Profiles in Hope: UGA Hoops 2012-2013

I want to share a statistic that I found surprising. Over the past 10 SEC games, Mark Fox's team is 5-5. Given the 1-7 start to the year, that's significant improvement. Was the team slow to start putting it together? Certainly, but they did find their legs later in the year.

The Dawgs had several solid RPI wins including:

• Florida (H) - RPI 26
  
• Notre Dame (N) - RPI 38
  
• Miss State (A) - RPI 74
  
• Miss State (N) - RPI 74
  
• Tennessee (H) - RPI 85
• S. Dakota St (H) - RPI 50 (although I feel dirty listing this one)
  

The reason the Dawgs won't be playing in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 tourney would be the debacles against South Carolina and Auburn. Some of that was a function of youth inside and some of it was a function of depth. The other reason would be the five games in which they scored less than 50 points.

The roster will be more athletic next year with the addition of Charles Mann, Kenny Gaines and Brandon Morris. The interior will be stronger with the maturing of Donte Williams and Nemi. Florevous also has the physical capabilities to make a significant year over year jump as Donte did this year. That's the good news.

Will it be enough to make the NCAA Tourney? Not unless Tony Parker wants to hug his mother very, very badly. As Coach Fox told him, "You can't hug your mother through a phone." So...here's hoping for hugs.

I do see rays of hope / opportunities for improvement next year due to the way the roster improved during the year. The challenge for Fox...the team could improve considerably next year than the record without the record reflecting it. The team faces the following schedule:

2 additional SEC games (Missouri and Texas A&M)
2 games against Indiana, UCLA or G'town in Brooklyn
1 Big East team on the road (SEC/Big East Challenge)
1 game vs. GT on the road
1 game vs. Southern Cal at home

That only leaves 7 tomato can games. When I was in school, Coach Durham would schedule 10-12 tomato cans a year.

On the bright side, it's a schedule that could put UGA into the NCAAs with as few as 18 wins. That would require UGA going 9-9 in a tougher SEC while sweeping the buy games and picking up 2 wins against that non-conference slate with USC, GT and UCLA being the best opportunities.

My overall feeling on the program is that Coach Fox is doing an average to above average job targeting the wings and guards for his style of play. Kentavious is as advertised, and Charles Mann and Kenny Gaines could both be underrated gems. The problem is his big man recruiting. He needs to onboard players who don't take 2-3 years to find their way in this league.

But I digress. Here's what I think it would take for the program to make a big leap forward beyond the obvious need to sign Tony Parker.

1. John Florveous needs to make a gigantic Year 2 move up the depth chart. If he could make an improvement like Donte and Travis Leslie made in Year 2, we could move Donte Williams to PF which would elevate his game.

2. Someone will have to step up at PG. I personally can't see it being Vinnie. So, this terrifies me for next year. If Charles Mann can be a 25+ minute per game stable solution at PG, I would feel much better about our chances.

3. Either KCP will need to add 15 lbs of muscle or Brandon Morris will need to emerge at SF. If KCP were at SG, he would face much better matchups offensively and defensively next season. If he stays at SF, he's got to get stronger.

What are your thoughts?

PWD

Georgia and LSU Comparisons

After doing the comparison of Arkansas and Georgia to prove a point, I decided to see how the six common opponents between Georgia and LSU matched up.

Team	LSU Result	UGA Result	LSU Off/Def	UGA Off/Def
Auburn	45-10	45-7	393/248	528/195
Ole Miss	52-3	27-13	458/195	475/183
Florida	41-11	24-20	453/213	354/226
Kentucky	35-7	19-10	348/155	317/165
Tennessee	38-7	20-12	383/239	366/269
Mississippi State	19-6	24-10	361/193	315/213

So, with the exception of Mississippi State, LSU routinely blew out the common opponents. Looking at the yardage, though, it was much more evenly matched:

LSU Offensive Yardage: 399.3
LSU Defensive Yardage: 207.2
LSU Differential: + 192.1

UGA Offensive Yardage: 392.5
UGA Defensive Yardage: 208.5
UGA Differential: +184

The difference? A little of this and a little of that. Some special teams and defensive scores. Some awesome field field position, due to opportunistic defense, as well as strong punt and kick returns. Some facing depleted offenses at the right time, specifically Florida. As for the lower scores for Georgia in those games, certainly you can look at the offensive philosophy when we have a lead.

I don't know if there is anything I can take away from this, other than I think this game, on paper, is much closer to a push than 13.5 points.

What are your thoughts?

TD

Arkansas Compared to Georgia

One thing that has stuck with me this week is the obvious comparison between the SEC's two 10-2 teams. Both lost to very good teams. So, is it enough to say Arkansas dominated one of the teams Georgia lost to and be done with it? No. Not at all.

True, Arkansas dominated the Gamecocks, but that was South Carolina's second game without Lattimore. Furthermore, when you look at the other head to heads, the picture is very different. Georgia and Arkansas faced six common opponents:

Team	Ark Result	UGA Result	Ark Off/Def	UGA Off/Def
Auburn	38-14	45-7	438/395	528/195
Ole Miss	29-24	27-13	438/370	475/183
Vandy	31-28	33-28	388/462	443/348
South Carolina	44-28	42-45	435/207	436/395
Tennessee	49-7	20-12	499/376	366/269
Mississippi State	44-17	24-10	539/211	315/213

If you are keeping score at home, this is very, very close. Arkansas gained about 30 more yards per game. Georgia held the common opponents to nearly 70 yards per game less than Arkans`s did.  Both teams nearly lost to Vandy in Nashville.

