting people and not expecting them to come to you.
It's important because those are the people who are going to be coming to our games, especially in the local area. You'd love to have people driving in from Mobile and Birmingham, but a lot of times that's not practical on a weekday night. So we've got to capture this community and make them feel a connection. That's me being accessible and me being visible in the community, so people feel like, "We've got to be there, because we don't want to let coach Barbee down."
Q: Auburn has a different profile than your last two stops (UTEP and Memphis), which were in large urban areas. How does that affect your approach?
A. This brings me back to my roots, where I went to college. UMass is a very similar profile -- an insulated college campus, 20-25,000 students, the majority live on campus, in a college town. That's where I cut my teeth in playing and also as an assistant coach. UTEP was more akin to Memphis, because it was a commuter campus in a big urban area. So I'm going back to my college roots.
Q. People follow football recruiting passionately in the South. What's the biggest difference between that and basketball recruiting?
A. In basketball, you don't need 15 great players. Five or six would be nice. But if you have two or three and then build a team with really good role players who understand their roles around the difference-makers, you can be something special.
Also, in men's basketball, when a kid commits verbally to a school, it's kind of an unwritten rule, the other schools back away. In football, from what I'm told, when a kid commits, now the other schools know who they've got to beat.
Q. Can any of those difference-makers slip through the cracks, or are there no more secrets left in recruiting?
A. It's very rare that one slips through the cracks because of the Internet coverage of college basketball recruiting and having a list of the top fifth-graders, which is kind of ridiculous. It's very rare that you have that hidden gem.
A few years back, you had Tracy McGrady, who was not even rated in the top 500 seniors in the country. Nowhere to be found on any list, anywhere. He goes to one of the major camps in the summer before his senior year and he goes from off the radar into the top 20 in the country.
Q: If the elite teams like Kentucky or North Carolina already know about those difference-makers, how does a school like Auburn get in the mix?
A. My pitch has always been the same, and that's be honest. If you're in this for the kids, and you're in it for the right reasons and you're confident about yourself, your abilities as a coach and what you're trying to sell, then I don't see why Auburn can't compete on that level. We've got all the resources that everybody else has to compete on a national level. I know one thing: If you don't try, you're not going to get any of them. So we're going to go after every one of them.
Q: Rightly or wrongly, the perception among some fans is that the reason Auburn's recruiting suffered in the last several years is that the previous staff was squeaky clean and uninterested in getting involved in the some of the more unsavory aspects of recruiting in major college basketball.
A. I have no reaction to that.
The one thing that's going to happen here is that myself and my staff are going to work harder than any staff anywhere in the country. That's what recruiting comes down to. Are you going to be willing to put the time in to create the relationships, create the bonds, and then even if it doesn't work out, are you going to still continue to develop that relationship so when the next one comes through the pipeline, you'll still be in position? Recruiting comes down to one thing: relationships. And if you have relationships with people who want to help you, they're going to help you. If you don't, then somebody else has created that relationship, that connection. Just like I talked about with the fans, it's the same thing with recruiting. You want to create relationships with parents, with coaches, with advisers, with the kids, so it's easier to tell the other guy no than it is to tell you no.
Q: You've done a bunch of interviews since being hired. What don't fans know about you yet?
A. What you see with me is what you get. I'm brutally honest to a fault. I'll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. I love the game. I love my family. And I've got very few hobbies other than football and golf. That's me in a nutshell.
Q: If you manage to get a couple days off this summer, what's your ideal weekend?
A. Staying at home with my kids, enjoying my family. In this business, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays -- they no longer exist. I forgot my own birthday last year. I had no idea. You get so caught up in the daily grind, you feel like if you take a day off, somebody else is working that day.
It's kind of my wife's duty to keep me in check. There's nothing more important to me than my family and kids. But I love what I do. I've been doing this 15, 16 years and I haven't had a job in 15, 16 years because I love what I do.
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