Is There a Baseball NIT?

No other way around it.

I don't have any analysis other than to say we have had more hits and gotten more opportunities than we have allowed, yet we are at .500 on the season.  Absent every single team that is "supposed" to win their conference tourneys doing so, and some generous selection day decisions, the Diamond Dawgs are done for the season.  

It will be an off season of serious introspection in the big office at Butts-Mehre. There are some family circumstances David Perno is dealing with, and has been for a bit. I am not as sold on it being the end for Perno as T. Kyle King is, but he has been right about some other decisions McGarity has made, so I wouldn't bet against him.

TD

Not happening-McGarity Confirms Perno Staying (Gentry Estes)

It Must Have Been Tuesday in Hoover

So the Diamond Dawgs must have lost their opening round SEC tournament game. Dawgs lose opening to Vandy 4-1.  I'd love to say there is one reason for it, but other than one stretch in the third inning, the Dawgs did all they had to defensively to win.  Offensively, Vandy got the same number of hits, but scored three more runs.  Pretty much a microcosm of the season: Play good, but not great, and lose to a team they played evenly with.

Now, the Dawgs find themselves in exactly the same situation as last season, having lost to Vandy in the Tuesday game and needing to play deep into the weekend to play next week. Going into the SEC tourney, Georgia needed to win a couple last year to not have to sweat too much on selection day.  I still think a win over South Carolina and a win over Florida will probably get the Dawgs in, just like last year.  Both of those programs were very good last year.  Both are very good this year. If it is Vandy and one of those other teams we beat to play until Saturday, I don't know.  Being one or two games over .500 and making the NCAA regionals requires pretty strong late season statement wins. Beating Vandy won't fill that requirement.

By no means is it a lost cause. Unless we start getting hits when we need to, however, this season will end in Hoover instead of in an exciting regional final somewhere.

TD

At Least We Made the SEC Tournament

While Georgia Baseball was a 'half game or so' out of fifth or sixth place, being eighth seed isn't a good place to be.  Basically, they'll have to beat Vanderbilt, the Vanderbilt that nearly ended with a losing season record, but is now seeded fifth due to a strong late season run that began with two late game wins over Georgia in late March, then South Carolina, then Florida just to have a shot of getting to the NCAA regional this year.

I'll submit this with out any comment other than to say we can still do it.  We've played good enough against all of the teams in the conference that anything can go down. We've also played poorly enough that we could lose to Vandy and Auburn and be done by Wednesday afternoon.

Either way, we still have to win at lest three games in a row to feel comfortable about making the tournament.

TD

Keep Your Enemies Closer

One thing I lost in all the kerfuffle about the SEC/Big12 champions bowl is an increased likelihood the two will play some cross conference games to bolster in season schedule strength. It only seems to reason that with increased pressure to get teams in the playoff or whatever that both conferences have something to be gained from adding a marquee match up or three across the conferences.

If money is going to be the primary driver in this deal, then getting A&M-Texas back or a yearly rotation of Oklahoma/Okie State/West Virginia vs. LSU/Alabama/Georgia or whatnot isn't out of the realm of possibilities. While this is countering Jim Delany's Pac1X alliance with the same move, it works due to the current place the SEC and Big12 are in among the college football firmament.

I know there are folks panicking about the possibility of another tough football game on the schedule. I, for one, welcome it. As a fan, I get much more excited about playing top tier teams than I do MAC Southern Conference teams.

TD

Don't Be Ridiculous, Lemon

Dude. A playoff? Really?

I've uttered those words at least twenty times over the past four months years. Yes, I know, the WHOLE world is demanding a college football playoff. Except those of us that don't want one.

Blutarsky has been at the blogging forefront of the anti-playoff resistance. Like Blutarsky, I know the vast majority of the arguments for a playoff are shortly translated to there is more money in it for the conferences. Hey, I'm a Jack Donaghy capitalist. Being such, I also believe that quality of product is more important than doing what merely brings in more money, as long as you are making enough money to know the name of the secret European country only rich people know about.

