Are you ready?

In just two days, fans will get their one brief fix of live football between the bowl game and the 2006 season. Like the addicts we are, we’ll head to Sanford Stadium to watch a controlled scrimmage. And like addicts, we’ll take the closest thing we can get and obsess over it hoping it gets us through to our next fix.

That said, there are a few areas I’m interested in. Most are on defense. Linebackers seem like a hodge-podge and have since Tony Taylor injured himself two years ago. Depth and stability used to be the cornerstone of that position. Linebackers weren’t especially a strength nor a liability last year, but when you’re used to some outstanding production from the position under VanGorder, that’s a drop off. We’re also switching out three of four starting defensive backs, and the fourth is in a fight for his starting job. There’s no shortage of talented candidates back there, but I’ll be interested in how they shake out.

As for the offense, we know it will be more or less plain vanilla. Defensive pressure won’t be anywhere near up to season levels. There will be some nice runs. But of course most everyone will be looking at the four three healthy QB candidates and ready to proclaim the season starter based on Saturday’s performance. Woe to he who doesn’t impress; the “bust” label is waiting for you.

But the best part of G-Day is the Johnny Brown Award. This is given by fans who see a reserve have a great G-Day and want to know during the season why coaches don’t play him or have him much higher up on the depth chart. Ronnie Powell was a two-time recipient of the award. This year, I bet it will be one of the many young defensive backs. For their sake, I wouldn’t be upset if it’s a wide receiver (Kris Durham enters the game as the favorite) – we need some good press in that area.

As anticlimatic as the men’s NCAA final was on Monday, the women made up for it on Tuesday. Maryland trailed Duke by as many as 13 points and looked beaten in every way during a bad first half. But they put together a run midway through the second half to set up an incredible finish. Down by 4 with less than a minute remaining, Maryland hit two huge baskets, including a deep three-pointer by Kristi Toliver with less than ten seconds remaining to force overtime. Toliver is a freshman, and she stuck a three-pointer over 6’7″ Allison Bales with the game on the line. That’s what the NCAA Tournament is all about. Duke held the upper hand for most of the overtime, but a missed free throw by Bales opened the door for Maryland to take the lead, and they did with just over 30 seconds remaining. Duke didn’t score again and couldn’t get a good look on a potential tying three-pointer of their own as the clock ran out.

I know many of you don’t follow the women’s game, but this was as good as it gets in sports. Good storylines (Maryland’s youth vs. Duke’s veterans desperate for a title), good drama (Maryland’s comeback), good individual moments (Bales’ dominant performance, Toliver and Coleman leading the way as freshmen), and a Hollywood ending. This was a very memorable tournament all around.

The women move right into the WNBA draft today, and two Lady Dogs – Alexis Kendrick and Sherill Baker – hope to get the opportunity to play professionally. I’ll have their draft results later today.

After watching most of the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments, two disappointing themes run through both tournaments.

Where were the stars?

Look at the finalists for the Naismith Award. Rudy Gay (UConn), Adam Morrison (Gonzaga), J.J. Redick (Duke), and Allan Ray (Villanova). None made it to the Final Four. Zero. Redick and Morrison fell flat in the Sweet 16, and Ray and Gay couldn’t lead their teams past the regional finals. The tournament allowed other players like Davis, Skinn, Noah, and Farmar to step forward, but honestly none except maybe Noah had the impact on the game that one of the Naismith finalists could have.

It was a good story to see George Mason and three other semi-surprise teams in the Final Four, but when you combine the lack of the superstars with the absence of some traditional powers made for a Final Four that didn’t interest many people, and you saw that in some low ratings for the final. Oh, I know UCLA is a big name, but this program had been on the back burner for so long that the name doesn’t pack quite the same punch. There was no traditional East Coast or Midwest power in Indy, so there wasn’t much interest.

