ETSU Men’s Basketball Coaching Search: SHOW ME THE MONEY!

This is not a time to cut basketball costs and worry about funding small sports.

Whether or not the 2019–20 ETSU Buccaneers were the greatest men’s basketball team in school history is subjective option.

But there is one thing this incarnation of the Bucs has their predecessors did not.

Even with the departure of head coach Steve Forbes, there is not the feeling the program as a whole will decline significantly.

It wasn’t that way 30 years ago. The talk shows of the time preached ETSU’s success was temporary, and just two years following the Bucs’ victory against Arizona in the NCAA Tournament local fans were contemplating if Science Hill High School could beat ETSU.

Astonishingly, this was not dismissed outright by local media. For the rest of the decade, ETSU played second-fiddle in popularity behind the local high school scene, to the point where their 2000–01 regular season conference championship team, their first since 1992, barely drew 2,000 fans a game.

Two years later ETSU was back in the NCAA Tournament. But head coach Ed DeChellis left for Penn State, the football program was dropped, and the Bucs were kicked out of the Southern Conference.

While the Murry Bartow era did feature three trips to the NCAA Tournament, the most ever for an ETSU coach, he never was quite able to restore the glory he inherited.