Now, Mike Slive drops the big one and brings Chuck Neinas Bob Bowlsby and his Big 12 from the realm of the dead to a likely defacto full time seat at the semi-final table. The SEC Championship will soon be a national quarterfinal. The genius of Slive's plan is cutting the ACC and Big East and Notre Dame out of the game. If Roy Kramer is seen as the father of the Conference Championship Game. Slive may well be seen as the father of the Super Conference. Oh, I know Delany made a move to get some teams first (there is also a Schadenfreud thing about Nebraska in all of this I didn't think about), but this move will hasten the coming tide of new conference expansion.

A couple of other thoughts have come to mind.  First, will the teams play in the Sugar Bowl? Fiesta Bowl? Rotate? Play at another place? Second, hasn't the SEC given the Big 12 champion an easier road into the BCS or whatever championship game, since the Big 12 doesn't currently have a championship game? Third, when will South Carolina propose that the conference representative in the SEC/Big12 bowl game be the team with the best record in September? Fourth, is Bob Bowlsby a vampire?

As you can tell, there are a lot of details to be worked out.

TD

Nationwide Tour Comes to Athens

The Stadion Classic at UGA will be played this week at the UGA Golf Course. The tournament primarily benefits need based schollys at UGA, but through the Tickets Fore Charity^TM program, Athens area non-profits can benefit as well.  

If you are going and haven't bought your tickets yet, simply go here, select your charity of choice, and purchase. The options range from children advocacy organizations to local churches and the proceeds directly benefit the Athens area organization you select.

TD 

Georgia Basketball Recruiting

 
I have kept relatively quiet on this blog (although not on the UGAsports.com hoops board) about my thoughts regarding Fox's recruiting.  Why?  Because it's not a simple topic. It requires a longer post than I've been interested in writing.

Let's start with the positive
The 2012 class has a few nice players in Charles Mann, Kenny Gaines and Brandon Morris.  They are more athletic and explosive than some of our recent signees, and they are going to help us down the road.  Charles Mann in particular is intriguing given his height and size to potentially play PG.

However, the big man recruiting continues to be an absolute dumpster fire.

Rather than jump into why things are they are...I would first strongly encourage you to read Dean Legge's article about Fox's AAU recruiting.  It's a must read if you follow this topic. Having read that...let's talk about Fox's recruiting overall.

Let's start with the Korey McCray issue. The worst thing for Fox was to have Parker sign with UCLA.  He would've been much better off had he inked with Kansas or Duke.  Inking with UCLA and Korey McCray says loudly what I've been saying quietly for a while which is...

Fox's recruiting struggles are entirely avoidable. 

And they are entirely of his own creation.

As you probably know by know, Korey is an assistant coach with UCLA.  As Dean Legge said, Korey grew up playing AAU ball in Atlanta 20 years ago.  He has been in and around the basketball scene in this state for almost his entire life.

He played his college ball for Mark Slonaker at Mercer and coached with Slonaker at Mercer before later working as a graduate assistant at FSU.  Slonaker is currently the radio color man for UGA and one of our top fundraisers for athletics. So, it's not like UGA didn't know who Korey was.

Korey has a masters degree in Adult Education from FSU, and his undergrad is from Mercer.  He has also been the CEO and Head Coach at various times for the bulk of the past 10 years with the Atlanta Celtics...the state's premier AAU program which his father founded in 1990.

I was told years ago by a reliable source that Korey began lobbying for an assistant coaching position at UGA before Coach Felton was terminated.  Over the subsequent years, he was apparently not offered an opportunity to coach at UGA so he packed his bags for UCLA.  At UCLA he pulled two of the top prospects from this state's recruiting class in Jordan Adams (4 stars) and Tony Parker (5 stars). 