On the women’s side, you had Ivory Latta (UNC), Seimone Augustus (LSU), Courtney Paris (Oklahoma), Cappie Pondexter (Rutgers). Might as well count UT’s Parker there also. Pondexter and Paris bowed out in the regionals. Parker and her “dunk” also didn’t play in Boston. (Cue ESPN slitting their wrists over no UConn or UT in the Final Four.) Latta and Augustus made it to the Final Four where they didn’t play like Player of the Year candidates. Latta, fighting through injury, was out of control and ineffective. For all the showmanship and the love affair she claims to have with the camera, that camera showed her coming apart and her teammate Larkins looking much more like the leader. Augustus couldn’t get open because her teammates couldn’t hit open shots and gave Duke no reason to discontinue a double-team on Augustus. As with the men, the absence of the Naismith finalists give some exposure to deserving players like Duke’s Currie or Maryland’s Langhorne. Still, the absence of some stars and the others falling flat makes for a tough Final Four to follow.

Where was the offense?

Don’t tell me it’s good defense. There has been some dreadful offense right up to and including the Final Four. It started with South Carolina and Florida setting offensive basketball back 40 years in the SEC Tournament final. LSU’s upset of Duke featured long scoreless stretches for both teams and a poor shooting night for Redick. LSU made it into the Final Four scoring 50-60 points. UCLA made it to the Final Four with spotty offense and only a late collapse by Gonzaga kept them from paying for it sooner. Villanova’s Player of the Year candidate Allan Ray shot 5-for-19 in the regional final as that team’s explosive guard-led offense sputtered to 62 points.

It doesn’t get much better for the women. LSU stayed in the top five and made it to their third-straight Final Four with only two scoring threats and zero outside game. Tennessee became vulnerable on offense as their point guard situation deteriorated. UConn had a great tournament from Turner, a bit less from Strother, and very limited help elsewhere. Even Carolina’s loaded offense sputtered from outside and nearly cost them as early as the Sweet 16. Maryland is in the national title game with freshmen and sophomores because they can score. Duke might be the deepest team in the tournament, and they need it as their players – even Currie – show up on offense inconsistently.

Put it all together, and these tournaments have been a lot more about coming up short than they have been about excellence. The battle last year between superstar-packed Illinois and UNC seems a world away. The limited stories of excellence like Noah and Langhorne shine brightly as a result.

As an aside, there’s a lot of sniping, mainly from college football snobs, that this year’s tournament is a good example of the downside of the playoff format. Maybe so – this was a down year and for the first time since 1980 no #1 seed made the Final Four. There were serious flaws in the quality of play and players as I note above. But it’s a bit like judging the BCS on 2001 where Nebraska made the national title game without even winning its conference. Every game counts, indeed. College basketball will be back, and there is still nothing in sports like the entire month of March which unfortunately went out more like a lamb this year.

Damn.

Looking back, hindsight shows that Florida won because they were one of the more complete teams in the tournament. UConn was another, but their arrogance took away their edge. Florida had great guard play, dominant posts, role players off the bench, and momentum. Nice formula for success these days. So many other teams had much more gaping holes. Duke had a dropoff in consistency after its two stars. Villanova found out what would happen when its guards weren’t hitting. UCLA showed that they don’t yet have the offensive punch to match its defense. LSU showed that it didn’t have the class of guard play to support the strong frontcourt.

Florida didn’t have many of those shortcomings, at least not at a significant magnitude, and so the only question would be whether or not this team could buck the trend of Donovan’s former teams and hold themselves together. The departure of talented headcases Walsh and Roberson were supposed to hurt the team, but they were young, talented, and didn’t know better as they made their way through the season as a team of role players playing at a high level. From Noah to Green, the one thing the Gators did have was speed. Pure speed. When your forward is the first man down the court, you’ve got a tremendous advantage. It was humbling watching Noah against Georgia’s frontcourt this year – he made the Dawgs look even slower than they were.

A lot was made of the Florida offense vs. UCLA defense showdown, but that made people ignore the other matchup – Florida’s defense against UCLA’s offense. As I posted on the DawgVent over the weekend, Florida plays decent defense themselves, and UCLA would have to prove that its defense wasn’t just a crutch for poor offense. Turns out that was pretty accurate. Florida played some shutdown defense, swatted away any shot near the basket, and there was no way that Farmar was going to carry UCLA singlehandedly.

