A Random Rant Railing Against Georgia Bulldogs Men's Basketball
by T Kyle King on Feb 4, 2012 6:00 PM EST
in Georgia Bulldogs Basketball
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PrintThey do this to me every time.
I have a love-hate relationship with the Georgia Bulldogs men’s basketball team, one that is best described using Al Pacino’s most famous line from "The Godfather, Part III." I get excited, then I get disappointed. I think the program has turned a corner, then I watch a basketball game so bad it produces a comment thread that makes Gator fans giggle. I think we can all agree that anything that makes the Florida faithful happy is, by its very nature, bad for America.
On Wednesday night, the Fox Hounds lost to the Auburn Tigers by eight, which is approximately as embarrassing as losing to a random assortment of short fat girls by nine. Our men’s basketball team plays offense like a bunch of first-grade boys who think the rim has cooties; Mark Fox doesn’t need to run the triangle offense, he needs to run the circle circle dot dot offense.
Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Andy Landers’s Lady Bulldogs found themselves in the midst of adversity, as a ten-point halftime lead evaporated and visiting Mississippi State forged an unlikely tie. The Georgia women’s basketball team responded by going on a dominant run to put the game away. I don’t remember the last time a Georgia men’s basketball team demonstrated the ability to overcome such struggles with anything even remotely resembling consistency, and this team, far from coming together, is regressing.
I didn’t expect a second straight NCAA Tournament bid, but I thought an NIT berth was a possibility, and I certainly didn’t anticipate that this team would be this atrocious this late in the campaign. The Bulldogs are losing to bad teams, which is something they didn’t do last season.
I’m not calling for Mark Fox to be fired or anything crazy like that. I just find this whole thing horribly frustrating. It was one thing when the only teams in our vicinity who were good at basketball were Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and all those ACC schools that were never serious about football. Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee have managed to establish respectable men’s basketball programs without sacrificing their focus on football. Those teams have no inherent natural advantages in basketball that Georgia does not have, and the Red and Black have the considerable advantage of being located an hour’s drive away from the region’s highest concentration of basketball talent.
Being a Georgia basketball fan today is like being a Florida football fan before 1990, and it stinks. There’s no reason we should be this bad. I’m ready for Greg McGarity to borrow a page from Jeremy Foley’s book and tell everyone involved with the Georgia men’s basketball program, from season ticket holders to players to coaches, to be good or be gone. Not in a nice way, either. I want him to go off on a rant like Eddie Albert teeing off on the prison guard captain for not winning a semi-pro football championship in “The Longest Yard.” The real “Longest Yard,” not that Adam Sandler crap.
1980 was a long time ago, but at least the Classic City Canines have had several very solid football seasons since winning it all in Herschel Walker’s freshman campaign. What has Georgia basketball done since 1983, though, and what had it done before then? Next season will mark the 30th anniversary of the Bulldogs’ lone experience with national basketball significance. Is it too much to ask that our men’s basketball program post consecutive encouraging seasons with frequency, or even that it do so occasionally without it serving as a prelude to getting our coach poached by Kentucky or getting our basketball program put on probation by the NCAA? Is relevance with regularity really such an unattainable goal?
The Georgia men’s basketball program is like the bad girlfriend you keep getting back together with, even though she keeps breaking your heart, except that, even on her best days, she’s still pretty plain-looking, and, most of the time, she’s downright ugly, so you keep wondering why you put up with her in the first place. The Hoop Dogs have given us all battered fan syndrome, and I’m sick and tired of it.
Go ‘Dawgs!
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Recruiting
is the only way things are going to change. We’ve fixed up the Steg, hired a capable coach (IMO), and our A.D. has made basketball a priority. Fox is a capable marketer. He’s very good at the social media and who can forget his trick shots on YouTube over the last few seasons? All that fun seems like a million years ago now. This present team has very little experience, only a bit of talent and is lacking the will. If this were a chemical formula, it would be called suckage-hydrochloride.
In college basketball, you really can’t go to the JUCO routes for help. You might get lucky with a transfer or two (like the Hayes brothers), but it’s all about recruiting. It’s still an enigma. Last season, after we beat Kentucky in Athens, I felt we were more than relevant and the stage had been set to (borrow a line) ‘blow the lid off the program.’ Is the lid permanently welded in place? It certainly seems to be. Still, we sit in the middle of a hotbed for talent. I refuse to believe that, for all the wonderful things the University of Georgia offers a prospective student athlete, we can’t keep one or two of the state’s best kids from going elsewhere. Maybe that’s my naivete, but I’ll own it.
As far as the empty seats, especially the good seats at half-court where the absence of butts is conspicuous, especially on television, our current on-floor product explains much but doesn’t explain the same damn seats that remained empty last season when we actually had a good team. But, yeah…you gotta question our loyalty to a really bad girlfriend. She’s always been a heartbreaker.
Editor @ Dawg Sports. 3rd degree Red 'n Black Belt.
