A thought experiment

Mark Fox is a flawed coach.  Also, the sky is blue and yes, a bear does take its morning constitutional in the woods.

This is not a revelation.  Every coach is flawed to some degree.  The question, now, is twofold: is Mark Fox willing to change, and is the administration willing to give him the time to do so?

So let's play a little game.  I am going to list what I perceive to be Mark Fox's greatest weaknesses right now.  My question to you is this: if you could instantly fix one and only one of these things, which one would it be?

1. Ineffective offense.  The highest points/game ranking a Mark Fox-coached Georgia team has ever finished with is 153rd in the country.  Let that sink in.  This is year 7, and despite coaching scorers like Trey Thompkins, Travis Leslie, Dustin Ware, Gerald Robinson, Yante Maten, Kenny Gaines, and J.J. Frazier, dead middle of the pack is the most dynamic offense Georgia fans have seen in almost a decade.  There is little evidence that Fox is going to change, either.  Despite having his most athletic team in years, and despite promising a more up-tempo approach on offense, this season has just been more of the same.
2. Refusal to take graduate transfers.  Here's an exercise for you: as you watch the NCAA Tournament later this month, count how many times an announcer references a graduate transfer making a big impact on one of those teams.  Your blood may start to boil a bit.  For whatever reason, Fox has refused to be a player in that market, and it has hurt his teams (see White, James).
3. Misuse of freshmen talent.  In Fox's tenure at Georgia, there has been exactly one freshman allowed to make a big-time impact: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.  Charles Mann, likely out of necessity, also saw a lot of minutes his freshman year.  Kenny Gaines?  He was stuck on the bench behind Sherrard Brantley.  E'Torrion Wilridge is currently riding the pine behind a game but less-skilled Kenny Paul Geno.  Mike Edwards and Derek Ogbeide had to wait in line behind Houston Kessler, and both have still logged less minutes than him.  Yes, freshmen make mistakes, but there is too much roster turnover in college basketball to avoid using them.  If the scheme is too complex, that's not their problem.  It's yours.
4. Lack of roster depth.  I was going to call this one "recruiting," but in many ways Fox has righted that ship.  Last year's class was as talented as any class coming to Athens in many, many years.  However, roster depth has still suffered.  Georgia's points/game fall off a cliff after the big 4 of Frazier, Maten, Gaines, and Mann, and some of that is a shocking lack of quality depth.  Depth is created by good recruiting, and it's nourished by proper use of young talent.  Fox has struggled in both areas.  The 2016 class currently consists of two guards.  So does the graduating class.  In other words, expect more of the same.
5. Drawing up out-of-bounds plays.  Ok, I'm being snarky now.  But really, could our out-of-bounds plays be any more uninspired?

Many of these things are intertwined.  I get that.  Fixing one may go a long way towards fixing another.  But you have to pick one.

I'm going with number 1.  I'll get into the offensive numbers in another post, but they are not pretty.  Even with the talent as it is (little depth, no grad transfers), a little bump in offensive efficiency would have this team in the tournament instead of playing for their lives.  That's how thin the margin has been.  Fox can coach a defense.  That is for sure.  But it's time for him to look in the mirror, realize his shortcomings, and turn the offense over to an assistant.