Any SEC fan who had the pleasure knew what was going to happen at the beginning of the second half. The Gators, true to form, came out of the locker room firing from outside and quickly turned a situation where UCLA was just hanging on into a bloodletting. Donovan, only a year removed from some questions after a few high-profile teams and superstars made a habit of packing it in early in the postseason, now has a national title.

Can they repeat? The superstars of the tournament fizzled in the regionals, and new names like Big Baby, Farmar, Noah, and Skinn shone through. Noah’s NBA stock has to be at a peak now. Taurean Green is an incredible guard who has pro skills. But even if it’s just a cast of guys like Horford, Humphrey, Brewer, and Richard coming back, Florida is as stocked as any SEC team and still has a potent inside-outside game.

Damn.

I’ve always appreciated college professors who can get over the institutionalized academic snobbery and realize how cool it is to have college athletics just a short walk away. In these professors you usually find a good sense of humor, sharp wit, intelligent observations, and the ability to relate to students much better than colleagues who resent athletics. Because they’re intelligent and typically experts in their fields, you sometimes get interesting perspectives on things when these professors apply their academic passions to questions of pop culture and sports.

George Mason’s law and economics programs are pretty well-known and regarded especially in conservative and libertarian circles. A couple of their more well-known economics professors, Peter Boettke and Alex Tabarrok, have an article in Slate where they compare the assembly of the GMU economics department, the GMU basketball team, and baseball’s “Moneyball” principle – the science (or art) of finding undervalued players.

Professor Todd Zywicki, of GMU’s law school, has further thoughts on the subject and a key observation:

Larranaga suggests that even now the big-time programs probably wouldn’t really want any of these GMU kids because they are not the individual superstars with brilliant talent that those teams are looking for. So it is not that somehow those programs “missed” these kids, but rather that those programs have a different model of talent acquisition. It is only when melded together in Larranaga’s system, with the emphasis on the way in which their individual skills complement one another within the system, that their total value is maximized.

I can see that. Especially now that you can’t even plan the composition of your program three or four years down the road, many schools just look to fill up on the best talent and see what happens from year to year. If you try to take a longer-term approach, your power forward has left for the NBA, the point guard has transfered to get more playing time, and the nice mix of players you were trying to craft has fallen apart. You’re stuck with marginal talent and no synergy.

This is the risk Dennis Felton currently must take at Georgia. He is recruiting post players for 1-3 years down the road hoping that they will fit into a program of established guards and role players. If the posts don’t pan out or something happens to the progression of guards currently in the program, the plan is seriously jeopardized. But this is the strategy Felton must use, because the superstars just aren’t coming to Georgia (for now). He’s got to trust his vision and hope their skills working together make the team better.

We come across this question often at Georgia, particularly during football recruiting. Georgia football is in a position to recruit both the nationally elite prospects (the superstars) and also the prospects who might not have as much talent but were leaders on winning programs or have some sort of exceptional work ethic or character. How often do we hear, “give me a three-star kid who wants to work hard and play for Georgia over some five-star prima donna?” (Of course, we usually hear that only when the superstar is considering another school and it’s time for the sour grapes.) Still, there have been plenty of examples lately at UGA (David Pollack and Thomas Davis come to mind) where above-average but not necessarily superstar prospects find a niche to maximize their value. We know how inexact the science of ranking prospects can be.

PS…This fact mentioned by Zywicki is just stunning: “Will Thomas (of GMU) and Rudy Gay (of UConn) both went to high school in Baltimore and…Thomas’s teams are now 8-0 playing against Gay’s teams in their careers.” Wow.

