Burg Relies on Past Experience to Land Future Eagles
Nine newcomers joined the Eagle roster for 2020-21.
Marc Gignac
10/22/2020
STATESBORO – The items are in every new head coach’s plan for his or her first 30 days on the job. Hire a staff, build relationships with the student-athletes on the roster and recruit, recruit, recruit.
But what happens when there is a pandemic, nobody is on campus and there is moratorium on travel? Thank goodness for Zoom, Facetime and a good old-fashioned phone call.
Georgia Southern head men’s basketball coach Brian Burg was officially announced head coach of the Eagles March 29, and immediately began reaching out to the returners from last season while putting his coaching staff together.
“Our staff worked tirelessly as soon as we got to campus to be able to build relationships with all of our players,” says Burg. “That's the right way to build a program.”
Six seniors moving on and a couple more student-athletes electing to transfer left Burg and the staff with two returning scholarship players who saw the court in 2019-20 in Elijah McCadden and David Viti. It is tied for the second least number of returners in all of Division I basketball.
Mackenzie McFatten, who redshirted last season, and Zack Bryant, a mid-year transfer from UAB also returned, giving the Eagle coaching staff nine scholarships to offer. With the pandemic, coaches could not leave campus to recruit nor bring anybody on campus for visits. The normal process of evaluating players and selling your program, university, campus and community was severely hampered.
Or was it?
“Actually, it wasn’t,” says Burg, who spent the early portion of his career as a junior college coach. “It was very similar to junior college recruiting because you do a lot over the phone, based on your budget. The staff did a phenomenal job relying on their relationships and putting ourselves in the best position to get quality players who fit Georgia Southern – high-character, disciplined and extremely competitive.”
Georgia southern is a hidden gem - I've said it countless times. Hanner Fieldhouse is, by far, the toughest place to play in the Sun Belt. When you look at the leadership of the institution, Dr. Kyle Marrero's vision of Georgia Southern and its growth and also the leadership in our athletic department by Jared Benko, an individual who wants to win and do it the right way and support the quality coaches we have throughout our entire athletic department. We have an unbelievable institution, and we're in a college town with 20,000 students on campus. It's an easy sell because there is so much to offer here and educate recruits on.Head Coach Brian Burg
Burg and his staff did what they always do - rolled up their sleeves and got to work. A table and a laptop were set up at center court in Hanner Fieldhouse, and late-night Zoom calls were not uncommon. For Burg and the staff, Georgia Southern was an easy sell despite not being able to use the traditional avenues to sell it.
“Georgia southern is a hidden gem - I've said it countless times,” says Burg. “Hanner Fieldhouse is, by far, the toughest place to play in the Sun Belt. When you look at the leadership of the institution, Dr. Kyle Marrero's vision of Georgia Southern and its growth and also the leadership in our athletic department by Jared Benko, an individual who wants to win and do it the right way and support the quality coaches we have throughout our entire athletic department. We have an unbelievable institution, and we're in a college town with 20,000 students on campus. It's an easy sell because there is so much to offer here and educate recruits on.”
The commitments began coming in April. Eric Boone and Cam Bryant and then Gedi Juozapaitis and Kamari Brown and Kaden Archie. They kept coming over the summer adding Prince Toyambi, Grant Weatherford, Andrei Savrasov and Fred Odhiambo. When it was all said and done, nine scholarship newcomers, tied for the fourth-most in Division I basketball, chose to come to Statesboro without ever having set foot in the city or on the Georgia Southern campus.
“It was educating them on what Georgia Southern can provide, what our staff can provide and then the amount of success our has staff has had throughout our careers,” says Burg. “Every staff member has won at an elite level, and we put our players in the best position to have success not only on the court but in the classroom and then after their careers, once that ball stops bouncing, to have success in life. I feel very fortunate that these guys bought into our process and bought into Georgia Southern.”