One thing that keeps jumping out at me is the same thing we all have been harping on.  Georgia lost to South Carolina thanks to the unholy trifecta of Interception/Fumble/Fat Guy Fake Punt touchdowns. If any one of those three don't happen, Georgia wins. If Georgia wins South Carolina, there is a strong likelihood we'd not only be having a Game of the Century of the Week discussion, it is possible this would be for a berth in the national championship game. We allow any of those Saturday, it'll be Orlando or worse for the bowl.

To put it another way, if Vandy doesn't allow a 94 yard fumble return for a TD or could hit a field goal on October 29th, the whole Arkansas is way better than Georgia conversation is laughable.

It seems apparent to me that with Arkansas' schedule, Georgia would be no worse than 9-3, and more likely at least 10-2. We certainly belong in the best of the rest conversation. We'll find out Saturday if we might belong somewhere above that.

But if your argument is Arkansas beat South Carolina and Georgia couldn't, just know how dumb that sounds when you look at the match ups.
TD

About Rodney Garner

I have privately held deep concerns about Coach Rodney Garner's results on the field the past few years. I've kept almost all of those concerns off the blog because Garner is such a lightening rod for a subset of fans of a variety of reasons.

With all of that said...Rodney Garner coached his ass off this year. We have our best defensive line since 2004, and it's not just a talent upgrade. Our guys are playing the position with freat technique and fire.

If you're going to bitch about a guy. You gotta step up and admit when he's doing a great job. Thus, this post.

PWD

About the LSU game

I really don't know what to say other than:

1. LSU is extremely good.
2. LSU is extremely battle tested.
3. We have a chance.

For my money, this is the best defense we'll have faced since at least the 2003 SEC Title game. You may have to go back to Bama in '92 to find an SEC Defense with this much talent playing at such a high level.

If our offensive line can give Murray and Crowell the daylight to make plays, we have a shot. If not, the 13 point spread will hold up. LSU's quarterbacks can make the negative plays to give us an opening. The offensive line just has to hold up enough to let us walk through that door.

As Coach Brooks said in Miracle, if we had to play them 10 times...they might win 9. Will Saturday be that 1 game? Hopefully.

PWD

My 3 Beefs with Richt

"Just put that old hot seat over there. We'll send it to Knoxville."
For the past few years, I've repeatedly listed my three top concerns with Mark Richt and the UGA football program as:

1. Lack of a Sense of Urgency
2. Lack of a Meritocracy
3. Personnel Utilization

Coach Richt embraced the challenge of resolving these issues, and we now have the third longest winning streak in FBS. Only LSU and Houston are riding longer streaks. As Tyler said earlier in the week, who saw that coming walking out of the Georgia Dome in September? Not I.

Where did Richt start? In my opinion, the sense of urgency is definitely back in Athens.

A long rumored conversation between McGarity and Richt after their first year together was said to have gone something like this:

Richt: "What's the biggest difference between us and the Gators given what you've seen so far."

McGarity: "They are outworking your staff and players."

Did that conversation really happen? I've heard it so many times, I believe something similar to it did take place. If it didn't it, damn sure should have. Regardless...if your new boss (who is a credible expert on your #1 rival/measuring stick AND who most certainly does NOT want to fire you) drops that line on you...it packs a punch.

Once you instill a sense of urgency into a program with the vast resources of Georgia, the other two issues can fix themselves.

That said...just hiring Coach Tereshinski, bringing in a nutritionist and upgrading the coaching staff wasn't enough to dig us out of the hole we were in. Not after we lost the bulk of two full recruiting classes due to mistakes, discipline and being asleep at the wheel.

Everything...and I mean everything else had to break Coach Richt's way due to his staggeringly narrow margin for error. Especially after starting 0-2.

The strength program had to fix the 4th quarter collapses. The returning defenders needed to get comfortable with the system. Jarvis Jones needed to be an elite playmaker completely unfazed by his prior neck injury. Alec Ogletree needed to jump into playing LB for the first time in his life like a seasoned veteran. The freshmen defenders needed to step up (Herra has been a revelation), and Jenkins/Geathers need to emerge as a dominating presence at DT.

All while Malcolm Mitchell and Isaiah Crowell lived up to their billing. All of that happened. Some of you will argue that Crowell hasn't lived up to the hype, but I'd argue that a true freshman RB who is still on pace for a 1,000 yard season is doing better than OK. It's even more amazing that all of this happened while Mitchell, Crowell, Ogletree, Robinson and one of our starting OL (when we thought we had no backups) were banged up at several points.

I'm amazed that we're in this position, and I'm very excited about the future. We return a ton of talent in 2012, and we may have an extremely favorable schedule. It's a tremendous position we find our program in. Especially relative to the Gators and Vols.

Still can't believe it.

PWD

Domination

I was trying to remember the last time Georgia played a quality*, ranked opponent and physically dominated them defensively like that. I was looking for games where Georgia knew exactly what the opponent's offense was planning and beat the hell out of them for even attempting it.

I think you have to go back to the LSU game in '04 to find a woodshed treatment as flawless, violent and dominating as that. I'm still blown away.

For most of the past 20+ years, I've considered Auburn the consistently most physical team that Georgia faces. With the exception the final few finesse oriented Terry Bowden years, the Tigers were a gut punching, brawling group. Even with Malzahn's offense, there's still a physical point of attack aspect.

That's why Saturday afternoon is even more impressive to me. To have the defense clobber Auburn and drag them out of the stadium by their manhood while the offense imposed their will and stole their lunch money is just staggering.

I'm so proud for the coaching staff at Georgia, and I can't wait to see what the future holds in the final four games. That's right...I said four.

Go Dawgs.

PWD


*Hawaii was not a quality opponent. They were just ranked as such.