OK, one more thing about the “game I wasn’t going to discuss”. ESPN’s Mike Patrick and Doris Burke went on and on about a possible 5th foul against Tasha Humphrey that was credited to Megan Darrah. They, particularly Patrick, mentioned the foul and the supposed gift of a call at least a dozen times down the stretch. According to Patrick, Humphrey absolutely HAD picked up her fifth foul. To support this claim, they ran (one time) a replay of a play on which no foul was called. That’s right – they were looking at and ranting about the wrong replay. What’s worse is that no one on the production team reviewed this pivotal call and showed the proper replay (on which Darrah was very much involved) or at the very least slipped word to the talking heads that the call was a lot less controversial than their blunder made it out to be.

The job of the broadcast is to tell the story of the game, and they whiffed on this one. They didn’t just fail to tell the story, they told a wrong and misleading story.

It’s a shame the creativity of most SEC students stops around the “You suck!” plateau of taunting. Even the Cameron Crazies are a good bit less creative now and act more as if they are going to see Rocky Horror than a basketball game.

For the really good pranks in sports you usually have to leave it to the eggheads. MIT and CalTech have set the standard. Cal-Berkeley and Stanford figure in the strangest (and some would say greatest) finish to a college football game.

This time, it’s Cal’s turn again. They hosted Southern Cal in basketball recently, and both teams are competing for the Pac 10 title – it was a big game. Some Cal students created an online persona – a UCLA student named “Victoria” – and began instant messaging Southern Cal player Gabe Pruitt. By gametime, Pruitt had given “Victoria” his phone number and arranged a date.

As for what happened next…

When USC guard Gabe Pruitt took his first trip to the free throw line early in the game, the Cal student section hollered in unison: “VIC-TOR-IA, VIC-TOR-IA,” and then yelled out a telephone number. Pruitt glanced back at the crowd in horror and bewilderment before clanking his free throws.

It turns out that a couple of mischeivous little bastards from the Cal student section had been IM’ing with Pruitt all week under the identity of “Victoria,” a fictional UCLA hottie, and Pruitt was eagerly anticipating a date with this nubile co-ed back in Westwood after the game. In preparation for the date, Pruitt had handed over his digits, which the Cal student section recited back to him in unison.

Pruitt, a 79% free throw shooter this season, missed both shots after the “VIC-TOR-IA” chants began, and hit only three out of 13 shots the whole game. Cal beat USC by 11 for the season sweep, in part due to the Cal fans’ devious psy-ops.

Brilliant. Meanwhile students everywhere else are impressed with themselves for yelling “SIT DOWN” whenever someone fouls out.

To emphasize my point about the Lady Dogs having zero bad losses, each team that beat them either won their conference tournament or is ranked in the top 10 right now.

• Baylor: Top 10 team, still alive in the Big 12 tournament.
• UCLA: Won the PAC 10 tournament.
• Temple: Won the Atlantic 10 tournament.
• LSU: Top 5 team
• Tennessee: Top 5 team, won the SEC Tournament.

The only problem is that these are still losses. It would be a lot more impressive if they could count a win among that group.

Every so often a Georgia player will earn permanent and eternal untouchable status from me with one play or one game. Short of showing up in the next bin Laden home video, these guys could do nothing else their entire careers or lives that would remove them from my pantheon of Sacred Bulldogs.

Usually this status comes with a big play against Georgia Tech, but other events have also triggered it. Michael Johnson’s ownership of Auburn put him right up there.

I bring this up because UGASports.com has an interview today with Mario Raley discussing his expectations for his senior season. “As a leader and a senior in my fifth year, I feel like my role is to step up and lead the guys and show them the ins and outs and dos and don’ts,” Raley said.

It’s great that Raley has that outlook, but he has already stepped up in my eyes. As UGASports.com’s Brad Harrison wisely notes, “(Raley’s) biggest catch (of 2005) came against Georgia Tech, an eight-yarder that kept a Georgia drive going late in the game.” Exactly right, Brad. In a tie game late in the 4th quarter, facing third down just on the outside of field goal range, Raley caught a pass heading towards the sideline and turned it upfield for the first down. It was his only catch of the game, and it was only for eight yards, but it was the first in a trio – or dare I say trinity – of events that led to another win over Georgia Tech. Soon after Raley’s catch left the Bulldogs comfortably in field goal range, DJ Shockley found Bryan McClendon for the go-ahead score. A few minutes later, Tim Jennings stepped in front of a Reggie Ball Western Union Special to seal the win. Thomas Flowers set up the final drive with another big return, but it was Raley’s catch that kept it alive.