"If we score, we may win. If they never score, we'll never lose."
-Erk Russell
chicken and egg problem still exists - and it's going to take a great recruiter/motivator to change it.
If was back in my home city – and I got offers to play basketball from a) UGA b) pretty much anyone else, I am going with B. Our attendance, interest, fanbase, NBA offers, et all, lead recruits to go to anyone of 100s of schools that have a better basketball program than we do. The one thing we can offer is PT and starts.
I agree with Kyle though – I would like to see the top dog tear everyone apart. Get some fire in the program. I don’t see us hiring anyone better than CMF in regards to Xs and Os and fundamentals with coaching. It’s back to recruiting. That being said – we had an NCAA tourney team last year and folks didnt show up for the Xavier game. I am still mad about that. If you arent going to go to a very special game with tourney hopes on the line, you simply arent going to go. And now I see ads for $5 tickets. McGarity needs to yank those lower court seats, with E ticketing, we know who is coming and who isn’t, and their timeliness. Time to crack some skulls.
The NBA thing isn't true though toad
the fan interest I’ll agree with. And the coaching question remains. But we have facilities on par with most national powers even taking in to account the Stegasarous. And when we have NBA talent, they get NBA looks. Jarvis Hayes, DA Layne, Jumaine Jones, Travis Leslie, Sundiata Gaines, Trey Thompkins, Damien Wilkins, Shandon Anderson, Rashad Wright, even Robb Dryden, have gotten camp invites. Unfortunately, that’s about the entire list of NBA caliber kids we’ve had over the last 15-20 years. But we don’t lack in NBA sights, considering ESPN televises every SEC game and many others, considering there are multiple NBA scouts at every SEC game, and NBA scouts at every Georgia game I’ve ever been to.
We can offer those looks, especially considering as you say, the playing time and role we can offer. We just can’t bring in the talent. The reasons why are both historical and current.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
The trick shots were more Connor Nolte than Fox
and I wonder why the effective walk-on doesn’t get more run. He rebounds well, is a good offensive player, hustles defensively. He deserves more time IMO.
And whether we have a capable coach remains to be seen. He does great speaking in front of alumni rooms, and has several good qualities. But some bad has shown too (close games last year, recruiting), and this year has been a hugely unexpected step back (not that we expected to be good, but to regress this far, and as Kyle says, still regressing as the season goes?). I’ve been sold on Fox since he arrived, but the honeymoon is over, and the warts are starting to show. Can we get them removed, or were we blind to his flaws because our previous coach had more warts than the hag from Princess Bride?
And yes, I just called this the visual equivalent of Dennis Felton the basketball coach.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
Only one problem with UGA basketball.
Can’t recruit in our own Damn state.
Agreed, kind of
there are more problems than that, fan interest included. But constant failure to miss on even the second tier of in state kids (which is still a very strong level considering our top tier is amongst the nation’s top tier), is a major issue that needs correcting before the program ever turns it around.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
I'm beyond frustrated with the program
And I’m not convinced Coach Fox is the guy. I don’t see what some of y’all see, especially since we’re seeing a Fox-recruited squad…and it’s turrible!
GATA!
I know...
I know.
Usually, on this site, there are people on both sides of the fence on a given issue.
I have not seen a comment from anyone trying to spin our current basketball situation into a positive.
While I have seen disagreement on Fox, even the supporters make statements similar to “he’s the best we can get” as opposed to “he’s a really good coach.” Fox isn’t a good coach. He’s not, for the biggest component of college coaching is recruiting. Fox won last season with players that weren’t his. I guess that makes him a good X’s and O’s guy; I don’t know, as our season was primarily about who we didn’t lose to rather than who we beat. I do know the product on the floor in his third season, which should be mostly his recruits, is pathetic, save, maybe, KCP. Awesome.
But, sadly, he may truly be the best we can get.
Ugh.
GATA!
I think the jury is still out on Mark Fox as a coach.
The recruiting issues are undeniable, but he succeeded consistently at his last stop, so there’s reason to believe the guy can coach at least a little.
Plus, there is something to be said for the undeniable proposition that he’s currently the best we can get. We went hard after a couple of home-run hires, and we got nowhere. Basically, we need a guy who can make our program relevant enough for us to get our calls returned by top-tier coaches next time; Mark Fox may or may not be that guy, but cutting him loose this quickly isn’t likely to get elite hoops skippers to come running toward Athens. Our program has the weakest men’s basketball tradition in the SEC, which (outside of Kentucky) has not historically been a strong men’s basketball conference, and we’ve been running coaches through a revolving door since the end of the Hugh Durham era, as some have been poached, some have landed us on NCAA probation, and some have been run out of town on a rail.
Frankly, when you’re in a situation like ours, there is a degree of virtue in being patient with the stability of a mediocre coach a little while longer, when the alternative is to reboot the program yet again, heighten our already poor reputation as a coaching graveyard, and probably not end up with a coach any better than (or, very likely, even as good as) the one we have now.
