Armstrong State: post mortem

What did we learn last night?  Almost nothing!

Winning is not the goal of an exhibition game for a team like Georgia.  Not losing while learning as much about your team as possible is the goal, and I think Mark Fox accomplished that.  Ignore the final score.  Georgia isn't quite "name the score" good, but they could have put 80 points on the board without much difficulty:

• Nice turnout.  If you moved everyone to the bottom bowl it would have been nearly full.  Not bad for a meaningless basketball game at UGA.
• Fox had all 4 scholarship freshmen in the game less than 10 minutes in.  It's immediately obvious that this is the most talented class he's brought to Georgia.  Each one had at least one "moment" in the game:
• Turtle Jackson had a steal and breakaway dunk for Georgia's first field goal of the game.  That came on the heels of a Michael Edwards blocked shot.
• Edwards had several nice moves in the post, and while he'll struggle against teams with more size, the skill is very evident.
• E'Torrion Wilridge canned his first jumper (a 3) and had the dunk of the night after driving baseline in the second half.
• Derek Ogbeide, who seemed to struggle the most of the 4, had two nice, assertive post moves, one a miss and one the final basket of the game.
• Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann are...well...Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann for all the good and bad that entails.  And it's way more good than bad...
• Houston Kessler passed up a couple of 3-point shots he could have taken in rhythm, and he missed another after he thought way, way too hard about whether or not to shoot.  He needs to be more assertive.
• Juwan Parker is still struggling with his outside shot.  That may be something he never solves in his time at Georgia.
• Iduwe looks healthier, but he's not ready.  I don't think we'll see many meaningful minutes out of him this year.
• Perhaps my favorite moment of the night: Kyle Callanan driving towards the basket, seeing Yante Maten waiting, and choosing to jump, turn, and throw the basketball out of bounds as opposed to challenging him.  Honestly, it was probably the right choice.
• Good work on the video board.  The "get to know the players" segments were fantastic - so much so I was actually disappointed when I missed one heading for the bathroom - and the hype video with 4 minutes left gave me chills at the end of a blowout exhibition win.  Any time is a good time to use that Kenny Gaines dunk against Kentucky...
• And good work on the halftime show.  I'm 34, and I admit I had to look up K CAMP to figure out who he is, but you know who didn't have to look him up?  Every college student at the game.  Ryan Cameron and K CAMP is certainly better than tricycle races...
• I stopped at the Wendy's off Loganville Highway and 316 and they had excellent counter service.  I point this out because I had literally never been to a Wendy's with good counter service before last night.  Normally a 3 person line at Wendy's is a guaranteed 15 minute wait, but I was in and out.  Oh, and the drink machines were not behind the counter.  Bravo!

Again, not much to learn.  Georgia did what they should have done against a completely over-matched team: blocked a ton of shots, grabbed a ton of rebounds, caused a ton of misses, and got out healthy.  The real fun starts next Friday.  See you there.