I hope Mario Raley does continue to improve and find an increased role as a senior. He’s not going to transform into Hines Ward, but hopefully his catch at Tech will give him the taste for making the key catch when Georgia needs a reception. If any catch this season even approaches what his reception at Tech meant to me, he’ll be an instant hero. You can do much worse as a Bulldog than to be remembered for your contribution, no matter how small, in a win over Tech.

OK – I know Mississippi State had a nice frontcourt advantage on Georgia. They drew fouls at a staggering rate and dunked like they were playing on an 8-foot goal.

I am still pretty – no…VERY – disappointed in Georgia’s defensive response. The strategy seemed to be to rely on turnovers to stop Mississippi State’s offense. That worked more or less during the first half, and the “other” Bulldogs helped out by shooting from outside and staying away from their advantage. Georgia was also lighting it up from outside.

But as the strategy broke down and Mississippi State got dunk after layup inside, there was no Georgia adjustment. They didn’t pack a zone into the box and surround the entry pass with four players. They didn’t force the midrange jumpshot. I can’t really identify what, if anything, they did to make some other player beat them. This wasn’t a team like Florida that would bury you from outside if you played a sagging zone. This was Mississippi State – a team at the bottom of the SEC West with a good post player or two and nothing special at guard.

I contrast that with the Lady Dog strategy I saw yesterday that matched a lineup of 6-7, 6-5, and 6-4 with 6-2, 6-1, 5-11 and no depth behind that. I saw double-teams and fundamental positioning that made entry passes and rebounds more difficult for the taller player. In short, I saw them try something despite a serious size disadvantage. It doesn’t matter that the bigger player scored anyway – the disruptions were effective enough times to prevent complete domination and create turnovers, and the rebounding margin was close enough not to be a deciding factor.

I’m not disappointed nor surprised that Georgia’s men lost to a better frontcourt. I am disappointed that we think it’s a foregone conclusion that Georgia should just shrug its shoulders and accept another career-high when facing a good frontcourt. Even with lesser talent, there are strategic ways to frustrate and deny an inside game. They might require you getting out of man-to-man or some other comfort zone, but they are there. At the very least, let’s see some urgency and desperation and strategy.

In the ugliest of games, rivaling only the 45-42 loss to Alabama in 2004, Georgia completed a season sweep of the defending NIT champs last night. With the win, a berth in this year’s NIT seems much more likely. Another win at Mississippi State next week should lock it up.

Why is the freaking NIT such a big deal? It is the postseason. It is a recognizable sign of progress from last season. It is the chance to keep playing and practicing for another week. It is a reward, though small, for the players who were asked to play above their ability and experience for the past two seasons.

It is also a baseline. As a baby step of progress for this program, it should be the last time for a while that the NIT is a goal or an acceptable outcome. Almost all of the current team will return next year. Recruiting will continue to add more pieces. The unholy trinity of little depth, little experience, and little talent hasn’t been completely exorcised but is fading away.

A berth in the NIT this year would be a good achievement for the team and a nice sign of progress – so long as that’s what it is. A step along the path of progress and not a stopping point or plateau. The fan base is hungry for more, and the coach and players surely are.

Let’s finish this season strong, recognize the improvement, and get ready for a real move forward next year.

Georgia has no shortage of standout student-athletes. Tasha Humphrey, Courtney Kupets, DJ Shockley…all Bulldogs known and respected not only among our own fans but also nationwide among the media and fans who follow those sports. In other extremely successful programs like golf and swimming, there are also standouts who just don’t get the press and exposure to the fan base.

You might have heard that this is a pretty good time for Georgia men’s tennis. Manny Diaz usually has a competitive squad, but they recently added the ITA Team Indoor national title to their trophy case. With that indoor title, the Georgia program has at sometime or other won every bit of championship hardware available to an NCAA tennis program. The legacy of Diaz and Dan Magill is rock solid.

