One more roster spot

Seth Emerson reports that Georgia is 'actively' trying to fill that last roster spot:

"We're still actively looking, and recruiting some guys," Fox said Tuesday before the UGA Day in Albany. "So you shouldn't be surprised if we fill it. It's gotta be the right guy. So you shouldn't be surprised if we don't (use the scholarship.) But we'll see where it goes."

Ok, so Mark Fox hedges a bit, but clearly if the right player says he wants to be a Bulldog next year it's going to happen.  So who might that be?  Georgia Basketball Blog has some thoughts.

I'll let you read the whole write-up, but it sounds like James White and Tevin Mack are the most likely to fill that spot (and in that order) followed in a distant third place by Kobe Eubanks.  So who would you like to see in red and black next year?

Put me squarely in the Tevin Mack camp.  I know all the talk is about how thin Georgia is in the post, and that's true, but I think Mack makes Georgia a Sweet 16 contender as soon as next season.  That means I believe Yante Maten and Derek Ogbeide (with just a pinch of Osahen Iduwe, a sprinkle of Houston Kessler, and a splash of Michael Edwards) can hold down the interior next year.

Mack brings big-time scoring at the 3 position to a team desperately in need of big-time scoring from the 3 position.  If he wants a program which he can elevate, and which can return the favor by putting him in the NBA, he doesn't have to look any farther than Athens, GA.

[Ledger-Enquirer]
[Georgia Basketball Blog]

Donovan out at Florida

Billy Donovan - unless he pulls a Billy Donovan - will be the next head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Let's not mince words here.  Donovan was an all-time great hire by Florida who pulled a moribund program up from the muck and mire and made it elite.  Replacing him will not be easy.  The fact that it's nearly May complicates things more.  Does Florida try to go steal a coach now, or do they turn it over to Anthony Grant for a year?  If they do give it to Grant, does he have a chance to earn the job (please make this happen)?

The SEC coaching ranks got a lot weaker today, but Georgia's position in the conference likely improved.  I'm happy to make that trade.

Best of luck to Coach Donovan in the show.  I suspect he'll do just fine.

[ESPN]

Donovan to the NBA?

Sorry for the light posting.  It's not you, it's me.

Just wanted to check in and note that the Billy Donovan to Oklahoma City rumors are not cooling off.  That would certainly have the potential to shake up SEC power rankings over the next few years.

[ESPN]

Georgia's assistants just got paid

All three of Mark Fox's assistance coaches got a very nice bump in pay.  The tournament berth surely had something to do with that, but the uptick in recruiting success hasn't hurt, either.

Jonas Hayes, in particular, was instrumental in landing Yante Maten and Michael Edwards, two big-time players out of Michigan.  Yasir Rosemond and Hayes look like they'll be a nice one-two punch on the recruiting trail as long as Fox can keep them in Athens.

Pearson is no slouch, either, as he was the lead recruiter on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope a few years ago.

[Ledger-Enquirer]

Forte out

In news that will likely surprise no one, Cameron Forte will transfer after he graduates.  Statement from Cam:

“I am extremely grateful to the University of Georgia and Coach Fox for giving me the opportunity to represent this institution on and off the basketball court,” Forte said. “This summer I will graduate and believe it is in my best interest to play my last year of collegiate basketball at an institution closer to home. I am thankful to my teammates, the UGA Athletic Association, academic staff, and coaches for the outgoing support over the last two years. Go Dawgs!”

Forte and Mark Fox were oil and water from the beginning, and Forte's practice habits in particular drove the head coach nuts.  With that said, no one loved game day like Cam, and I, for one, will miss him.

Bon voyage, Cam.  We'll always have this:



[Bulldawg Illustrated]

In defense of Mark Fox: winning, losing, and the postseason

Previously:  Program stability
Previously:  Recruiting

Just win, baby.

Want to keep your job even though things seem shady now and then?  Just win.

