College Basketball
Mark Fox Not The Answer at UGA?
By: Drayton Hogarth
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
With college basketball well underway, teams all over the country are preparing to enter the conference portion of their schedule.
Many teams are still trying to find their identity after winding down the out of conference slate. One of those teams that is in need of a new identity is the Georgia Bulldogs under long time coach Mark Fox. The Bulldogs are as good as they are going to be under Coach Fox, and that isn’t good enough.
Entering his eighth season in Athens, Mark Fox was hired by former Georgia Athletic Director Damon Evans, after a successful run at Nevada. It was thought at the time to be an interesting hire, mostly due to geographical concerns.
In other words, would recruits know who Coach Fox is here in the southeast, and the home state of Georgia in particular. Fox has amassed a record of 134-107 so far. It isn’t so much just the lack of wins, Georgia has never been a great basketball power, but it is more than that.
It is how the team is losing that is so maddening. The Georgia sports information department, which does a fantastic job, likes to espouse the fact that Georgia has won twenty games three straight seasons under Coach Fox. While that used to be a staple of big time programs, in today’s schedules of teams playing 35 or more games, it does not hold the same merit that the 20 game plateau once did.
How Georgia is losing games is what can be so frustrating, the team has an amazing tendency to go into offensive droughts for multiple minutes at a time; seemingly at the most inopportune times.
The droughts are equal opportunity offenders. When Georgia is competing against a top ten team, such as earlier this year against Kansas, the team goes into a drought for virtually the entire first half, where Yante Maten, was the only player who was a constant threat to score for the Dawgs.
Or, the droughts will make an appearance against a team like Oakland, in Michigan, where Georgia was winning the game by double figures, only to turn around and go into the tank in the second half, being outscored by 14 in that time frame. It is not just a one year issue, it is one of the constants of the Georgia team under Mark Fox.
In addition to a lack of on the court performance, seeing the elite players from the state of Georgia almost all going elsewhere to play their collegiate ball is even more disappointing to Bulldog fans.
The talent has finally gotten to a competitive level at Georgia in the last couple of seasons, as Fox was intent upon not delving into the world of AAU recruiting early on in his Athens tenure. While Fox has changed his recruiting strategy, more needs to be done in the recruiting front.
The state of Georgia is one of the deepest basketball talent pools in the country. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at almost every program in the top ten and you will find a player from the state of Georgia. North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, all have significant contributors on the team from the Peach state; not only this season, but for the last several seasons now.
A coaching change likely won’t be made very soon, and despite evidence that a change is needed, that could be a good thing. My reasoning is, it won’t be too much longer before there will be a new person in the Athletic Director’s chair.
Current athletic director Greg McGarity should be retiring soon, and the decision of who to hire as the new basketball coach should belong to the incoming athletic director, whoever that may be. Let’s hope it is one of his or her first orders of business.
Grayson Allen Overblown?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
In all your years of following sports, however long that may be, can you recall a time where a coach announced during the postgame press conference that he or she was voluntarily suspending a player based upon their actions during the game?
I’ve been watching for 30+ years and I can’t remember a single time that has happened. And neither can anyone else I’ve talked to.
Yet here we are, in our age of social media and need for instant gratification, bashing Mike Krzyzewski for not immediately disciplining Grayson Allen mere minutes after their game against Elon concluded.
Where has this national outrage been towards Steve Kerr and his lack of discipline towards Draymond Green’s complete disregard for a man’s groin? I don’t remember there being articles on Skip Prosser’s decision to wait and suspend Chris Paul for one game the day after he used Julius Hodge’s nether region as a punching bag, although it was not Paul’s first altercation.
Instead, we criticize Coach K for not handing out discipline on a timeline we deem worthy, when we find later on that his choice to listen without prejudice was the right decision.
Look, even though I’m a Duke fan I am not a Duke apologist. Not only do I believe Allen deserved to be suspended for this most recent transgression, but he should’ve sat a game last year, after the second tripping incident.
