can we be respectable next season?
it seems we only have point guards and small forwards.
can anyone step up and defend in the paint?
can anyone in our lineup be an elite talent in the sec next year?
i like wheeler and camara but they don't seem like guys that can carry a team.

No, slim chance we're respectable (.500 or better in league).
No, Wheeler and Camara had nice frosh seasons but elite to me is 1st Team All-SEC and they won't be that.

I just hope there is a season, even if without fans in the stands.

i agree on both your points.
i dont feel wheeler or camara are even 2nd team all sec.
i wouldnt be surprised if we win fewer sec games than last year?
huge hole inside.
i felt we were weak inside last year and thought crean should've tried a 4 guard lineup
more often.
knowing we had depth at guard last season do you think that would have worked?
another reason to have tried 4 guads was hammonds was slow and wasnt a hustler.

The PG & SF glut is just bizarre to me, I have no idea what the hell Crean's plan is/was. I've complained bout it enough...

Don't know bout the 4 guard... but yes, with better coaching we would have won more games last year and the year before. Maybe they'll prove me wrong but I don't expect any improvement this year (or next) and then let the coaching search begin. 4 straight losing records in conference after taking over a program that had 1 in the previous six seasons should be enough.

to make it more complicated i
actually see camara as another small forward.
do any of the incoming bigs have upside potential?

McMillan, assuming he's in, and the VT transfer will be your interior post defenders.

Camera and Wheeler are locks barring injury at One forward and PG.

The two transfers from GM and SB are your other two guards.

The rest of the roster is mix and match for specific match- ups.

I don't see Crean being successful this year. And he'll have to rebuild the roster yet Again next year with the three one and dones. He's in a vicious recruiting cycle he has to break, but is handicapped by the turnover. He's recruiting solid, but this ain't no UK one and done territory.

I worry he did not sign more high school seniors this class. What was it - one?

I am having a hard time seeing the roster stabilize any time soon. Just don't know how much leash he'll have. And we'll prob have a new AD come July 21. So is 21-22 season his last stand? Or would a new AD give him to 22-23 to put up or shut up?

Who knows - maybe this 20-21 aggregation of wanderers, hired guns, and holdovers gels to something.

Camara is 100% a SF forward in my book as well.

i have lived in florida since graduating in '81.
i have never known a knowledgeable uga hoops fan in close to 40 years.
this forum is awesome.
i appreciate your feedback.
i go watch the dawgs get beat up in gainesville every year.
this year was a real heartbreaker.
do you see any of the existing talent improving significantly?
brown, fagan or walton?

Been to O'Connell a few times, witnessed a couple of heartbreakers myself... 2017 and Canyon Barry going off was tough.

We've had a pretty good run of frosh making a huge leap their soph year... Gaines, Mann, JJ, Maten all come to mind. Dunno bout Walton, Brown, Fagan or Crean and his ever changing staff's ability to develop. I like Fagan as the 2nd or 3rd guy off the bench but he'll never be All-SEC. Walton who knows? Brown is the safest bet to make a big jump this year but prolly still a longshot.

I'm having trouble finding any positives currently.

here's an optimistic scenario.
wheeler, brown and camara progress to play the caliber of
frazier, mann and gaines.
that's a tall order and sadly we still wouldn't be that good
without a quality big guy.

Fladawg - been going to UGA hoops since Guthrie was coach when I was little. There are a lot more people on this board more knowledgeable about the team than I, so you should keep coming around!

Being a UGA hoops fan, Falcons fan, etc will hopefully punch my ticket into the pearly gates one day. Until then, I still (foolishly) believe UGA hoops can be a consistent NCAA team if we could get our s**t together on hoops top to bottom within BM.

We had a great board going here for a good while... 15-20 regular posters back in the Heckwithtech days (loved that dude). Many if not most clamored for Fox's firing for years, even during the 33 conference wins in 3 years stretch. It seems 2-16 followed by 5-13 has silenced them for the most part. Driller and BMD pop up every once in awhile.

Monk, Nostra, Haney, Begger and me (JOHN ROTTEN) have stayed visible. I miss a bunch of others... Memphisdawg, Teddybulldawg, Myers, Dawgboy, Judge, etc. Who am I missing?? Maybe the team will get something going this year and the board will get active once again.

since i am new to this board i have a few historical questions.
over the years i watched the team and there were always a few players that
i felt received too much playing time. i couldnt see what they brought to the table.
let me start with etorrion wilridge?
he couldnt shoot , was slow and wasnt a rebounder.
why did he consistently play 20 minutes per game?