Want to keep your job even though you can't seem to recruit the big-time athletes?  Just win.

It is true and obvious, of course, in more than just college basketball that winning trumps almost everything else in coaching.  So has Mark Fox won enough to deserve more time?  I say yes.

Here is where program history matters.  If you expected Final Four berths and National Championships out of Mark Fox by this point, that's your problem, not his.  Do I want those things?  Yes.  Do I expect Mark Fox to build towards those things?  Yes.  However, those things take time.  It took Billy Donovan - one of the greatest coaching hires, well...maybe ever - 10 years to achieve those goals (and yes, he had more interim success along the way).

So let's look at Georgia program history, starting with the hiring of John Guthrie in 1973 (because you have to start somewhere):

Coach	Wins	Losses	%	Conference Titles	Tournament Berths	Tournament Wins
John Guthrie	46	86	35	0	0	0
Hugh Durham	298	216	58	0	5	4
Tubby Smith	45	19	70	0	2	2
Ron Jirsa	35	30	54	1	0	0
Jim Harrick	67	53	56	0	2	1
Dennis Felton*	75	80	48	1	1	0
Mark Fox	106	89	54	0	2	0

*Felton/Herman in 2008-09

The Hugh Durham years have to be considered the Golden Age of Georgia Basketball.  Tubby won at a high rate, but he only did it for 2 years.  Jim Harrick looked like he was building something, but then he did what Jim Harrick does...

So how does Mark Fox compare?  Not too badly.  In fact, his winning percentage and the program winning percentage match over the time span I laid out - 54%.  He trails Jim Harrick and Tubby Smith, but the sample size is very, very small with those two.

The program has 12 20-win seasons in its history.  Mark Fox owns 3 of those.  The current streak of two 20-win seasons in a row matches the longest in program history.

The program has 12 NCAA tournament berths.  Mark Fox owns 2 of those.  The longest streak of tournament berths in program history is 2 (accomplished three times) and Fox could match that with a berth next season (something I'm expecting).

Where Fox falls short, of course, is tournament wins - but just barely.  Some perspective is necessary.  Georgia has won 7 tournament games in its history, but has only won a game in 4 individual tournaments.  In 8 out of 12 tournaments in which they've participated, Georgia was ousted in their first game (including Fox's two).  Personally, I don't like to place a lot of emphasis on tournament wins.  Are they important?  Sure!  But there's a randomness to the tournament (that's what makes it great) that only the elite programs consistently overcome.

It may sound like over-simplifying, but the way to win tournament games is to make a lot of tournaments.  If Fox can do that, the wins will come.

To the naysayers, this will all sounds like excuse-making.  Believe me.  I get that.  But like you, I have no vested interest in making excuses for Mark Fox.  I just want to win, and right now, I believe Georgia is winning enough that the future is bright.

What Fox has done wouldn't be enough for an established powerhouse like North Carolina or Duke, but he has raised the level of play at Georgia to near-historic levels.  Now we want more.  Instead of just tournament berths, we want tournament wins.  We want Sweet 16's.  We want conference championships.

If you read my three-pronged defense of Fox, you know I think things are trending upwards.  He has the program on a solid footing, he's building depth that we haven't seen in many years, and he's creating a culture that won't just be satisfied with mediocre results.

So thanks for a couple of nice seasons, Coach Mark.  Now just keep winning.

Tech series moved again

Last year, Georgia and Georgia Tech opened their respective seasons by playing one another.  It was the earliest the game had been played in a long time.

Next year, expect the opposite.  Tech won't show up in Athens until conference play is well underway (assuming they sign the contract).

Apart from the result, I kind of liked opening the season against them.  Really, though, I suspect most Georgia fans don't care as long as we start beating them.

[Online Athens]

In defense of Mark Fox: recruiting

Previously:  Program stability

It's very difficult to win without players.

