South Carolina, Florida and Kentucky in the sweet sixteen

Let the Carolina game be a reminder that there's no way a crappy basketball school can hire a good established coach that will make the program relevant. It simply can't be done.

Last year we beat USCe 3 times, a year later we get handled at home in the first round of the NIT by Belmont, and they're on their way to the Sweet Sixteen after beating Duke. Crazy what having a competent coach can do for a program.

Fox is awful. During the span of an ENTIRE SEASON, he didn't have one win as an underdog and had some atrocious losses.

Crazy to think that 8 of our losses (I believe) came from Sweet 16 teams.

quote:

---

So did Martin eat a magical competency bean in the off-season, or did Fox beat a "competent" coach three times last year?

You're hard to follow

---

Martin's team improved from 2016 to 2017.

quote:

---

playing those teams 6 times, hurt us

---

Losing 6 times to those teams hurt us... Not having any top 50 RPI wins other than Vandy hurt us. If those 6 games had been against easier draws primarily, sure our win total would have been higher, but it still wouldn't have changed the fact that we won what... 1 game against teams that made the tournament this year?

quote:

---

We played all three of them very tightly and lost 4 coin flip games against them

---

They're only coinflip games if you actually have approximately a 50% chance of winning the games. In Fox's history at UGA, I was legitimately curious what our record has been against top 50 RPI teams... so did a bit of quick research. Not stating these are absolute figures, was using realtimerpi.com as a reference and scanning quickly, so certainly could have missed one here or there, but here's what I got as we go back through the seasons:

16-17: 1-9
15-16: 0-6 (USC 3 wins pushed them down to 64, but 3 losses between UF and Vandy that both were rated higher ~ 55 and 62 ~ than USC)
14-15: 0-6
13-14: 2-7
12-13: 0-7

I was going to exclude Fox's first 3 years because one of the prevailing excuses around these parts as to his performance has been that he inherited a mess from Felton, but hell, while the winning percentage wasn't exactly great, I think we all would have taken 3 top 50 RPI wins this season, as it likely would have been enough to get in the tourney.

11-12: 3-10
10-11: 3-10
09-10: 3-7

If we were truly in "coinflip" situations in those close games, then the win rate against RPI 50 teams or better would be better... The reality is playing top teams close has pretty much been Fox's pinnacle since he's built "his program". We were teased with some marginal success in that arena with early teams, but of late, we are exactly what we look like. A team that wins enough games in the regular season to be discussed as a possible tournament option, but when the chips actually hit the table, no one's betting on us to make it, and rightfully so. If the tournament actually adjusts their selection criteria a bit next year, as has been discussed, it's possible that Fox's style might garner a little more tournament love, but the reality is if you can't beat teams that make the tournament, you likely don't have much business being *in the tournament*.

Also, it's not just good teams that Fox has us playing close against. See 16-17 nailbiters: Texas, Auburn, LSU, Tennessee (2x), among others... these were all games that we won in close, if not uncomfortably so, fashion... against teams that were not only not tournament quality, but in the case of LSU and Texas, some of the worst P5 teams out there. I don't feel like doing the same for previous seasons, but suffice it to say... more of the same.

Essentially, Fox's brand of basketball gives you fairly low variance... it helps us to not lose games that we "should win" in most cases, but rarely allows you to "take a game" from a team that most would consider superior. It's not lost on me, that prior to Fox, there were many seasons where we didn't have many games that we could point to as "should win" games, so his time here has been incredibly valuable. What I think most of us who are in favor of change at the HC position are indicating, is that what he has to offer is not enough to take us beyond where we are... and at the end of the day, what good is middle to maybe 4th or 5th best team in the conference if it means typically no tournament berth and even less likely wins once you get there. Oh, I'll tell you... it allows our AD to continue operating our athletics teams like a P/L statement in a vacuum. Fans will show up in reasonable numbers, particularly for better matchups, and very little investment is needed to maintain it... It's not a profit driver, but it's not a huge suck of funds either.

That actually takes me wildly off topic, but how the eff are we only 8th in AD revenues in the conference? 10th if you account for $3M+ that comes from student fees that pushes us ahead of South Carolina and Arkansas. Granted, these figures are based on 14-15... but wow. McGarity might be managing expenses well, but right now he's got us heading down a dreadful path. Baseball looks atrocious. Basketball is not terribly encouraging going into next season even with Maten. Can't even imagine what the 18-19 season might look like if we don't replace a lot of production from JJ this year with youth.

It's late and I'm drunk-ish, so hopefully this has been not too far off of coherent... will revisit in the AM.

will you retards quit posting at this time next year when the Thornwellless USC Cocks all of a sudden don't look as good? Jesus Christ...

quote:

---

Let the Carolina game be a reminder that there's no way a crappy basketball school can hire a good established coach that will make the program relevant. It simply can't be done.

---

A lot of you guys focus on SCU, and rightfully so. You guys might be to young to remember, but Florida was horrid pre-Donovan. Worse than our Dawgs right now. So yes, it can be done....and yes, it takes the right coach.

It doesn't take you anywhere when the AD is stuck in the mud. That's the bigger issue that you all miss.