His junior year his PT dropped to just 10mpg from 16 as a soph. His senior year (Crean's 1st) he played 19 mpg and averaged a whopping 3.1pts. His defense was a little above average (especially on a Crean team), his passing skills were decent and he didn't turn it over too much but lawd he could not score. Word was he practiced well and scored better in practice but tightened considerably come game time.

I'd prolly rank KPG above Toe. He managed to win us a couple of games in Starkeville anyways.

MyersStall isn't coming back. I know, because I'm MyersStall. I took the opportunity to "rebrand" when Dawg Post did the big refresh.

I don't post much during the offseason because, well...I just don't have much to add, but I also hope activity picks up a bit during the season.

As is my obligation as someone who burns money on UGA Basketball season tickets every year, I remain hopeful, but not for this season. The best optimism I can muster is that this core of Wheeler, Brown, and Camara continues to grow and improve, someone else (either Fagan or Walton) takes a huge step, and then Crean closes with Michael Foster and one or two other studs in the 2021 class. That could set up a fun 2021-22 season.

As for this year, 6 wins in conference, unfortunately, feels about right...

we are overdo for a few guys to exceed expectations.
maybe one of the transfers or incoming freshmen?
then everyone gels and we have a magical season.
i have been hoping for that since 1983.
i thought it was happening once under harrick then
something happened

I've always wondered the same thing. What play unproductive players?

i could continue the list of unproductive players for a long time.
mike edwards, wilridge, houston kessler and geno to begin with.
there is another list of designated three point shooters that were not good
shooters,
crump , brantley probably others.
it's tough to be a georgia hoops fan

Honestly, Toe was a really good kid; he just was not a major college player. It's not his fault that we offered him. Now, Fox must have seen some upside with him, but I never really did. Fox insisted on continually playing players who, to many of our eyes, gave us nothing much. He was loyal to his upperclassmen - kids who played their whole careers for him - often at the expense of our play on the court. We could name 6-10 kids during Fox's tenure that just made no sense to play. That said, we didn't exactly have a deep bench. Crean, to me, tends to play his more talented players most of the time. Of course, the 2 coaches' styles of play are completely different. They want different things from a player. Fox felt that he could not win playing uptempo and sought to control the pace and slow things down to try to pull out a win in the end. Crean wants to run and score; the question is has he been able to put together a roster with which he can play his way. We aren't there yet. Crean needs a deeper roster. I want to see better defense from the team. I will say that we did play better at the end of the season last year. We have just had 2 years straight of big turnover. It's hard to do that and maintain any continuity. One of the coaches was on radio last week and said that this might be the college basketball of the future. I would have said this was probably an important year for Crean. Now, frankly, though, I just hope we play this year.

Wilridge only logged 10/mpg under Fox as a junior. Crean and his high powered offensive philosophy played him 19/mpg as a senior and got 3/ppg out of him. But yeah by all accounts he was/is a great kid.

Good to know that's you Myers/Stevie...

i didnt mean to pick on wilridge i just never understood why he was in the rotation.
although he was a decent passer.

here is another one i didnt understand.
why did it take fox two years to figure out mike edwards was not a productive player?
he played similar minutes to ogbeide their first two years.
imo ogbeide was a very solid big man.
(exactly what we need now)

Edwards was the ultimate look like Tarzan...play like Jane...
Look at the list of "bigs" in 2015-16, other than Maten (30mpg) and Ogbeide (15mpg):

Edwards 16mpg
Kessler 16mpg
KPG 19mpg
Wilridge 9mpg

Why did Fox play these guys? There wasn't anybody else!!
Yet somehow we finished 10-8 and made it to the semi-finals of the SEC Tourney (for the third straight year) before KY knocked us out.

Ogbeide wasn't in the best shape as a frosh, which contributed to him getting in foul trouble a good bit. The next year DO came back in great shape and his minutes increased from 15 to 23 but again after Yante and Ogbeide we had:

Edwards 18mpg
Wilridge 16mpg
Diatta 11mpg
KPG 9mpg
Kessler 8mpg

We dropped to 9-9 in conference which included an OT loss
@Florida, an OT loss @Kentucky and another heartbreaker to Kentucky in Athens. Win any one of those three and we're in the tourney.

So as to the question of Fox giving Wilridge, Edwards, Kessler and Geno minutes?? That's all he had to choose from and somehow we were pretty good, especially by UGA standards.

There were about four years in a row where the SEC didn't have but about three really good teams. We certainly took advance of that weakness in the conference. The SEC has been incredible the last few years. And all of the new coaches in the conference have really made a difference. The SEC is as good top to bottom as any conference in the country.

