Seven Candidates to Replace Damon Stoudamire at Georgia Tech

It’s time to start over for Georgia Tech.

The Yellow Jackets bid farewell to coach Damon Stoudamire Sunday after three mostly frustrating seasons. When Georgia Tech takes the court for its 2027 opener in November, it will seek its first win since beating NC State on Jan. 17, having lost 12 straight games to close the season.

The causes of the Yellow Jackets’ slide over the years are many, but it’s time to focus on solutions. Georgia Tech is a program with ample past success in a major metropolitan area playing in college basketball’s most historic conference. Even if it can’t turn back the clock to 1990 or 2004, there’s no question that the Yellow Jackets can compete with the right hire.

Here are seven names to watch to take over in Midtown next year, put together by Sports Illustrated’s Kevin Sweeney.

Casey Alexander, Belmont

Alexander, a native of Chattanooga, has won across the South. He helped a moribund Stetson program show signs of life, made the NCAA tournament at Lipscomb and enjoyed a 26–6 campaign with the Bruins this year that culminated in a regular-season Missouri Valley title. If Georgia Tech wants a coach with experience navigating a crowded urban sports scene, here’s its guy.

Scott Cross, Troy

Cross has fared well since his still-strange 2018 firing from Texas-Arlington, where he went 225–161 in 12 seasons. Taking the Trojans’ reins, he shook off two down pandemic-era seasons and won 20 games in five consecutive years. As Jeff Goodman of Field of 68 reported Sunday, Cross’s connection to Yellow Jackets deputy athletic director Brent Jones—the athletic director at Troy when Cross coached there—could make him an enticing candidate.

Justin Gainey, Tennessee (assistant)

A solid NC State guard in days of yore, the 48-year-old Gainey has no head-coaching experience but has worked seemingly everywhere—his alma mater, Arizona, Marquette and his current stop, to name just a few. Yellow Jackets athletic director Ryan Alpert previously worked for the Volunteers—his tenure overlapped with Gainey’s, in fact—so he’d be fishing in familiar waters. Georgia Tech could prune worse coaching trees than Rick Barnes’s.

Richie Riley, South Alabama

Riley, 43, worked his way up from the NAIA ranks. He passed through the ACC in the mid-2010s, spending two years as an assistant under Brad Brownell at Clemson. He’s made the most of two head-coaching gigs since then: he won a regular season Southland title at Nicholls State in 2018 and owns four 20-win seasons with the Jaguars.

Brooks Savage, East Tennessee State

The 40-year-old has reps at seven different schools, none north of the Mason-Dixon line. With the Buccaneers, he’s worked wonders, going 60–39 and stirring memories of the program’s proud past. Like Riley, he has experience as an ACC assistant, having worked under ex-East Tennessee State coach Steve Forbes at Wake Forest.

Takayo Siddle, UNC Wilmington

His stock may be down after losing in the Coastal tournament to Campbell Sunday, but Siddle has been a formidable turnaround artist for the Seahawks. UNC Wilmington improved from 7–10 in his first year to 27 wins in 2022—a total he replicated in 2025 and is one way from replicating this year. The Seahawks extended him Friday, so buying him out may be tricky.

Tony Skinn, George Mason

Jim Larranaga (Miami) and Kim English (Providence) have used the Patriots as springboards to bigger jobs this century. Skinn—a guard on George Mason’s 2006 Final Four team who’s 70–29 in three years in Fairfax, Va.—could be the latest. Before his current tenure, Skinn amassed a bevy of experience as a major-conference assistant, working at Seton Hall, Ohio State and Maryland.

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