Various reports have said unequivocally that Jordan Adams, a one time a UGA prospect, would not have signed with UCLA had Korey McCray not been on staff.  Following the Tony Parker press conference last week, I was told that Parker spent more time talking about McCray than he did talking about head coach Ben Howland.

Why bring that up now?
We hired a coach from Nevada with zero ties to the Southeastern US.  His first hire of Phillip Pearson was smart.  Coach Pearson has Gottfried's top recruiter at Alabama, and was known in the area.  His second hire was Stacey Palmore from Va Tech.  Palmore, a hard worker, was the top recruiter at Virginia Tech with some responsibilities for Atlanta.

Let's just pause right here.  Quickly name all the great VT basketball players over the past 10 years.  Being the best recruiter at a school that lacks any real recruiting juice, isn't exactly the kind of resume you need to blast open an ATL to Athens talent pipeline. And the crazy thing...various reports suggest Palmore is our top recruiter.

Fox's other hires are Kwanza Johnson who has great ties to Oklahoma and Nevada recruiting. And his Director of Operations is Kent Davidson.  Davidson's last job was head basketball coach of the Qatar National team.  Prior to that he was head coach for 10 seasons in the NBA Development League.  Again...zero recruiting ties to the Southeast.

Fox is a very strong X and Os guy.  But you can't make chicken salad without chicken.

So there sits Korey McCray.  Korey apparently isn't good enough for UGA, but he's good enough for UCLA.  Wrap your head around that briefly. Then step back and think...why in the hell would you not want to hire a smart, charismatic young coach, with a Masters Degree who has known the state's top recruits and their parents since they were around 12 years old.

In case you are curious, Shaq Goodwin also played for the Celtics.

My question isn't...."Why didn't we hire Korey McCray?  My question is...why haven't we hired THREE Korey McCrays."  The blue print is right there. There's nothing remotely sleazy about it.  It's common  sense.

Until Fox staffs for recruiting excellence, he'll recruit at his current pace.

Fox's recruiting overall is NOT terrible.  

It's just not good enough quickly enough.

The current recruiting pace won't blast the ceiling off this program.  Additionally, Fox's life is about to get much tougher with Frank Martin at South Carolina. The Gamecocks don't have the in state talent base to win at the level Martin will demand, and he is known as a bare knuckles recruiter.  SC can't go north for talent, and they can't go East.  If they want players, Martin will have to come through Georgia and likely directly to Atlanta.  Just like every other coach within 500 miles is doing.

Fox made progress with this class, and he does deserve credit for signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.  But he hasn't made enough progress fast enough to break away from the pack.  Something has to change and it has to change fast, or he will have no one to blame but himself at his exit interview.

I'm pulling for the guy because I like his offense, and because hiring his replacement would be a nightmare.  But it is what it is.  He's got to step it up.

PWD

Mark Richt, Poker Player

Aces didn't lose...this time. (Image: Hipple)

No, I don't think Coach Richt plays poker, you know with casting lots and whatnot. However, as a poker player, it is easy for me to see what type of player Coach Richt would be. He is a NIT. 

For those not into poker lingo, go here. In fact, I'd say he is a Super NIT. He plays premium hands, won't bet to force someone to make a bad decision even when he knows he's got the best of it, and will fold the second he thinks his hand has been beat, regardless of situation or reasoning. He doesn't do anything differently in hopes his big hands won't lose.

He plays to not lose.  

We saw that at it's best and worst at the Outback Bowl. The offense was unspectacular in the first half, save one 80 yard play and a drive that ended in a missed blocking assignment on 4th down inside Michigan State's five.  The defense was spectacular and more, scoring a safety, having a hand in the punt return TD, and holding Michigan State on their side of mid-field the entire first half.  In the first half, Georgia rode the strength of their defense and outside a couple of home runs, didn't take any down field shots against the rest of the half. 

Look at that paragraph. Two shots down field, 140 of Georgia's 210 yards in the first half came on two plays. You may ask, what does it matter, Georgia's defense had the Spartans strangled. 16-0, bitches. Can't get the ball up-field past us.

