Signing off for a week

My wife and I leave for sunny Cancun, Mexico tomorrow morning.  I won't be blogging during that week.  In fact, I won't even be thinking about blogging that week.

All I can promise is if I see a seven footer walking around, I'll call the Dawgs for him.  Can't hurt, right?

So while I'm gone, have a great week, and please enjoy this grainy video of Travis Leslie dunking on Demarcus Cousins:

Harrison twins are returning

Yeah, so...Kentucky is going to be pretty good next year.

Both Harrison twins are returning, along with Alex Poythress, Willie Cauley-Stein, Marcus Lee, and Dakari Johnson.  Oh, the nos. 6, 9, 18, and 25 freshman are coming to Lexington as well.

I never expected Georgia to win the SEC next season, but this certainly widens the gap.  Fortunately, games aren't won or lost on paper, and we do get them at Stegeman.  Should be fun.

h/t ESPN

Book your travel

A little Friday hoops news to keep you going:

The Georgia men's basketball team has added a game at Kansas State for this upcoming season, according to documents provided to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It's part of a home-and-home series, with Kansas State set to visit Stegeman Coliseum during the 2015-16 season.

This is good news.  I think Mark Fox has finally learned the lesson (or had it learned for him by McGarity) that non-conference play isn't as meaningless as many make it out to be.  Even if Georgia loses this game - a distinct possibility - it is better than a home win over an RPI 300+ team.

Games against Colorado, Seton Hall, Georgia Tech, and now Kansas State, along with some big potential matchups in the preseason NIT, mean Georgia will have a real chance to make a splash early in the season.

h/t Seth Emerson

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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...

Jakeenan Gant

Some around the fan base continue to hope that Jakeenan Gant will come to Georgia now that his head coach bolted to Tulsa.  Unfortunately, that is just not going to happen:

Both UGA and Georgia Tech reportedly have heavy interest in Gant, but it’s not reciprocal.

There are quite a few reasons he isn't coming - transfer rules and the fact that he already moved to Missouri chief among them.

The article implies Gant was never interested in Georgia in the first place, but I have heard otherwise.  The rumor mill said he was very interested, but Fox's uncertain contract status scared him off.  If so, how ironic is it that the coach he committed to left before his first practice?

Had Haith left for Tulsa two weeks before signing day, this whole discussion might be different.  As it is, it looks like Gant will be staying at Missouri.

As always, best of luck to him.  It is a crappy situation:

“It’s a big surprise when a coach tells you that he’s going to be there for the longevity of (Gant’s) career and then all of sudden he bolts out,” said Michael Stokes, Gant’s AAU coach, told the AJC on Tuesday. “Nobody saw that coming. College basketball is a business.”

This happens all the time.  Anytime a recruit asks a coach how much longer he plans to be at a school, the answer is, "At least 5 more years."

College basketball is, indeed, a business - for everyone but the players.

h/t AJC

Coaching searches

There were many after the season ended - included myself - that thought Mark Fox should have been relieved of his coaching duties.  The team, for the most part, has failed to live up to even meager expectations.

With that said, it is important to remember that finding a new coach is no walk in the park.  Just look at what is going down at Tennessee and Missouri.  Both schools have some decent basketball tradition and far more recent success than Georgia.  Yet both, in the end, will likely have to "settle" for less than their first choice.

It was well documented earlier this week that Michael White - one of my first choices if Mark Fox had been let go, but one of Tennessee's backup plans - had decided to stay at Louisiana Tech.  This was after Tennessee shot for the moon and called folks like Wichita State's Gregg Marshall.

Today, Tennessee will introduce Donnie Tyndall as their new head coach.  Is he a bad hire?  Not at all.  He has had great success at Morehead State (remember that upset over Louisville?) and Southern Miss.  Is he the type of hire that would have ignited the Georgia fan base the way we would have hoped?  Unlikely.

Meanwhile, the search at Missouri slogs on.  Guess who is first on their list?  Gregg Marshall, of course.  After that, it looks like Ben Howland may be the leader in the clubhouse.  (Google 'ben howland sports illustrated' if you want to know why he would not have been an option at Georgia).  If neither of those work out?  It's likely on to the same plan B, C, and D guys that Tennessee was talking to.

What is my point?  I really don't have one (sorry).

None of this means that you do not fire your coach if he deserves to be fired.  It only means that if you do, and you're not one of those "destination" jobs, Gregg Marshall probably isn't walking through that door.

Palmore sticking around

Tennessee State has hired Dana Ford as their next head coach.

This only relates to Georgia in that it means Stacey Palmore will not be the next head coach at TSU.  We also miss out on the scintillating home and away with Tennessee State we probably would have scheduled were he hired.

h/t The Tennessean