Saturday, September 25, 2010

Georgia performed about like I expected

We have flashes of potential. Aaron Murray had a couple of nice runs, a few instances of decent touch on the football. Kris Durham did well.

I think we all agree that 2010 is and will continue to be a down year for us. Can we get to a bowl? I guess we're playing for pride at this point.

We will lose games that we are supposed to win. Mississippi State was an example. When all we score is two field goals, we know something is wrong. The Kentucky and Vandy games will be struggles.

With that said, I can really see us winning a game that we're not supposed to. I am thinking of Florida right now.

A.J. comes back next week. He really is a difference maker. The Dawgs will get better, but not soon, and certainly not soon enough for most of our fans.

Hang on guys, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Hoop Dawgs to Have Breakout Year?

Loved this article.

ESPN writer Andy Katz has picked N.C. State and Georgia as the two hoops teams poised to make a big step forward this year. I heartily agree.

Fantastic news all around.

Hoops fans have a pretty good sense of what we have in Travis Leslie and Trey Thompkins. The buzz in the program is being generated by the expected contributions from the other guys.

Great to hear that Jeremy Price is making an impression during preseason workouts. Georgia needs either Price or Chris Barnes to step up in a big way. They'll be called upon to hold down the center position for the Dawgs this year. Neither one is tall enough to shoot over the top of the other centers in the SEC, so Price and Barnes will need to play big, hustle on defense, and catch the ball cleanly so that they can go up strong and finish.

Jeremy has always had a lot of potential, but his conditioning never was where it needed to be. Albert Jackson was logging a good bit of the playing time at center, so Price didn't get max minutes-- that, and the fact that Price often shot his playing time opportunity in the foot by picking up touch fouls on the perimeter. He'll get the minutes this year, and it sounds like he is ready to make the most of his time.

Gerald Robinson is doing very well. "No way he doesn't start" is high praise from Fox. Dustin Ware had a good assist to turnover ratio last year. Especially so, since he was the only consistent ball-handler that the Dawgs had. But Ware wasn't fast enough to create buckets going to the basket. Robinson is.

Fox is high on Marcus Thornton. If Thornton is healthy and stays that way, he will score a bunch of points for the Dawgs.

Sounds like our starting five will be Robinson, Ware, Leslie, Thompkins and Price. The first man off the bench is likely to be Marcus Thornton. If Leslie is able to handle the ball more, then he could slide to the two-guard and Thornton could start.

No matter who starts, Georgia basketball will be a lot of fun this year. I'm ready for a breakout season. How about you?

Friday, September 24, 2010

Hate to do this, but I just don't see Georgia winning

tomorrow.

I'm probably the biggest homer around, and I would love to see Georgia right the ship. Without A.J. and with our players still learning the defense, it's too much for me to predict that the Dawgs will go into a hostile environment and come home with the W.

I do think that our team can get much better, though. Put all the pieces together (Caleb King, AJ Green, a healthy offensive line, a couple of good breaks on defense and a little bit more creativity on offense) and Georgia could actually run off a string of victories.

Here's hoping that our streak starts tomorrrow.

Monday, September 20, 2010

A.J.'s Jersey: the lawsuit

No, the lawsuit does not directly involve A.J. Green, but it might as well.

A.J. is a current athlete and the lawsuit deals primarily with rights of athletes after they graduate. Still, the crux of the issue boils down to who owns a player's name and image. Does the NCAA own those rights? If so, how? Does the NCAA unfairly restrain trade (trade, such as an athlete's ability to sell a jersey with his name on it)?

The NCAA has got trouble in this case. Not only has the lawsuit survived, it has thrived. Eight separate complaints consolidated, a judge writing a preliminary opinion that favors the athletes.

Part of the danger for the NCAA is the wedge factor. The case has the potential for turning two allies into adversaries. Game manufacturers are not going to want to be sued. Because of the big penalties associated with using a person's likeness without permission, if push comes to shove they will turn on the NCAA. The manufacturers will readily turn over any representations from the NCAA, any sales boasting that the NCAA used to get EA Sports to fork out the big bucks.

Game manufacturers do not want to negotiate with a million athletes. They want to pay one price to an entity that has permanent, exclusive rights. I'm sure there are e-mails somewhere from the NCAA that make just that sort of claim.

In its defense, the NCAA says that the form which student athletes sign "...says nothing about the use of student-athlete images by member institutions, nothing about video games, and absolutely nothing about the right of a former student-athlete to sell his own collegiate image after graduation,”

Well if the form says nothing about video games, what in the world did they sell to EA Sports? Are the video game manufacturers so dumb that they spent a lot of money for nothing?

The NCAA can't have it both ways.

The case will be resolved way too late for A.J. and way too late for Georgia's football season this year. But the final decision may be broad enough to vindicate him-- not that A.J. didn't break the NCAA's rules, though that much is indeed in doubt, but that the NCAA's rules themselves are broken, out of step with fundamental American principles that support private enterprise, and out of date in a 21st century digital world.

Collegiate athletics is about to change.

Case

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Albert Jackson playing in Uruguay

Albert Jackson has signed to play with the team Anastasia in Uruguay. He arrived at terms with the team back toward the beginning of August and has been scoring and rebounding the ball very well so far.

Anastasia is a team that plays in Tacuarembo, in the north of Uruguay.

For those who want to know, Tacuarembo is a town of just over 50,000. The majority of the population in Uruguay lives in the capital, Montevideo, which is a good distance away from where Jackson is playing. Tacuarembo is closer to southern Brazil.

As it turns out, Albert is on the same team as Marcus Sikes, who played at Georgia before transferring to finish his collegiate career at Cincinnati.

I'll be giving more information later on how Ajax is performing down in Uruguay.

In the meantime, congrats, Ajax!