Yes, there are coaches who seem to get the most out of every player on the roster and can win almost in spite of their talent - think Brad Stevens.  Most of the time, though, winning starts on the recruiting trail, and it's here that Mark Fox has taken the most criticism.

I'm not here to tell you Fox has been the best recruiter in the world, but I am going to tell you the trend line is positive and there's reason for optimism.

Between 1979 and 1989, the University of Georgia welcomed in a whopping 7 McDonald's All-Americans:  Dominique Wilkins, Terry Fair, Vern Fleming, James Banks, Donald Hartry, Litterial Green, and Shaun Golden.

Since 1990, there have been precisely 2:  Carlos Strong and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

The point is not that Fox has landed half our All-Americans in the last 25 years (even though he has).  The point is that Georgia wasn't necessarily a recruiting powerhouse before he showed up in 2009.

Felton had some decent class in 2007 and 2008 that set the stage for the 2010-11 tournament team, but the cupboard wasn't exactly full when Fox arrived in Athens.  Since then, here are the classes he has put together (star rankings are from 247sports.com):

2009:  ***Connor Nolte, ***Demario Mayfield, ***Vincent Williams, Gerald Robinson
2010:  ***Marcus Thornton, ***Donte' Williams, **Sherrard Brantley
2011:  ***Nemanja Djurisic, ***John Cannon, ***Tim Dixon, ***John Florveus, *****Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
2012:  ***Kenny Gaines, ***Charles Mann, ***Brandon Morris, **Houston Kessler
2013:  ***Juwan Parker, ***J.J. Frazier, ***Cameron Forte, **Kenny Paul Geno
2014:  ***Yante Maten, ***Osahen Iduwe
2015 (so far):  ***Turtle Jackson, ***E'Torrion Wilridge, ***Derek Ogbeide, ***Michael Edwards
2016 (so far):  ****Jordan Harris, ***Tyree Crump

There has been a steady improvement in the quality of athletes Mark Fox is bringing to Athens.  It hasn't been as fast as some might have liked, but it's there.

If Tevin Mack decides to join the fold (still a bit of a long shot), 2015 becomes a big-time class.  2016 could be a monster as well.  Some services have Crump as the higher rated player, and there are plenty of other stars who could join those two and make it a top 25 haul.

Of course, there's always room for improvement.  Fox needs to make better use of graduate transfers.  They were sprinkled all throughout the tournament this year and I don't think that's a coincidence.

He also needs to land a "big fish" every two years or so.  His classes are full of 4-year grinders, which is incredibly important for a program like Georgia, but it'll take a superstar or two to push them over the top.

Finally, it needs to be pointed out how great the Jonas Hayes and Yasir Rosemond hires were.  If you're not a strong recruiter, you hire strong recruiters, and that's what Fox did.  2016 and beyond is when we should start to see those hires really paying off in spades.

In defense of Mark Fox: program stability

When thinking about Mark Fox's job performance, program stability isn't a bad place to start.  Is it the most important thing about being a head coach at a Division 1 basketball school?  No.  Winning is.  However, it's fair to step back and ask yourself:  has my basketball program embarrassed itself lately?

10 years ago, for Georgia fans the answer was yes.  You may or not like how the administration handled the whole Jim Harrick situation, but the result was a pile of smoldering wreckage.  It wasn't even much of a scandal, and it wouldn't have phased a school like Kentucky, Duke, or North Carolina, but for a Georgia program that was slowly pulling itself up by its bootstraps, it was devastating.


That led to a very safe hire - Dennis Felton - who was tasked as much with restoring order in the program as he was with winning games.  He did a lot of the first and very little of the second.  Fortunately, Mark Fox was able to come on board without rocking the boat.  Consider the following:

APR

These are the available 4-year average rates for Mark Fox's tenure:

• 2009-10 - 946
• 2010-11 - 960
• 2011-12 - 990
• 2012-13 - 986

Not a bad trend line.

Cheating Scandals

None that I'm aware of.

General Embarrassment

12 years ago we were embarrassed about this.  Now it's things like this and this.  I'm down with that.

