Rosemond salary revealed

Yasir Rosemond will make $160,000 per year.  That's what Stacey Palmore was making before him.

No huge surprise.  It's certainly a nice salary, and here's hoping it pays quick dividends on the recruiting trail.

h/t dogbytesonline.com

Rosemond hired

Seth Emerson reports that Yasir Rosemond is our new assistant coach:

Yasir Rosemond, an assistant coach at Samford, is expected to be hired at Georgia, per a source. UGA has not officially announced the hire yet.

The move completes a return home for Rosemond, who grew up in Atlanta before going on to play at Oregon and serve as an assistant coach at several programs on the west coast.

Mr. Sanchez has a nice write-up over at Dawg Sports telling you why you should be excited about this hire.  And you should.  Go read it.

Soon, we'll take a look back at what has been an exciting offseason for Georgia,  For now, suffice it to say that my opinion as to the direction of the program has changed significantly in 6 months, and that's a very, very good thing.

h/t Seth Emerson

Coaching vacancy

One news outlet reported yesterday that Yasir Rosemond was going to be Mark Fox's hire to replace Stacey Palmore.  Since then...crickets from everyone.

I don't want to comment much more until it's official (or not), but this is sure an interesting retweet by Yasir:

GA's hottest prospect right now visiting Athens today. RT @MaLiKK_5 Taking my first visit of the spring to UGA tommmorow! 👌🏀#dawgss
— Justin Young (@JustinDYoung) May 8, 2014

Palmore not sticking around

Just kidding.

Really, though, this shouldn't surprise anyone all that much:

Georgia men's basketball assistant coach Stacey Palmore will not return for the 2014-15 season, head coach Mark Fox announced Thursday.

I have no inside information about how this went down, but I can certainly speculate.

One of the things Greg McGarity says he and Coach Fox talked about was recruiting, and rightfully so.  Fox's recruiting has not been as abysmal as some make it out to be, but it also hasn't been as good as it can be considering the fertile recruiting ground an hour west of Athens.

So what is Fox to do?  Saying, "It will get better" is nice, and I'm sure he said just that, but that's not enough when your job is on the line.  This is the real world, and there has to be a sacrificial lamb - and Fox wasn't going to fire himself.

Today, that sacrificial lamb appears to be Stacey Palmore.

All the press I'm reading implies that the decision was Palmore's, but I have a hunch the decision would have been made for him if he chose not to step away.  His contract was up, and a renewal was probably not forthcoming.

What does it mean?  This would seem to be a great opportunity for Fox to fix the biggest problem facing the Georgia basketball program for the last...oh...quite a few years.  Recruiting the state of Georgia.

Year in and year out, recruiting rankings show that there is enough talent in the state of Georgia to win.  When Fox was hired, one of his biggest perceived mistakes was not hiring assistants familiar with the Atlanta recruiting scene, and that has borne itself out as guys like Jordan, Adams, Tony Parker, Evan Nolte, and many, many others have left the state to play their college basketball.

Now is the time for Fox to get a guy who can recruit the state.  Korey McCray wouldn't be a bad first phone call.  He is a local guy with tons of state ties.  If he won't come, find someone else.

This is an opportunity that Fox needs to seize.

Meanwhile, happy trails to Coach Palmore.  Best of luck, and thank you for your contribution to Georgia basketball.

h/t Dawg Post

Update:

I probably should have known this, but all Georgia basketball assistants work under one-year renewable contracts.  So his contract was up every year.  Regardless, my opinion remains that this decision was Georgia's first, and Palmore's second...