Repeat after me

It is not time to panic.  It is not time to panic.  It is not time to panic.

Be afraid

Another SEC team gets all they can handle in an exhibition:

Texas A&M got more than just an exhibition men's basketball game against Texas A&M-Commerce on Wednesday at Reed Arena.

The Lions led for a majority of the game and not until the Aggies began beating the Lone Star Conference team on the boards were they able to pull away 80-71.

I will refrain from any and all snark until I see what happens in Stegeman tonight...

h/t www.aggiesports.com

Tonight's exhibition

Fletcher Page does some good work in giving us a few things to watch for tonight.

He starts out talking about Charles Mann.  I've been tough on Charles and his jumper, but Fletcher hits the nail on the head when he talks about what needs the most work:

The former Milton High (Alpharetta) standout spent this offseason attacking the weaknesses in his game, particularly his assist-to-turnover ratio. Mann dished out 2.9 assists while committing 3.4 turnovers a game, a stat he says he wants to improve this season. 

“I’ve been watching film and tightening up on my ball handling skills,” Mann said. “I feel like I’m a much better player than last year and have improved my decision making as well.”

We'll find out soon enough if this is just happy offseason talk, but if he really has cleaned up that part of his game, look out.

Page also touches on my favorite offseason topic, the emergence of Yante Maten:

The early word is the 6-foot-8, 240-pounder has impressed with his ability to score in the paint and also to use teaching moments in a constructive manner.

Rumor is that Maten played well in the secret scrimmage against N.C. State.  I'm really looking forward to taking this kid out of the box tonight and seeing what he can do.

Go read the whole article, and I'll see you tonight in Athens.

h/t Fletcher Page

Kenny is questionable

I mentioned that Kenny Gaines did little more than shoot on the side during the open practice last week.  Turns out, it's mono:

Kenny Gaines, the team's dynamic shooting guard, has been ill and might miss the team's season opener on Nov. 14 against Georgia Tech. Gaines will definitely miss Thursday's night's exhibition game, and head coach Mark Fox said he was "a little pessimistic" about Gaines' availability for the opener.

Fox would not disclose the illness, though indications were it was mononucleosis.

On the one hand, I had seen speculation that it may be a suspension instead of an illness, so finding out it's the latter is good news.  However, Gaines is no worse than third on the list of players Georgia can ill afford to lose this season:

Gaines, a 6-foot-3 junior, was Georgia's second-leading scorer last year, and its main outside shooting threat. He accounted for 34 percent (52) of the team's made 3-pointers, and 32 percent of its 3-point attempts.

If he can't go, expect to see a healthy dose of Juwan Parker at shooting guard and (just a guess) Kenny Paul Geno at small forward.  You may even see some 3 guard looks with Mann, Frazier, and Parker on the floor together.  Fox does have Thursday night's exhibition to play with lineups ahead of the opener next Friday.

There's no sugar-coating this:  it's bad news.  Fox, more than ever, needs a strong start to non-conference play, and the oddity of playing Georgia Tech right off the bat may come back to bite him.

Get well soon, Kenny, will ya?

h/t Seth Emerson

Some incredibly important news

This is delightful.

I'm a huge Raftery fan, so sign me up for an "Onions!" t-shirt.

h/t ESPN

For such a time as this

You may assume otherwise because of this blog, but I am a huge Georgia football fan as well.  From kickoff to final whistle, you would be hard pressed to find someone more invested.  This past Saturday left me as disappointed as many of you surely were.  It got me to thinking, though - does Georgia basketball have a window?

If you choose to be intellectually honest, you probably didn't expect a national championship out of the football team this year.  There was way too much attrition on the defense, and the offense lost one of the best quarterbacks to ever strap it up between the hedges.  The end result is probably going to be a good-not-great season that ratchets up expectations for 2015.

So here we have the basketball team - forever the step-child of UGA athletics.  Expectations are modest, but higher than we're accustomed to.  The team is experienced and should be primed for at least two consecutive tournament runs.  Mark Fox seems to have gotten the message on recruiting and is starting to get some real talent committed to the G.

In a healthy athletic department, football and basketball should feed off of one another.  There's no rule that you can only be good at one or the other.  A challenging (but manageable) non-conference schedule means the Dawgs have a real shot at creating some buzz before SEC play rolls around.

If the football team beats Kentucky, that creates a monster matchup in Athens against Auburn on 11/15.  You know what happens the night before?  Georgia vs. Georgia Tech in Atlanta.

Wouldn't it be nice if some of the tailgate conversation was, "Hey, did you see what the basketball team did to the Jackets last night?"  Fox and company have a chance, right off the bat, to convince folks that they are worth watching.

Slow starts in non-conference play have dogged Mark Fox since he got to Athens.  If he's going to change that narrative, now would be a good time to do so.  A 4-0 start heading into the game with Gonzaga would surely turn some heads - and some of them might even be in Athens.

The Pikeville measuring stick

Exhibition games aren't worth much, so we should take this with a grain of salt, but a night after Kentucky destroyed Pikeville 116-68, this happened:

...but the Vols came back from an early deficit to beat NAIA Pikeville 80-62 in their exhibition opener at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Donnie Tyndall has some work to do.

h/t The Tennessean