Except they did.  

Georgia came out, ran the ball and dared Michigan State to catch up. Like a NIT who is ahead, but won't bet the flop, Georgia just checked and called. We had a winner, right?

So the second half happened and we saw the defense get figured out some. Grantham's bunch still played fairly well, but not nearly as well as they did in the first half. For one, Kirk Cousins threw the ball over twice as much in the second half, with Michigan State recognizing that the short swing passes and the running plays weren't working (and recognizing the underneath drag routes that had vexed Georgia early in the season were still vexing, especially on one side of the defense). 

Georgia for its part, kept running the ball into the middle of the defense that was top ten nationaly in rush defense. We rushed the ball 15 times in the first half, compared to 20 in the second half. That accounted for 32 of our 51 yards rushing. If you are doing the math, that is a drop off of over a yard per carry. The long down field passes? Nothing doing. Bad shit goes down when you throw deep. To Michigan State's credit, they ramped up the pressure on Murray, which wasn't hard to do (I did promise snark). However, we didn't give any looks to the TEs or the RBs in the second half. Our counter to the strong pass rush was more running? 

We became as vanilla as could be at the worst possible time. In poker parlance, we checked and called all the way down hoping our winner would stand up.

Just maddening. Our coaches are if nothing else, consistent. We'd won all season running the ball late into games and asking our defense to win. In that regard, we'd done ok with that strategy. Not in Tampa. Michigan State drew out on us because we didn't put them away with a little gambling.

Even his reasoning for the place kicking was NITy. He went with the 'safe' call by asking Blair to go back out. My thoughts on that remain the same and were elocuted much better and at more length by Michael Elkon (h/t Blutarsky).

I do know that if Coach Richt did play poker, I feel pretty confident I could tell you what his cards are within a one or two hand range every time. I also feel comfortable he'd let me (and the table) draw to my hands, because he wouldn't want to get burned win a strong hand.  In that way, football coaching and poker  takes some gamble. However with football, you can control your cards a bit with recruiting. 

We keep hoping Coach Richt will coach differently. The sample size is large enough to say he won't. Can he recruit the players it'll take to win it all playing his style of football? I don't know.

TD

Editorial note: I wrote this post within 24 hours of the Outback Bowl, but decided not to post it. After spending the last three weeks pondering why I haven't felt like writing about football, it seemed this was pretty on point, at least in regard to last season. I simply updated the grammar to reflect the passage of time.

Sometimes I Doubt Your Commitment to Sparkle Motion

Yeah, it has been three weeks.  I know.  I'd feed you a line about how busy I've been, what is going on, and life getting in the way, but frankly it is trite excuse making, the kind that has led to my malaise about writing. I haven't written because I haven't felt like it.

I've go the blahs. Not that I don't think Georgia athletics are necessarily blah. I remain as irrationally excited about them as ever.  However, the past month has also dealt a cold dose of reality to me:

Unless we change our drug testing policy to either do what we want it to, really keeping athletes from smoking the reefer, or change our policy directives, we are just hurting the program and the athletes.

Basketball recruiting is broken or was never fixed.

Gymnastics has fallen off and isn't on the direction it needs to be for us to continue to be viewed as The Program in the sport.

The baseball program has talent, but Perno continues to make crazy decisions and throw his players under the bus when those decisions don't work out.

Lady's basketball peaked eight to ten years ago.

The only bright spots this spring have been how well tennis is doing and the incredible football recruiting class that is shaping up for football, especially if five to seven of the early commits enroll early. And Bubba Watson winning The Masters. I don't care who you are, if you are a Dawg fan and don't get excited about that story, you have a lump of German Industripop music where your heart is.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest. On to the Kentucky Derby. And some snark.
TD

G-Day is Saturday

There are three things I am looking for on Saturday.

