Mark Fox has made an addition to the staff that several fans have been clamoring for, and myself in particular. Many have bemoaned the current staff's lack of connections to Atlanta, and cited them as a reason we keep missing on big nam local recruits. Well, we are about to reestablish those connections in a great way, hiring Jonas Hayes as program coordinator.

You may remember Jonas Hayes as the twin brother of the last Georgia men's basketball player to be drafted in the NBA lottery. Or you may remember him as the 6'6 big man with the soft touch when he averaged almost 12 points per game as the starting C on Dennis Felton's first team. Or as the 6th man on Jim Harrick's last two teams who hit a 30 ft game winner at the buzzer against Colorado.

Born in Atlanta, Hayes and his brother were stars at Douglas HS before signing with Western Carolina out of high school. When they decided to transfer, they came back close to home and chose Athens, where both excelled. After finishing up his degree, Coach Jonas join the staff at his alma mater Douglas, before moving on to South Carolina St, then Morehouse, and followed by the previous 5 seasons at Belmont-Abbey under former Georgia assistant coach Stephen Miss.

As said above, this is the type of hire I, and countless others have been screaming for, and the exact name I was hoping we could hire to fill a spot on staff. He knows Atlanta, and Atlanta knows him. He's a damn good Dawg, a smart basketball mind, and in my opinion, a wonderful human being. This was a home run hire for Mark Fox, and will be an amazing addition to the Hoop Dawgs staff.

From the georgiadogs.com announcement linked above, Coach Fox and Coach Hayes had this to say.

"I am really excited to have Jonas join our staff," Fox said. "He will be a valuable asset as we move forward. He is a smart and talented young man who will be a great example to our players. I am excited to have a former player who is so passionate about Georgia become part of our team."

"I am thrilled to be coming back to Georgia," Hayes said. "I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be joining Coach Fox's staff. UGA holds a special place in my heart. I'm just ready to get started, ready to do whatever I can to help build the program."

Welcome back Jonas. For exclusive footage of my, Mr. Sanchez's, reaction upon hearing the news earlier hiring, click to the jump

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This began as a comment in a thread, and I'll try to expand on it for this, in to a more comprehensive view of Georgia's AAU basketball scene, and how it relates to UGA specifically. I'll likely do so poorly, but I am a Georgia Bulldog men's hoops fan, so doing poorly with Georgia AAU comes with the territory. AAU is a huge, comprehensive sporting entity, and basketball is just a single part of their many, many programs. This focuses on a small part of that entity, and while some rail against the sometimes shady and borderline criminal element of AAU basketball, that's not what this is about. And for the most part, AAU basketball is full of good people trying to help kids improve their lives, as is the case with most Amateur Athletic Union teams.

via storage1.ihigh.com

More after the jump....

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The 4th seeded Lady Dogs (22-9) saw their season come to a close Sunday in Tallahassee, upset 76-70 by 13th seed Marist.

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This year, unlike last year, we all knew that, when SB Nation released its printable NCAA Tournament bracket and the NIT selections were announced, Mark Fox’s Georgia Bulldogs would appear in neither postseason field. A 15-17 final record stranded them one game below .500 and, hence, one million miles from the Big Dance.

Lest we get down on the young Fox Hounds, however, we should take a moment to look at the slate the Red and Black faced, which I would wager is a good deal more impressive than you might expect. Consider:

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As appreciative as I am of Mr. Sanchez’s kind compliment following last night’s postgame writeup, honestly, it’s pretty easy to do justice to a game like that. It was a night game on an otherwise slow sports day, which allowed time to set the stage beforehand, and it ended in a "Hoosiers"-style story of redemption against a team the Bulldogs had beaten previously. Frankly, any hack can handle an assignment like that.

It’s a different deal, though, when the game takes place on a busy sports day and is against a senior-laden opponent to whom the Georgia Bulldogs lost twice in regular-season play, then is delayed because the previous game went to overtime, then opens with Marcus Thornton being called for two fouls in the first 84 seconds, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope running down the court checking to see if his nose is bleeding, and the Vanderbilt Commodores going on an 11-3 run. That, my friends, is when writing a postgame recap becomes a bit of a challenge.

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It's Friday. You've got a job. You've got stuff to do. But one thing you won't be doing is watching college football. It's a poor substitute, nevertheless we present Free Form Friday. As any member of the Auburn basketball team could tell you, it's a sure bet.

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Mark Fox arrived in New Orleans sporting an all-time 2-2 record in SEC Tournament action; the Georgia Bulldogs’ "Fiery Librarian" previously had won both openers yet lost both second-round matchups. The last time the Red and Black went "one and done" in the league tourney was in Pete Herrmann’s last game as the Hoop Hounds’ interim coach . . . and the team to whom the Athenians lost was none other than the Mississippi St. Bulldogs.

The Fox Hounds arrived in New Orleans on the wrong side even of the NIT bubble and with little history of success in the SEC Tournament. In 1933, the Southeastern Conference played its first league tourney in Atlanta, where Georgia lost its opening outing to the Tulane Green Wave, falling by a 46-33 margin. (Incidentally, the Bulldogs scored an identical number of points in the first game of the following year’s SEC Tournament in a 33-19 win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. De-fense!) Ending men’s basketball season with a whimper, rather than a bang, historically has been the norm for a Red and Black program desperately in need of a spark if ever March is consistently to become the time the Bulldogs are exciting, rather than the time the Bulldogs are exiting.

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Though I asked earlier in the week whether, and to what extent, tonight’s SEC Tournament game mattered, I agree with tankertoad that we should all want the Fox Hounds to succeed. Consequently, when I was asked by our SEC sister site, For Whom the Cowbell Tolls, if I would like to exchange questions and answers prior to this evening’s men’s basketball showdown between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Mississippi St. Bulldogs, I happily agreed.

My answers will be posted at For Whom the Cowbell Tolls between now and tip-off. Here are the responses I received to my questions:

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