That was the argument repeated while we were in the midst of winning more games in a three year period than any other school but Kentucky and graduated the first class in history to never have a losing record in league play.

Last years SEC was ranked 6th in the conference power rankings and projected to place only 4 teams in the tourney.
Hell, the Pac12 was 4th. It was as weak as it's been in a long time. I'd rather have a decent team win 11 games in a weak conference than a terrible team that wins 5 games in a weak conference.

very good assessment on the playing time.
i was unaware ogbeide was out of shape as a freshman.
hindsight showed us that ogbeide was a beast and the other guys
were not sec talent. i would still contend that i saw limitations in the other guys
faster than fox. perhaps he couldve tried playing ogbeide more a little sooner.

very good point that we still managed to win games in that era with
subpar talent.
we had more talent last year and went 5-13.

now that i have done a lot of second guessing i will reminisce for a moment.
ncaa tournament 1983.
uga beat a unc team that included michael jordan, sam perkins and brad daughtery.
still the most incredible victory in school history.
how did we pull that off?

I thought Ogbeide would be a 12/8 kinda player by his junior year. After the big improvement year one to year 2 he really didn't get much better... 9.7/5.7 senior year. With Jonas on staff, more so than Fox, I still wonder how he didn't become a 2nd/3rd team all-sec guy. Maybe Fox should of gotten him 24-26 minutes?

Never forget the first time I saw Ogbeide. I was at Rafferty's the weekend high-schooler DO was visiting. He was there with his father and Coach Pearson. I spoke very briefly, bout basketball of course, then as I was leaving Derek's father raised his hand a bit and said "education". Made a real impression.

i just looked up ogbeide.
he played last season in cyprus.
8.7/6.5
similar to uga
not bad for a rookie.
i dont know if cyprus is a top level euro team?

do you remember tim dixon?
i saw him play a game in high school.
if i would've known how to reach the team i wouldve told them
to retract his scholarship offer. not even close to sec talent.

Do I remember Tim Dixon?? I laugh every time I read that and I'm sure a few others do as well. You have know idea what you missed here... The Tim Dixon vs John Cannon debates were legendary. They would start serious, like there was hope for either, by the end they were just comedy. I was firmly Team Cannon by the way.

Fox and Staff couldn't sign a 4 star (KCP exception) but they made the best of some leftover talent of 3 stars, and lower, JJ was a 2. I don't remember Dixon's signing, whether early or late, but recall Cannon was very late and a result of everybody else being "off the board". Wild swing and a miss on those two and I'd also put Iduwe in that group of bigs that didn't pan out.

Bingo

Taking over a program with one losing record (7-11) the previous six seasons, in conference play, hardly constitutes a rebuild. Crean took over after one of the better stretches in UGA's admittedly weak history and is 7-29. This year, if we play, we look to be another bottom of the pack team that might squeeze out 4-6 wins (if we play). I don't see how the Fox and Staff haters are ok with that??

Fox had 3 teams in years 4-7 that should have been solid NCAA Tourney teams (42-30 in conference). He blew it and only one of them danced and that got him fired. It was time for Fox to move on like it was for Andy Kennedy at Ole Miss. It's just my opinion that they both are good coaches that did pretty well at the two toughest jobs in the conference.

Anybody really believe Crean will make it to year five, six or seven? How do we justify keeping him past year four unless somehow we have a winning record in league play that season?

how many conference games would we have won last year if claxton had stuck around?
i would've loved to watch claxton and edwards play together

Hard to say, certainly couldn't have hurt. If you look at our roster Clax's soph year it's hard to see how we could go 2-16. We were losing badly, 11 of the 16 L's were by double digits, 9 of those 11 were by 15 or more, including the 96-50 UT loss.

Last year we lost to Bama and SC in OT, so you'd guess with Clax those would be W's. We had our share of embarrassing losses... AU by 22, MSt by 32 and LSU by 30. I'd say with Clax we'd have been 7-11 or 8-10.

Two years of undisciplined pure trash basketball has been put on the floor by UGA... it has to change and I don't see how it happens this year (if we play). What about this question... How different would our 7-29 record be if Fox, Pearson and Jonas coached the last two seasons?

Good question. Crean hasn't proved he can win close sec games. Fox and company probably would've won a few more.
If we still had tim Dixon also maybe we would have won the sec? I hope you guys know I'm kidding.
It seems better teams decide on a 7-8 man rotation and stick with it. Will we ever have the type of talent and balanced roster to try that?