As a result of that title and an unblemished record, the tennis Dawgs are now ranked #1 in the nation. Of course a strong team like that needs more than one strong player. Strahinja Bobusic was just named SEC Player of the Week, and a total of four Bulldogs are nationally ranked singles players.

But the name most associated with the team these days is John Isner. Isner is the #1 singles player in the nation and one of the more compelling Bulldog athletes to come through Athens lately. The first thing you notice about Isner is his size. His 6’9″ frame would put him at home in Stegeman Coliseum, and it is imposing on the tennis court. At that height, and with that reach, his serve almost seems to come straight down. His first serve is devastating and nearly impossible to return when accurate. Obviously his game must be more complete than just a good serve to earn the #1 individual ranking, but the serve is the first thing the novice observer notices.

Isner is also an accomplished doubles player. He and Antonio Ruiz won the NCAA doubles national title last spring.

I discovered during my time at UGA that you could do a lot worse than spending spring afternoons at Foley Field or at the tennis complex. If you get the chance this spring, go check out Isner and the #1 tennis Dawgs. Even if you’re not a big tennis person, just watching Isner serve is likely to get a “daaaaaaaaamn” out of you and a bit of appreciation for one of the best athletes currently wearing the Red and Black.

The scenario I talked about last week has now come true.

We’re at a very awkward time right now. It’s easy to leave behind the days of “hey, we got an SEC win isn’t that great?!” and try to leap straight to the chest-thumping “show me the respect we command”. If we don’t beat UT and/or Kentucky at Rupp, we’re right back to 4-7 in the league and talking about how we should be happy that we doubled our win total from last year.

So here we are. 4-7. The Banner-Herald concludes, “The whispers of the Bulldogs earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament likely will be silenced.” Georgia is back in the basement of the SEC East, if only by a half-game.

Let’s back up and say that this isn’t an unexpected condition or result. Tennessee is the best team in the SEC, and Kentucky was nearly a ten-point favorite at Rupp. What’s changed in the past week is that the perception of the current condition is a bit of a letdown, a disappointment. Georgia had a meager two-game winning streak, Coach Felton let out a bit of his frustration and eagerness to get the program on top, and fans – whether defensive or fired up over Felton’s comments – were at least talking about basketball and checking out the program.

But now the Dawgs have lost two straight, and though the Dawgs might not have been expected or favored to win either, there was some plainly bad basketball in there. The inability to bring the ball upcourt against pressure, missed foul shots killing a rally, balls bouncing off heads after a pick-and-roll, and minutes upon minutes of ineffective scoreless offense have people asking, “this was the team whose NCAA Tournament credentials we were talking about a week ago?”.

Now we have Vanderbilt at home this weekened – a winnable game that could give the team a nice shot in the arm and move them out of the SEC East cellar. A nice home crowd would be a welcome change from the “Memorial Magic” Georgia overcame in their earlier win at Vanderbilt. It’s not that the past week cost us a sellout for the Vandy game, but these two very high-profile losses ensure that the only interest in the Vanderbilt game (and probably the South Carolina game) will come from the diehard fans who have been there all along.

Making a big deal over the crowd for the Tennessee game should not have been the focus of the moment. That was a set-up, and it has caused unnecessary disappointment and grumbling among the fan base. Instead, it was the beginning of the audition for crowds in the remaining three home games which Georgia could win and really add to the accomplishments of this season. With the recent performance of the team, Coach Felton can be sure of lukewarm support the rest of the way this season. Hopefully a strong finish to this season can drum up some momentum and support for next season when this entire team will return and add some frontcourt bulk. A winning record over these last five games and an NIT berth would be impressive and clear progress over last season, and hopefully that message can get out over the disappointment of not making the NCAA Tournament.

Looking ahead, only Florida would seem like a heavy favorite over Georgia. Mississippi State should be a win, but that’s on the road. Arkansas, Vandy, and SC all could go either way. Georgia’s spread could go anywhere from 5-11 to 8-8. Perception-wise, that’s a pretty big potential swing.

