I think Hobbs is a stone cold lead pipe lock.  I think his resume is the clear #2 greatest coaching job behind Jarvis.

For Lonergan, I would look to see what happens to Gregg Marshall at Wichita State.  Both resigned in scandal and both fanbases have a contingent who believe the coach did nothing wrong and was railroaded by PC culture. I assume a similar fate will be that his NCAA teams and star players get in the HOF and then there will be a wait before the school decides what to do with Marshall as a individual.

I would say neither should get in on their own.  While both had some short terms successes, Hobbs could never sustain long term success (mainly due to being knee-capped by the Administration) and was fired and we'll never know about ML because he was fired before we could see what he could do with out the core 4 players.  The fact that we would consider adding them on their own speaks to how much of a cluster the GW basketball program historically has been.  I think in order to be considered hall of fame worthy, you need to gave sustained success over at least a 5-7 period, which neither actually did.

Porter71, I think that 5-7 years is a big ask at a school like GW.  Totally reasonable at a major program, but not so much at a steppingstone program like GW.  Hobbs reached 4 years (the NIT appearance followed by the 3 straight NCAA's) .  What's ironic is that my premise is based on the notion that 4 very good consecutive years at GW ought to springboard a coach onto his next position, and this obviously failed to happen for KH or ML (though as noted, ML could have easily moved on).  

While it was widely known that Hobbs interviewed with Cincinnati, it was my understanding that he was not offered the job.  If I'm incorrect, why would he have turned it down?

Am also not 100% sure that Rutgers ever offered Lonergan.  Definitely an interview which Lonergan took to get a sense of what perks/amenities Rutgers had that he could perhaps leverage while at GW.  Am not sure a formal offer was ever tendered though I could be wrong about this.

Hobbs, yes.   2005, 2006 and 2007 is the stuff of GW legend and a place in the HOF.

ML, did oversee a great turnaround

Yet, Here's ML by #s:

Seasons:  5
A10 titles:  0
A10 Conference titles:  0
NCAA trips:  1
NCAA  wins:  0
Players who said he abused him:  6 (at least)
Times Fired for abusing players at GW:  1
HOF chances:  0

GW Mayhem, which person's/positions actually cast votes to determine who is admitted to GW HOF and how many votes are required?  For reasons described by others in this thread, I think both coaches are deserving of admission.  However, because they were both fired amid well publicized controversy, I doubt either will be admitted anytime soon.

Gwmayhem wrote:

Porter71, I think that 5-7 years is a big ask at a school like GW.   

It should be a big ask to get into a Hall of Fame.  Hobbs had an awesome 4 year stretch, but when we talk about MLs great turnaround, it was the Hobbs years that we were recovering from.  It’s hard for someone to be hall of famed and a complete failure in a 5 year period.  I don’t think the totality of his time here is hall of fame worthy, even though we had a couple great seasons.

What is the procedure of getting into the GW Athletics Hall of Fame? Is there a group of people who vote on it? A certain number of spots per year?

I think there is a tendency here to evaluate GW within the prism of the national college basketball landscape.  Considering this discussion centered around the GW Hall of Fame, I think it's only fair to compare GW players, teams and coaches to other GW players, teams and coaches.

BM's post is an example of what I'm talking about.  Yes, it was disappointing that the NIT Championship team failed to reach the NCAA's.  There is no denying this.  At the same time, the team did rally to win a national championship and not a bogus one like the CBI.  If you consider the NIT to be bogus, here are the number of schools by conferences who have won this event this century:

Big 10        5
Big 12        4
AAC           3
SEC           2
Pac 12       2
A10           2 (Dayton has also won it)
ACC          1
Big east     1
MVC          1 (Wichita State, now an AAC member)

No, this is not the same thing as making the Final 4 at the dance.  In my mind though, it's not dissimilar than making a Sweet 16 at the dance.  In fact, one can make the claim that the postseason accomplishments involved in winning the NIT (victories over Hofstra, a very hot Monmouth team on the road), Florida played fortuitously at home, San Diego State and Valpo)  easily outweighs the postsaeason accomplishments of GW's sole Sweet 16 team, defeating a weak #5 seed in New Mexico and lucking out to play #13 seed Southern rather than #4 seed Georgia Tech.  Let's go one better...has there been any GW postseason that represented a better overall accomplishment than the NIT run?  Yes, it's more impressive to make the Dance than to not make the Dance.  But that's sports...the team with the best record in any sport's regular season does not always win the championship.  In fact, it often does not.

To wrap this up, I do believe context is everything.  Regardless of what each of us WANTS for this program, history needs to be a guide.  For a program like GW's, just making the NIT field is an accomplishment let alone winning it.  It's an accomplishment because in the vast majority of the 100+ seasons that GW has played basketball, it has not reached the NCAA's or the NIT.  I do sometimes feel like this point gets ignored or not factored properly.
 

BGF wrote:

Mayhem, I think you’ve written a perfect assessment of why the NIT is more worthy of our pride than our Sweet 16 year. It was a fantastic run and it should not be considered “less than.”

Thanks for your post!

 Hold on. It's one thing to say the NIT is worthy of a remarkable accomplishment and, as I have argued, makes ML worthy of HOF consideration. But let's not go overboard. The Sweet 16 appearance is (and will always be until surpassed) the seminal moment in GW basketball history. If you gave any coach the choice between a Sweet 16 appearance and NIT Championship at a school like GW, I would bet they would pick the former. Again, taking nothing away from the great accomplishment that the NIT Championship was, the NCAA tournament is the gold standard in college basketball.