Byron Samuels named head coach at Florida A&M; Charles Mitchell is the player to be named later in the Robert Carter trade

After just one year on the bench under Mark Fox, Basketball Operations Coordinator Byron Samuels is leaving to take the head coaching job at Florida A&M. This will be Samuels' third major college head coaching stop after previous stints at Hampton and Radford.  He came to Georgia after serving as Assistant Athletics Director and men's basketball head coach at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa.  Samuels' hiring comes little more than a month after Clemon Johnson was let go after going 32-64 the last three seasons for the Rattlers.

This gives Mark Fox further chance to continue retooling his staff.  Last season saw Kwanza Johnson head to TCU to be replaced by Jonas Hayes, while earlier this spring assistant Stacey Palmore moved on (to Cliff Ellis' staff at Coastal Carolina) to bereplaced by Yasir Rosemond. With the last two hires Fox has made being Atlanta natives, it'll be interesting to see if he goes for a third when filling Samuels' departed spot.  (Korey McCray is no longer at LSU, but I'm not expecting him to be a realistic candidate for this position.)

In bad news, former Wheeler product (read: same school currently attended by lusted after recruits Daniel Giddensand Jaylen Brown) Charles Mitchell was traded for Robert Carter thanks to Maryland's soon-to-be move to the Big 10 eliminating the pesky problem of ACC intraconference trasnfer rules.  Mark Fox showed interest in both big men out of the metro Atlanta area, but it wasn't to be.  Carter focused exclusively on schools that don UnderArmour apparel, while Mitchell may be eligible right away as he moves closer to a severely ailing grandmother and gets to stay in his familiar ACC.