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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2009 > January > 29
Thursday, January 29, 2009
UGA should give Tubby a call
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Athens - The worst thing to happen to Georgia basketball in recent years was the miracle that wasn’t.
It was a fluke. In fact, when the Bulldogs interrupted another season of mediocrity or worse under Dennis Felton last spring to win the SEC tournament, it kept Georgia’s athletics director Damon Evans from doing what he eventually did emphatically on Thursday.
He pushed Felton into the past for the Bulldog Nation with a justified firing, and he brought hope into its future when it comes to hoops. Sooner than later, courtesy of Evans’ vision, Georgia will show that it isn’t just a football school anymore. It will show that it is a Florida or a Texas, which means Georgia will show it can punt, pass, kick and dribble, too.
“I know how difficult it is, in this or any other business, to fill an important position with the right person for the right opportunity at the right time,” said Evans, just shy of his fifth year as Bulldogs’ head boss. “This is the right time. This is the right opportunity. And I can assure you that we will identify the right person.”
They will. This isn’t the old days, when the state of Georgia basketball was exemplified by the pre-renovated Stegeman Coliseum, the most depressing place on earth. Hoops ranked in the Bulldog Nation behind regular-season football, spring football and off-season football.
Then came nice spurts of goodness for Georgia basketball under Hugh Durham and Tubby Smith. The Jim Harrick era produced victories but also scandals, which led to Felton in 2003.
No question, Felton had Harrick’s mess to overcome. There were depleted rosters due to probation and the tragic death of a player before one season. Plus, Felton had the apathy that has smothered Georgia basketball since Vince Dooley caused barking to explode for football on campus after his 1964 arrival.
Still, there is no excuse for this: 33. That’s how many games Felton’s Bulldogs were under .500 in SEC play. Or this: $30 million. That’s how much Georgia spent on its peerless basketball facility to give Felton a chance to prosper. Or this: Numerous. That’s how many Georgia natives have helped other college basketball programs prosper in recent years, mostly because Felton wasn’t signing them.
So, here is what Evans wants from his next basketball guy.
“When I say (I want) a CEO, you have to have leadership qualities and understand the broad scope of what it means to be a basketball coach at an institution of this magnitude,” Evans said. “We’re high on academics at the University of Georgia, and I want a coach that will embrace the academic side of the equation.
“Of course, we want somebody who has a thorough knowledge of the game of basketball … But at the end of the day, we need to get an individual with a high level of integrity. Someone who will help our student-athletes to grow and develop and that will allow us to put a competitive program on the floor.”
Sounds like Tubby Smith, 57, in his second year as a miracle worker at Minnesota after doing the same at Tulsa and Georgia. He also took Kentucky to a national championship.
Smith told reporters after practice this week in Minneapolis that, contrary to rumors, he isn’t interested in the vacant Alabama job. But what about that other vacant SEC job, especially since Smith told me two years ago that he once dreamed of becoming the Vince Dooley of Georgia basketball?
It’s worth a call.
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