Coach gone five days after new AD is hired
Five days after he was introduced as athletic director at George Washington, Patrick Nero has a high-priority task — finding a new men’s basketball coach. On Monday, the Colonials fired 10-year coach Karl Hobbs.
“The university determined that now is the time for new leadership of GW’s men’s basketball team,” GW senior vice provost and senior vice president Robert Chernak said in a statement.
Recommended Stories
But the timing was apparently a surprise to Hobbs, who earlier in the day tweeted: “Trying to get next year’s schedule finalized. Looks like summer came early in D.C. It’s hot.”
The 49-year-old’s firing comes at an unusual time — seven weeks after the Colonials’ 17-14 season ended with a disappointing loss to Saint Joseph’s in the opening round of the Atlantic?10 tournament and five days after GW unveiled Nero as the replacement for 17-year AD Jack Kvancz.
It also is odd considering Hobbs had recruited three strong players, led by Erik Copes of Philadelphia, nephew of Hobbs’ top assistant, Roland Houston. No team in the A-10 had signed a player with a higher prospect rating than Copes’ ESPN figure of 95.
Hobbs, a former assistant of Jim Calhoun at Connecticut, had a 166-129 record and made the NCAA tournament three straight seasons (2005-07). Since 2007, however, the Colonials are 52-64 and have been to one postseason tournament, the CBI in 2010. Hobbs was signed through the 2011-12 season and was making in excess of $500,000 a year.
The departure fueled speculation that GW was attempting to hire Vermont coach Mike Lonergan, who has been mentioned as a candidate for the vacancy at George Mason. The 45-year-old has ties to the Washington area as a player at Archbishop Carroll and Catholic University, the coach at CU and an assistant at Maryland.
In his six seasons at Vermont, Lonergan has guided the Catamounts to one appearance in the NCAA, one in the CBI and two in the NIT. Lonergan was a two-time coach of the year (2007, 2011) in the America East, where Nero served as league commissioner since 2005 before taking the GW job.
