The Kentucky Way

If there's hope for the Bulldogs, much of it lies in the fact that Charles Mann, Kenny Gaines, and Brandon Morris are all sophomores, and none are likely to leave early for the NBA.

One-and-dones are nice from a talent standpoint, but when that's most of your team, the results can be vary wildly:

Kentucky, which has lost three of four, dropped out from 25th, the fourth preseason No. 1 to fall out of the poll in the same season.

Many at Kentucky called this year's haul the "greatest recruiting class ever assembled" without a hint of hyperbole.  Each player may ultimately have a wonderful career - in college or, more likely, in the NBA - but winning something with that kind of team is not always as easy as it sounds.

The hope is that Mark Fox has set Georgia up for future sustained success.  Fox's recruiting (which will be discussed at length in a future post), while not off the charts, has not been as bad as many make it out to be.

One thing a reliance on early entries does is it gives you more room for error.  If you bring in five blue chip guys, odds are good that three or four of them are going to pan out.  If they don't, though, you have to start over the following season.

In Georgia's case, the challenge now is to supplement the talent that's already there.  Fox has to keep bringing in the Mann's and Gaines's of the world, but he also has to lock down better role players.  The icing on the cake would be the occasional early entry.

A good example of this is the 2010-11 team that almost was.  In retrospect, Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie probably should have stayed for their fourth year.  If they had, here's the lineup Georgia could have trotted out:

• PG - Gerald Robinson
• SG - Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
• SF - Travis Leslie
• PF - Trey Thompkins
• C - Donté Williams
• Bench - Nemanja Djurisic
• Bench - Dustin Ware
• Bench - Marcus Thornton
• Bench - Sherrard Brantley

A Final Four contender?  Probably not, but the Sweet 16 would not have been out of the question.  That's a top 25 team that could have played with anyone in the SEC.

h/t ESPN