1. What the rotation at LB and DB will be. With the issues in the defensive backfield, especially for the first two (and maybe longer) games, how will Grantham work in the LBs and those guys that can take a couple of steps back into safety or other nickel back types of schemes.
2. What running back or backs will stand out in protecting the QBs? The one sure advantage Crowell has over any other running back vying for the staring job is a full year hearing about how his blocking has to improve. Will it?
3. Will any receiver impress? This kind of ties into number 1 in that Mitchell's utilization on defense is likely to take something away from his duties at WR. Will we see any combination of Conley, Scott-Wesley, or Wyatt really step up? Same goes for watching Rome and Artie Lynch at TE.

I'm making no prediction on the offense vs. defense or anything like that. If GDay has taught us anything, don't expect a whole lot of slinging it up and down the field. For that matter, just keeping the defense from metaphorically killing the QB with the new look offensive line will be a surprise now that I think about it.

Hope to see you there Saturday.

TD

Our Master's Champion

I don't think there is anything I can add to the pure joy of Bubba winning the Masters. He is everything you want in an representative of UGA. Wears his heart and his faith on his sleeve. He is Red and Black to the core.

And all he does is win.

Anyway, I just saw this and thought it was too good not to post it.

My only wish is they would have let Uncle Vern do the honors in Butler Cabin last night.

TD

It's Friday

You can't play ball and you ain't got shit to do.

TD

It is 4:20

Do you know where your football team is?
TD

College Baseball is a Hitters League

And Georgia needs some hitters.  Actually, we need some hitting instruction.

After watching the carnage that was the mid-week Clemson game on Tuesday, it sure seems like Georgia is still approaching hitting like it is 2010. Not to bore you with details, but recently major changes occurred in regulations covering bats in college baseball. It looks like Georgia's players are still trying to hit home runs on every at bat. With the new bats, that means we have a lot of fly-outs and line drives caught by outfielders.

That alone isn't the only source of issues. We have started the weird trend of committing errors in bunches and at key times of the game (see 2010). Going into last weekend's series at Vandy, we had only committed 19 errors. Now we stand at 25, with two in the Vandy series leading to heartbreaking losses to a team that likely won't make the SEC tourney.  That stuff can't happen with the SEC as loaded as it is.

The good news is that our weekend pitching has potential. It needs better hitting to prevent the inevitable defensive blow up from turning a win into a loss. Also, we can't lose any more series to the dregs of the conference. That is a recipe for playing from the 9 or 10 seed in Hoover. Or worse yet, not making it.

TD

My Platform: Abolish Spring Break

I've kept quiet about the spring practices because after so much time losing hair sleep over what happens in April, I just don't have the energy to worry about which 5th string QB is 'really lighting it up.'

Sound familiar: "OMG! That walk-on from Cogdell was 9 of 10 with 157 yards and 3 TD's! QB competition is the bombz! Fire Bobo!."

I was gonna play some ball, but I got high.

However, the recent news of likely suspensions got me thinking I might run for office just to abolish spring break. I know Georgia has one of the toughest testing and suspension policies in the SEC and nation.  We have to do something. I get where Coach Richt is going with the tough policy. Don't do drugs, hippies.

Clearly, it ain't working.

I know abolishing spring break won't stop it. The comments on any blog, fan post site or newspaper article make it clear that all of us were basically smoked up horn dogs with kleptomaniac tendencies when we were in college. No, I call on Coach Richt to do something more drastic: Drug test the whole team every two weeks.

If you want to keep them from smoking up (I have to assume it was pot; if it were something stronger I believe we'd be talking rehab and such), test all of them all the time. If the idea of a possible random drug test catching them or lung damage (myth propagated by all the coughing) isn't doing it, then test all of them all the time.

As for the Fulmer Cup hit, unless Orson decides to pull Commissioner's privilege, there is no real danger there. I don't think he will because it didn't involve standard Athens fare such as roving gangs of mopedist passing out on the shitters of bad Italian joints and whatnot. Or not knowing your middle name.

TD

UPDATE:
-The Haze Thickens, Weiszer - ABH