Will Jackson: time to wildly speculate!

To say the commitment of point guard Will "Turtle" Jackson to play his basketball at Georgia yesterday was surprising might be an understatement.  Even more surprising is the position it puts Mark Fox in:  perhaps having to turn away a very good player who wants to come to Athens.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  Before yesterday, most with any insider knowledge (and I am not one of those) thought Georgia had a decent chance with three elite class of 2015 prospects (all star ratings taken from Scout.com):

• Jaylen Brown - 5* - Shooting Guard
• Tevin Mack - 4* - Small Forward
• Malik Beasley - 4* - Point Guard

Brown remains a bit of a long shot, but has Georgia on his short list.  If he says he wants to come, Georgia will make room.  Period.

Mack and Beasley have long been considered strong Georgia leans.  You'll notice, though, that Beasley is listed as a point guard.  Some services have him listed as a shooting guard, but he is on the smallish end a la Kenny Gaines.

Georgia now has two scholarships remaining for the class of 2015.  Those will be freed up by the departure of Marcus Thornton and Nemi Djurisic.  With that in mind, let's assume Mack and Beasley commit to Georgia and project a 2015 depth chart:

PG:  Charles Mann, Will Jackson, Malik Beasley, J.J. Frazier
SG:  Kenny Gaines, Juwan Parker, Dusan Langura
SF:  Brandon Morris, Tevin Mack, Kenny Paul Geno
PF:  Yante Maten, Cameron Forte, Houston Kessler
C:  Osahen Iduwe, Yante Maten

When I look at that, two positions look really thin:  shooting guard (pending the development of Juwan Parker) and center.  If Jaylen Brown were to commit, of course, that would immediately solve the depth problem at shooting guard.

So what is Georgia to do?  I see a few options:

1. If all three commit, you're forced into some roster management.  One option is to push Kessler back into preferred walk-on status.  That frees up the scholarship, but the Kessler name makes this a dangerous PR move.  More likely, we'd see at least one transfer.  A guy like J.J. Frazier may no longer like how the depth chart looks and choose to play somewhere else.  The bottom line is this:  if all three want to come to Georgia, Mark Fox will make room.
2. If Beasley wavers because of the commitment of Jackson, Fox may try to convince him he's a shooting guard, a position with a lot thinner depth in Athens.  Look back at the depth chart above but move Beasley to SG...looks nice, right?
3. If only two out of three commit, there may still be some roster management necessary as Georgia could use another big body in the post.  Daniel Giddens is off the table, so this probably wouldn't be a splashy recruit, but that's ok.  Center is dangerously thin, so a guy like John Florveus who can eat some minutes may have to do.
4. If only one commits, Fox better hope it's Jaylen Brown, or else the muttering about his inability to close will gather steam yet again.

Stop and think about where Mark Fox and the Georgia Bulldogs find themselves today.  Against all odds, Fox closed on the exact two guys he needed to close on for the 2014 class.  If he repeats that performance and closes on any two of the above players in 2015 (and keeping in mind that college basketball is a guard-heavy game), he will have a roster capable of playing for an SEC championship.

For now, at least, there is hope in Athens.