Friday, November 11, 2011

30 to 21, Dawgs at the Half

We're still shooting way too many 3-pointers. When 50 percent of our shots are launched from behind the arc, we're not running the offense correctly.

And we have to have to have some scoring from our bigs. Zero points from the post will get us whipped by legitimate SEC teams.

We'll win this game, but we have a lot of work to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it.

Wofford Up 13 to 10 at the 9:00 minute mark

of the first half.

This is embarrassing.

Update: Coach Fox must have chewed them out during the t.v. timeout. Dawgs go on a mini-run and are up 20 to 13. Shouldn't be nearly this close, but I'll take a win however we can get it.

We're Going to Struggle This Year-- Wofford Up 11 to 10

Half of the shots we have taken up to the 10:02 mark of the first half (half-way through the first half) are three-pointers. Zero points from our big men.

How can we score just ten points against Wofford? If I remember correctly, Wofford lost almost their entire starting line-up to graduation.

Oh well. Fox will light a fire underneath our players at half-time and we will pull away, but I'm almost glad this one isn't on t.v.

Oregon and Jeremy Jacob Face Vanderbilt

Should be a good way to kick off the season for both teams. I expect Vandy to win big, in spite of the fact that they are without Festus Ezeli, their key big man. As I've said before, playing in Vanderbilt's arena is really difficult because of the way their court configuration throws off an opposing player's depth perception. Oregon hasn't competed in Nashville before and Vanderbilt will have a huge home-court advantage.

At any rate, Vandy will be really good this year. The Commodores have just missed picking up a few victories in football. Won't be the case in hoops. They will spank some teams.

Oregon has a chance, since Tony Woods, the former UGA recruit, is eligible after sitting out as a transfer from Wake Forest. Jeremy Jacob says he's healthy. Hopefully, he can avoid serious knee problems this year. In the end, though, I expect that John Jenkins, Jeff Taylor and the rest of the Vandy cast should be able to run their motion offense and win by 10 to 15 points.

Ducks vs. Commodores

Brandon Morris on Why He Signed with the Dawgs

On a positive note on UGA recruiting, Brandon Morris is a player who should have a good career on the wing for Georgia.

Morris comes from a winning program, can do several things on offense and defense, and will get better over time. "Good get" for Coach Fox and his staff.

Morris

Basketball Recruiting: Questions, Questions

This post began as a response to SSB Charley, to address his comments on my post about Robert Carter going to Tech. I decided to make it a separate post because I wanted to think about recruiting some more and ask a couple more general questions of the Blog's readership.

Let me first say to Charley: I agree that it is disappointing to not get a key guy like Carter. And it does look like we won't get any of the big-time post recruits in this class.

My question of Charley and to UGA hoops fans in general is why can we get a "dream team" in football and not be able to do the same in basketball? I know that basketball has fewer scholarships. I understand that. But if there are three or four high-level recruits in the state, all of which we go after, why can't we ink two or three of them?

Is it the AAU system? Is everybody cheating but us?

I know that when Fox was hired, he brought in out-of-state guys as assistants. My sense at the time was that as long as they were good recruiters, they could get it done once they started to develop relationships.

In fairness to Fox, Georgia has never had a whole lot of success in basketball recruiting, so we don't have much in the way of tradition. It's always hard to recruit after the former coach gets fired.

Based on all that, I would say UGA is doing okay, but certainly not great. Right now Fox and his team have brought in as part of the yearly classes, the following:

Vincent Williams, 2009 class
Marcus Thornton, Donte Williams, Sherrard Brantley, 2010
John Florveus, Djurisic, Caldwell, Tim Dixon and John Cannon, 2011
Brandon Morris, Kenny Gaines, Charles Mann, 2012

Said another way, in 4 classes we garnered 12 signees, who were given a total of 35 stars according to Rivals.com. That's 2.7 stars per recruit. In those 4 classes and 12 recruits, only one signee was above 3-stars. I admit that the Rivals system is not perfect, and you never know how a guy will perform. But it still begs the question, how does the new Tech coach, coming in from out-of-state, get a 5-star, a 4-star and a 3-star in his first class? The 14th ranked recruiting class in the country and an average of 4 stars per recruit?

My hope is that even without getting the elite in-state guys, Georgia will still out-perform the more highly-ranked Tech guys on the court. Always seems to happen. If Fox can coach'em up, we should still be competitive out there on the court. My concern is not so much with Tech, but instead with SEC foes, Kentucky, Florida, Vandy and others.

In the meantime, if Fox does hire a new assistant (as SSB Charley suggests) who should it be? I have no idea, but some of the guys who follow high school sports more closely might know. Is there any hope that one of the committed but unsigned recruits from the class of 2012 will reverse their commitment and come to UGA anyway? Any transfers on the horizon? Does the 2013 class look okay, and if so, how many scholarships are we reasonably projected to have?

Robert Carter was a difference-maker and we didn't get him. I'm frustrated. If we can't get a dream team, can we catch a break in recruiting?

Thomas Davis Rehabs Knee, Hearts

Things don't look good right now for Thomas Davis to stay in the NFL. With three serious knee injuries, his future football prospects are not bright. But Davis, a former safety with UGA, rehabs as hard as he used to hit.

In the meantime, the guy is a winner off the field. Great article.

TD

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Carter to Tech

Oh well.

It's hard to lose out to Tech, and I had hoped that the 5-star prospects in the state were going to start coming to Athens. The new Tech coach has only been in place for some months now and he still out-performs us on the recruiting trail.

Rough. I don't know what to say on this one.

Carter

Carter to Georgia?

It really could happen. Why would he go to Tech and not know the coaching style and whether he will be getting lots of touches? With Fox, Carter knows that he would have the ability to showcase his scoring ability from the high and low posts. We don't have a real scorer at that position, so Carter would be stepping in at just the right time.

Shucks. I feel that the smart move is UGA and so I'm looking forward to the 5:00 announcement. Go Dawgs!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Shaq Goodwin to Memphis

Oh well. Hope we end up with Robert Carter, but I'm not optimistic.

What are we doing wrong in recruiting?

Memphis Blues