So, if you want to condemn Coach K and how he has handled Allen’s past discrepancies up to this point, you won’t get much of an argument from me. Let’s be honest though, if you’re not satisfied with how he’s handling things now, you’re not going to be satisfied no matter how he handles it.
As for all the vitriol that has been directed towards Allen, let’s just put things into perspective a little bit. If you don’t like him because you think he’s a dirty player, that’s fine. If you can’t root for him because he plays for Duke and you despise everyone and everything associated with that shade of blue, that’s cool. However, some of the things I’ve read, from the media in particular, has been astonishing.
Since all this happened I’ve seen respected members of the media say everything from Allen should be kicked off the team, all the way to Grayson should be arrested because if you trip someone in public they can charge you with assault.
If that’s the case then the entire NFL would be behind bars since last I checked I can’t legally tackle a lady in supermarket because she grabbed the last box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
I understand the yearning to see some sort of punishment handed down, but make sure it fits the crime. Allen wasn’t caught driving with a blood alcohol content of .247, and there isn’t video of him knocking out a girl unconscious in bar- all things that have happened around the same time, yet haven’t received nearly the same amount of publicity.
The most disturbing part of the whole thing was Allen’s reaction to the event on the bench afterwards. It is obvious that there are some issues he needs to work out and I trust Krzyzewski to not only be a father figure in helping him out, but to keep him off the court until those troubles are addressed- no matter how many games Allen misses.
Whatever that number of games actually becomes Allen has to realize that’s it….he isn’t going to get one more try.
Rambling Wreck Re-Build
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
This is my favorite time of year as a sports fan because so many things are going on.
Football, basketball and hockey are all being played now. In college there are some programs that are synonymous with certain sports.
If I said Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Duke or UConn you think basketball school. Programs like Alabama, USC, Nebraska, Miami, Penn State or FSU are known as football schools.
There are only a handful of schools that are known as being perennial contenders in men’s basketball and football. By that I mean ranked on a regular basis in both sports and known to make bowl games and the NCAA tournament in the same year. Some examples of this would be Florida, North Carolina, UCLA, Ohio State and Michigan. At one point Syracuse was in this category until they fell off the map in football in the early 2000s.
Georgia Tech was also one of the rare programs with this distinction but they have had some down years in basketball recently. They haven’t played in the NCAA tournament since 2010. Head coach Josh Pastner is in his first year in Atlanta and he’s trying to bring the program back to its glory days. Pastner was 167-73 with four NCAA tournament bids in seven seasons as the head coach of Memphis.
Tech has had some big name coaches in the past including John Heisman who coached football, baseball and basketball for the Yellow Jackets. Bobby Cremins is the most successful coach in the programs history. He led them to a Final Four in 1990 and he’s Tech’s all-time winningest coach. The floor at Alexander Memorial Coliseum is named “Cremins Court” in his honor.
Paul Hewitt led the Jackets to their second Final Four and first national championship in 2004. The question is can they ever return to this level? They’re currently 6-3 and the next game is Tuesday at home against archrival Georgia. They lead the series 105-87.
“You know, I’ve never coached a game that wasn’t important,” Pastner said. “So, never in my eight years as coaching as a head coach have I felt one game is more important than the other. The way I look at it, you want to win every game you coach. To me, every game is important, and who we are as a team, we are in a situation based on margin of error, which is zero. We are a possession-by-possession team, and we can’t overlook anybody. We have to be near perfect in our effort and execution if we are to have a chance to win the game, no matter who we play.”
They’ve been very inconsistent thus far losing games to Ohio, Penn State and Tennessee. The best win so far was on the road at VCU. This is a very important stretch to hopefully get wins against inferior non-conference opponents. The following games are home against Wofford 12/22 and North Carolina A&T 12/28. They begin conference play against No. 8 North Carolina, No. 5 Duke and No. 10 Louisville.
Tech has a good chance of starting ACC play 0-3. They were only 27-61 in ACC play the past five years under former coach Brian Gregory. That’s why getting several wins before conference play is so important. If they can get nine wins before it starts they will help set themselves up for March. I believe with 20 or more wins they can participate in March Madness. That will make recruiting easier. We will see what coach Pastner has in store but I think he’s the right guy to get Tech back to their winning ways.