Has it been perfect?  It never is.  The Brandon Morris incident was a bit of a blight, but not Fox's handling of it, and that's the point.  Fox has given us no reason to believe he's doing anything other than running the program with integrity and class - as much as that's possible in the sometimes nefarious world of college sports, anyway.

You don't keep your job as a college basketball coach just by running a stable program, but it's a great foundation if your goal is to build something meaningful, and Fox has laid that foundation nicely over the last 6 years.

Michigan pipeline

Everyone around the Georgia basketball program always says that if Mark Fox could just build a wall around Michigan he'd have plenty of talent to win.  They do say that, right?

Either way, we woke up to some good news this morning:

For the second straight year, the Georgia men's basketball team has reached into Michigan to get a fast-rising big man.

Michael Edwards, a 6-foot-9 forward from Westland, Mich., committed to Georgia on Monday night.

This is no unknown "diamond in the rough," either.  Edwards star has been on the rise for quite some time and he had interest and offers from places like Auburn, Kansas State, Arkansas, Pitt, SMU, Michigan, and Notre Dame.

That eats up the last scholarship, but it doesn't necessarily mean the Dawgs are done:

Edwards' signature later this month would for at least the moment fill up Georgia's 13 scholarships for next year's team. But sources have said that the Bulldogs would continue to look into other possibilities, such as graduate transfers who could play right away. They would also be interested in Tevin Mack, the four-star guard who signed with VCU but has asked out of his letter-of-intent because of the coaching change.

And if mega-recruit Jaylen Brown, the star from Wheeler High School, surprises everyone and selects Georgia, the Bulldogs would find a way to fit him on the roster.

Silly season isn't over quite yet.

For now, though, let's welcome Michael to the DawgNation.   He's a stud who fills a need, and we should be glad to have him.

[Ledger-Enquirer]

What did I miss?

I'm back in the pilot's chair this morning, so let's see what happened while I was gone:

• Phillip Pearson didn't take a job.  [Ledger-Enquirer]
• Cameron Forte got set to graduate.  [Georgia Basketball Blog]
• Georgia made the 2016 NCAA tournament field as an 11 seed.  [ESPN]

So really...not a whole lot.  The real drama starts Wednesday when the spring signing period kicks off.  How that will go for Georgia remains a big mystery, but it should make for great sport, so buckle up.

One last thing

I know I'm supposed to be on vacation, but this breaking news is too important:

Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight, who has worked as an analyst for ESPN since 2008, is leaving the company.

Thursday night's NIT final between Stanford and Miami was his last appearance for the network.

Hallelujah.

[ESPN]

R & R

I'll be headed out of town for a little R & R, so posting will cease around these parts.  Now's a good time to catch our collective breath as the season winds to a close and the offseason ramps up.

I'll be back in a week and a half with my promised defense of Mark Fox, as well as anything else that may have happened when I was gone.  In the mean time, keep tabs on the new and excellent Georgia Basketball Blog to scratch that itch.

Those wandering eyes

With several new, high-profile coaches joining the SEC ranks lately, is it possible one of the best may be on the way out?  It's possible:

Sources told ESPN.com that Donovan is poised to draw interest from multiple NBA teams this offseason and is increasingly prepared to listen to those pitches after the Gators endured a 16-17 season in which they failed to qualify for postseason play for just the second time in Donovan's nearly two decades in Gainesville.

[ESPN]

Mark Richt has lost control of Jaylen Brown

Quoth Jaylen Brown:

I will definitely be going to an Adidas school.

To save you the trouble, no, Georgia is not Adidas.  The only Adidas schools remaining on his list are Kansas, UCLA, and Michigan.  At least Georgia Tech and Kentucky need not apply.

So when Brown ends up in Kansas, take a breath before you blame Mark Fox.  Then blame him anyway, because that's what we do!

Update:

Or maybe not?

[ESPN]