Manager, Dawg Sports, SB Nation's Georgia Bulldogs weblog.
Go 'Dawgs!
I like Fox
and note everyone’s reservations. I would like to know what happened to Dustin Ware for virtually the entire 2nd half? I believe he was 4-4 from 3 point land in the first 10 minutes, and then hit another one right after the intermission…then nothing. Sure, the Vols adjusted defensively, but it seemed to me that we didn’t even attempt to run anything designed to get him some looks. Our free-throw percentage continues to suffer (probably from lack of practice. I mean how many low post points do we actually attempt in a game?) and Jurassic probably left 6 or 8 points on the table from absolutely blown close-in shots.
When does Cross-Country start?
Editor @ Dawg Sports. 3rd degree Red 'n Black Belt.
"If we score, we may win. If they never score, we'll never lose."
-Erk Russell
It's hard to get Ware looks
defenses don’t have to respect us inside, so they can fly at shooters outside. Ware isn’t quick enough or long enough to create those looks for him, so when opposing Ds become aware and key on him, his game suffers to the point of nothingness.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
Disagree on the "players that weren't his"
while he may not have landed Thompkins or Leslie as recruits, as well as Price, Barnes, and Ware. He absolutely can lay claim to those guys, as in particular neither Leslie nor Thompkins would have still been here as sophomores and juniors without a coaching change.
Personally, I’m in a holding pattern for another year or two. If things don’t turn around, I make a hard run and open the checkbook for the hardest working man in the business (aka Josh Pastner). Of course, that is IF Fox can’t fix the issues and IF a big boy (like UConn) hasn’t already snagged him.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Feb 6, 2012 12:43 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Maybe I'm misunderstanding here...
… but are you saying we need to Fire Greg McGarity because the basketball team sucks?
Because, you know, the basketball team sucked for a long time before he got here, too. And the AD immediately prior to him tried to “make a change” and focus on basketball, too.
Editor, Dawg Sports.
Go Dawgs!
Lets start with the firing of Adams
and take it from there
I HATE ORANGE, and DGNBs
by Dawg2011 on Feb 5, 2012 12:28 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs
JMan, ...
a lot are also “not convinced Coach Fox is the guy”. But that differs from other questions, namely are you convinced he’s NOT the guy, and should he be fired. I’m not convinced pro or con as to his “the guy”ness. But he’s shown signs both for and against there, so I’ll let the trial stay open until the jury is ready to return a verdict. That’s the “fire him” question. Considering our long standing, systemic issues, you can’t pull the rug on him. He’s shown enough to be given a chance, and this administration long term shown too much of a cut and run mentality not to give him that chance, that we have to stick this out.
Are the problems there right now? No doubt about it. But firing Fox so quickly after he had a little good news last year shows we’re still incapable of supporting the program. And if we are ever going to turn it around permanently, we HAVE to show that willingness to support the program, from the coaches on down to the kids. We HAVE to show a stable setting where the people can trust their kids won’t be damaged. University of Georgia has for too long been know as a place where none of that necessary support and stability will be provided. We HAVE to change that as much as anything else. IMO, that’s the essence of the cultural issues tankertoad mentions.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Feb 6, 2012 12:40 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Fair enough...
While I know I’m distorting your argument somewhat, stability alone may be reason to keep CMF.
UGA made the tournament last season and landed KCP, both positives. Thus, firing CMF, regardless of the outcome of the season or one’s opinion of him as a coach, would be a bad move, as other coaches and potential recruits would be afraid to come to a place so unwilling to stand by its coaches and players.
Makes sense, but I still think Fox needs to amp up his recruiting of H.S. players, especially on the interior.
GATA!
I'd flip that a bit
and say stability is the reason not to fire Fox. The reasons to keep him, as you state, are several positives from last year, KCP, etc, and considering the immense issues this program has had in the past, you note the positives and give him a little more time to correct the negatives. If he fixes the issues, he could be our guy. But you have to give him time to fix them before saying he can’t.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Feb 6, 2012 2:32 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
It's definitely semantics
but the fact is essentially, Fox has had plenty of good to go along with the more prominent of late bad. And because of those past instability and lack of support issues that still plague us (which is part of the recruiting problem, although not all of it), we simply can’t make that move.
And for general discussion, if I’m a major program in need of a new basketball coach (UConn?), Josh Pastner is a clear top of my list.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
I wish this comment could be mailed out to every UGA fan:
If you don’t like or care about basketball, and aren’t otherwise interested, put this in your pocket: good basketball can help football recruiting. If for no other reason to have a “good” team (great doesn’t even seem possible) it would be to benefit the Athletic Department in general, and football in specific.
And then for those who like other sports, non-revenue sports
increased basketball revenue (one of only 3 real revenue producers possible) can help them as well. A rising tide raises all ships mindset.
http://sportsandgrits.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Feb 6, 2012 12:46 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
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