Make it stop

The severity isn't yet clear, but Kenny Gaines hurt his foot in practice.  This continues a pretty staggering run of injuries for the Georgia basketball team.

In this case, the offense isn't the primary concern.  As Georgia heads into Auburn to face lights-out shooter KT Harrell, Gaines' defense will be sorely missed if he can't go.

Fox meets the media at 2, so we'll likely find out more then.

Update:

It's not that bad.  Day-to-day with an ankle injury.  If he's iffy on Saturday, I'd be tempted to hold him out if I'm Mark Fox.  Very few (Joe Lunardi included) believe it's a game Georgia has to win, so protecting Gaines come tournament time may be more important.  We'll see what happens.

[Ledger-Enquirer]

Pivotal play

I got to thinking:  when's the last time Georgia actually played well?

It's an important question, because the pattern with Mark Fox teams has been to start ugly and finish strong.  With the Bulldogs fading fast, it looks like they're going to buck that trend in a big way.

The answer, it turns out, is January 27th at home against Vanderbilt.  Georgia capped off a 5-game winning streak with a 70-62 win over the Commodores.  What else happened in that game?  This:

It doesn't look like much, but that was the flagrant foul that sent Marcus Thornton to the bench for two games with a concussion.  Since then, Georgia is 2-4 and has only scored over 60 points twice (once in a loss).

The injuries have been bad, but it looks like the whole season may have turned on that one play.

Thornton out again

This is not good:

Marcus Thornton, who sustained a concussion last week, is expected to miss Tuesday night's game at undefeated and No. 1-ranked Kentucky, according to a source.

Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2015/02/02/3545979_thornton-likely-to-miss-georgias.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Time to start finding excuses not to watch this game.

Is it possible this is Mark Fox buying some extra rest for Thornton as opposed to playing him in a game the Dawgs probably wouldn't even win full strength?  The cynical side of me wonders...

h/t Seth Emerson

Another week, another injury

The hits keep on coming:

A worried Mark Fox said Tuesday night that his Georgia men's basketball team needed to get some players back. Instead it appears the team is losing another player, and a very key one.

Leading scorer and rebounder Marcus Thornton is likely out for Saturday's game at South Carolina because of a concussion, according to a source. Thornton sustained the injury when he was fouled during the first half of Tuesday's win over Vanderbilt.

Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2015/01/28/3555687_georgias-thornton-likely-to-miss.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

That's a big one.

The scoring, in this case, worries me less than the rebounding as South Carolina rebounds the ball pretty well.  Hopefully it's just one game and the Bulldogs can, once again, find a way.  Yante Maten, you're up.

If this team does make the tournament, an often maligned Mark Fox is going to deserve a lot of credit for holding things together.

h/t Seth Emerson

Was Kevin Stallings driving?

Well now, this is just getting ridiculous.  I had seen rumors in a couple places that "something else was coming," and this would appear to be it:

University of Georgia freshman basketball player Yante Maten was struck by a car as he was using a pedestrian crosswalk on the UGA campus last Sunday night, according to head coach Mark Fox.

Let's start by stating the obvious:  while the fact that Maten was hit by a car is in no way a good thing, the fact that he seems to have only suffered a concussion is wonderful.  Things could obviously have been much worse.

With that said...the worst-case scenario for Wednesday night is now pretty dire:

PG:  Mann, Frazier
SG:  Gaines
SF:  No one
PF:  Djurisic, Forte
C:  Thornton

If Parker plays, that helps, but there's no way Georgia will be anything resembling full strength headed to Nashville.

h/t Bulldawg Illustrated

Now this is getting scary

Juwan Parker may not be able to go against Vanderbilt.

This is scary, because it means the Bulldogs are essentially 7 deep going into Nashville if you give Cameron Forte the benefit of the doubt and count him as depth.  For now, I choose to do so.

In Parker and Kenny Paul Geno, the Dawgs have lost roughly 8 points and 5 rebounds per game.  That's not irreplaceable, but it's also not nothing.

There's a silver lining in that the injury doesn't look to be that serious and he'll probably be back by Florida at the latest.

If you need a little more reason for hope, there's also last year's game vs. Vanderbilt which saw the Commodores come in and beat the Bulldogs at home despite being so thin they had to dress out a manager.  Maybe we can return the favor this year.

And curse the universe for making me remember that game...

h/t Marc Weiszer

Kenny Paul Geno out

It's not been the best year to be a Kenny in the Georgia basketball program.

I'll be honest, I didn't even see him get hurt.  In retrospect, it was a tad curious that he drained a corner three then wasn't heard from the rest of the game.  Regardless, an already thin Georgia squad is now down one more man.

I had been intending to post on the complete lack of production from the 3 spot for a while, and let's just say this won't help.  Fox has essentially made do with an 8-man rotation, and Geno was his 8th man.

What does it all mean?

First, it means Cameron Forte is the next man up.  There will be no outside shooting from Forte, as he's more of a hybrid 3-4, but that's ok.   The numbers are actually fairly encouraging.  Forte has only seen 3 minutes per game, but his points (1.5) and rebounds (1.2) reveal that he's been remarkably consistent.

It also means Houston Kessler is probably in for an expanded role.  This is less encouraging, as he hasn't done much with the almost 5 minutes per game he's been getting.

The last few days have been a bit of a gut punch, but it's not quite time to panic.  Let's wait and see how the team responds in Baton Rouge.

h/t Bulldawg Illustrated