Why did Jerry Green resign as HC?

So I've never been too deeply invested in UT basketball, or basketball in general, but I was perusing through the history and noticed a great record from Jerry Green sandwiched between two mediocre at best coaches. I then found this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/21/s...-22-11-season-resigns-as-tennessee-coach.html
in which he states:

What's the deal with this? Was he forced out? Just curious if anyone knew anything about it.

 

IIRC he had a falling out with the AD...?

 

I remember him telling fans that he didn't care if they stayed home

I'm paraphrasing, but I think that was the gist

 

He was forced out. A lot of wins in his 4 seasons, but many thought that he had no control over his players. The team had a top 5 ranking midway through the 2000-01 season and then the wheels fell off and we barely made the tourney as an at large team.

 

He got fired because he was running out of O'Neill's recruits, had no control over his players, created zero mental toughness within his team and was recruiting us into Conference USA status. Nothing was worse than UNC coach Bill Guthridge telling his team not to worry about falling behind UT in the 2000 Sweet 16 because "they'll talk a lot, but, in the end, they'll fall apart" and it played out exactly like that. Uncle Jed telling fans to go to KMart and not selling popcorn was the yellow ribbon on the package.

 

Thanks. It just seemed weird to have a 70%-win coach stuck between a 40% and a 50% coach.

 

Watching jerry green's teams was more difficult than the two sub-40 pt efforts we managed this year. As noted, JG rode the string of recruits that KO got going and had some success with unbelievably talented teams.

 

Could Kevin O'Neil just not coach then? He was 36-43 at UT.

 

He was cleaning up the extraordinary messes left by a nicer version of [ddiapos] and bolted before enjoying the fruits of his labor.

 

That makes sense. Like I said, my knowledge of UT basketball is limited.

 

That's about the long and short of it.

 

Legend has it that he didn't even realize Brendan Haywood had fouled out of that fateful 2000 game against UNC.

 

True. He also did not allow his assistants to say anything negative or critical of players, either.

 

Showing up half lit to the aau tournament the day he offered ikeakor is a good second too.

Or saying the wrong school when he was hired.

 

Legend? He admitted it in the postgame press conference.

 

If you ever doubt Doug Dickey was intentionally sabotaging UT basketball, remember that he hired Jerry Green instead of Bill Self.

 

Where does this sound familiar to a situation today?

 

Aw come on, it sounded so much more dramatic my way.

 

True, but I never pass on an opportunity to expound on the enormity of Green's stupidity.

 

One of the reasons of my departure from donorship of UT athletics in the 90s. After sitting faithfully through the Wade Houston years into the rebuild of O'Neil. He then undermined the BB program when an obvious future legend wanted the job. The final straw for me was raising the level of donorship for the seats I had in Sec B in football about that same time. Had a conversation with them and some heated written exchanges regarding his job performance. Wasn't invited to his retirement party.