Tar Heels March Back To Final Four?
By: Kenneth Harrison Jr.
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Last basketball season was pretty good for North Carolina. The Tar Heels went 33-7 and finished first place in the ACC. They also won the conference tournament. They lost the national championship game to Villanova 77-74. Losing was very disappointing but it was their first appearance in the national title game since 2009.
Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige are two key players that the Tar Heels will miss this season. They averaged 82.3 points per game last year which was tied with Indiana for 11th in the nation. Having a high scoring offense has always been a hallmark of Roy Williams’ coaching style.
Junior guard Joel Berry II averaged 12.8 ppg which made him the second leading scorer on the team behind Brice Johnson. Forward Justin Jackson also contributed 12.2 ppg and 3.9 rebounds per game.
Senior forward Kennedy Meeks will be expected to step up and play a bigger role this season. Standing 6’10 Meeks should make an impact blocking or altering shots and rebounding. He averaged 9.2 ppg and 5.9 rpg in 2015-16. Another senior forward Isiah Hicks is in the same position. The 6’9 Hicks should improve on his 4.6 rpg and 8.9 ppg.
UNC is a blue blood program but for whatever reason they don’t typically get the elite recruits like Kentucky, Duke, Arizona or Kansas. That makes them one of the few major programs led by upperclassman which is a huge advantage. They did sign a few talented players that should contribute right away.
Center Tony Bradley is 6’10 and a five star recruit. He was ranked 17th overall in the class of 2016. He was Mr. Basketball in the state of Florida and a McDonald’s All-American. He averaged 23 ppg, and 12.6 rpg, while shooting an impressive 65% from the field as a senior.
He’s only 235 pounds so he still needs to get stronger and put on weight but he’s expected to see the most playing time of any of the freshmen. Bradley has received a lot of comparisons to Tim Duncan. That’s a huge comparison but everyone in Chapel Hill will be happy if he can be half as good as Duncan.
They also signed two four star guards, Brandon Robinson and Seventh Woods. Robinson is a 6’5 shooting guard from Georgia and he’s a very good shooter. He shot 42% from the three-point line as a high school senior.
North Carolina needs that same production out of him to help stretch the floor. UNC only made 32.7% of shots beyond the arc last season which ranked 263rd out of 346 teams. Robinson is also a very good defender.
Woods is only 6’1 but he’s very athletic and explosive. As a 14 year old freshman he had a dunk that has over 14 million views on YouTube and was the No.1 play on the SportsCenter Top 10. He likes to play above the rim but he will have to transition into being a point guard.
The season starts Friday at Tulane which will be an easy win. Carolina normally plays a tough nonconference schedule and this year is no different. They are going to the Maui Invitational with other big time programs like UConn, Georgetown, Wisconsin and Oregon.
They play No. 11 Indiana in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge November 30th. They also play No. 2 Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic December 17th.
The Tar Heels start the season ranked 6th in the nation. They have a realistic goal of making the Final Four again.
Duke Preview
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
We are right smack in the middle of football season. We’re about to head into the final month of the college season when teams will be scratching and clawing their way to see who will lose to Alabama in the playoffs.
The NFL season is almost halfway finished and the only thing I’ve learned is that if I write about a team or player one week, their fortune seems to change to very next. (Question whether or not Matt Ryan was worth the number 3 pick; he puts up MVP numbers including over 500 yards against my Panthers. Mention how awful the Dolphins have been for the past decade or so; Miami hasn’t lost since).
So, it would make complete sense for me to spend this time writing about, college basketball? And to make matters worse, not only am I planning on talking about college basketball, but the subject is Duke basketball.
His Finest Hour
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
If June 24, 2010 is the greatest day in Kentucky basketball history, according to John Calipari at least, when 5 of his players were taken in the first round of the NBA Draft then June 23, 2016 must have felt more like getting off work Friday afternoon only to realize you have to work the weekend.
It was the perfect ending to what has been an interesting few months for the Wildcats coach.