Other than your family, think about the thing(s) in life about which you are most passionate. It might be a career, golf, Civil War diningware, but for most of us it’s the Dawgs – specifically Georgia football. Have you ever tried to explain to a non-believer what the High Holy Feast Day of National Signing Day is all about? Do you stare blankly when asked why you are rushing to set up tailgate at 7:45 AM for a 7:45 PM kickoff? Are you frustrated when the casual Georgia fans in your office don’t know who the third-string linebackers are? When you start talking about the Dawgs, do you notice how others smile uncomfortably while backing away slooooowly, taking care not to make any sudden motions?

Welcome to Dennis Felton’s world. The man lives basketball. NCAA limits on practice time were made for Felton – sleep gets in the way of time that could be spent improving the program. Preseason military-style training is a nice warmup for practice. Basketball consumes Felton to a flaw, and that flaw comes to the surface every now and then.

It’s an obsession, and that’s not necessarily a bad trait for a coach. You certainly prefer that over a guy just punching the clock. And let’s be honest – Georgia basketball needs its coach to be obsessive and driven about the job. Anyone else would have been discouraged and on anti-depressants within a week of taking the position.

But that same drive and passion for the game leads to impatience. Indifference and apathy are foreign concepts. You don’t get that a fan base that keeps getting let down after every limited morsel of basketball success doesn’t jump on board at your first signs of progress and promise. You can’t process why you have to beg people to come see SEC basketball when you’ve worked your whole life to get to this opportunity. If successful at Georgia, Felton will have been responsible for not only a good basketball team but also a cultural shift.

I’ve been right there with the “just stick a cork in it and coach” camp, but I still have to recognize (and appreciate) missionary zeal when I see it. His job isn’t just to coach the team. You don’t get the passionate coach willing to invest four years in resurrecting a dismal program without the rest of the package. Someone not far away from developing a competitive team wants the fan support and administrative support to be right there alongside his effort, and getting those are often left up to him.

Felton can’t be inflexible in this effort though. His success has been too fleeting to really sway this fickle fan base. GSB picked up on and developed an observation of mine last week that Felton can’t afford to jump too quickly through the baby steps that will build fan support. Some of his strongest supporters, and I include myself in that group, have been more than willing to be patient as he rebuilds the program. By getting ahead of himself, he runs the risk of people demanding results much sooner than they can reasonably be delivered. The team is certainly improved this year, and anyone can see the progress made and the roadmap for more improvement ahead. It’s obvious. But we’re not there yet, and casual would-be converts aren’t going to put the emotional investment behind the program to stick with it through the losses.

It’s a cop-out for us to suggest that Felton cool it and recognize that the football-crazy fan base won’t ever embrace basketball. That’s just not true. Stegeman was rocking during the Jarvis Hayes era and even into Felton’s first year when the “guy in the red shirt” entered Bulldog lore. But as GSB points out today, Felton doesn’t seem to appreciate that Georgia’s basketball fan base is once-bitten, twice shy and has been for decades. Time after time, the rug has been pulled out. Those fans might be willing at some point to come back for more abuse, but the best thing Felton can do now is to get this team into the postseason – even the NIT – and do well. The fans will notice and be ready for the next steps.

(And as I said earlier, it could be worse. You could build and sustain a program consistently ranked among the nation’s best, fully understand and be able to communicate with the Georgia fan base, have a Hall of Fame resume, and still have to rely on Tennessee fans to sell out your games. Welcome to Andy Landers’ world.)

Dennis Felton’s got a much easier job than he thinks. He can take a team below .500 in the SEC, make a bit of noise in the press, and get tons of attention and discussion going. Passionate fans will defend the notion that Georgia can be successful in basketball and football. They’ll get indignant about Tennessee bandwagoners buying up tickets. In the end, Felton got his sellout and vocal crowd.

Meanwhile, Andy Landers could offer free beer, and the fans would still stay away in droves.