Georgia Basketball: Chad Dollar joins Tom Crean’s staff at UGA

Georgia Basketball has brought in a new assistant coach and he’s a guy very familiar with the state.

Chad Dollar has joined Tom Crean’s staff as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Georgia. This is one of the first major staffing moves Crean has made since he became Georgia’s head coach earlier this month.

Who is Chad Dollar? By all accounts, he’s one of the best and most experienced assistant coaches in college basketball. He’s been in the college coaching arena for more than twenty years, with stops at Auburn, LSU, Wichita State, and several other schools. Dollar spent this past season as an assistant at South Florida. Dollar played three years of college basketball at South Florida during the 1990’s.

Besides his experience, Dollar’s ties to the Atlanta area make this a seemingly home-run hire for Crean. Dollar is from Atlanta and his father is one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in Georgia history. Those ties to Atlanta certainly could give Crean and his staff some much needed connections with local high school basketball progress. One area Crean must improve for Georgia basketball sooner rather than later is recruiting. Dollar should be able to help with that.

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As far as the current state of the team, all accounts point to the players having very productive workouts with their new head coach. Videos that have emerged of Crean during these workouts show what most already knew: he’s a fiery, passionate guy that gives his players constructive criticism as well praise. Just as Kirby Smart has changed the culture with Georgia football, hopefully Crean can do the same with his coaching style and staff hires like Chad Dollar.