A wild night weekday night in college basketball saw two of the nation’s hottest teams fall as Alabama ended No. 8 Auburn’s 11-game win-streak and Northwestern handed No. 10 Illinois a road loss.The Milwaukee Bucks have hired Doc Rivers as head coach to replace Adrian Griffin.
Rivers previously served as an informal consultant to Griffin at the prompting of the Bucks. Talks between Rivers and the Bucks on him becoming head coach began on Tuesday.
The Philadelphia 76ers parted ways with Rivers after the 2023 playoffs after three seasons with the franchise. Rivers won The Finals in 2008 with the Boston Celtics.
When the Bucks hired Griffin in the offseason, they also strongly considered Nick Nurse and Kenny Atkinson.
The Milwaukee Bucks made the difficult decision to move on from Adrian Griffin just a few months after hiring him as head coach despite a 30-13 record.
“I think the way it’s been described to me is there wasn’t necessarily something that sparked this or one particular thing,” said Jamal Collier on The Hoop Collective podcast. “Clearly just an accumulation of a lot of mini red flags and signs over the course of the season.”
While the Bucks were frustrated with some elements of Griffin’s coaching, Collier said that he was well-liked on a personal level.
“I think, in general, the players… there was not throughout some of these butting head incidents or questions of how their scheme was working, I think the players enjoyed Griff,” added Collier later in the podcast. “People liked working with him. He’s a nice guy. People tried to give him as much benefit of the doubt that he was going to get better and grow and work. It just kind of is the championship expectations and demands that begin with a player like Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and you have so much invested in this time financially, draft pick wise with each year having to matter, I think that all sort of equaled to a pressure cooker.”
