Bulldogs’ belief in J.J. Frazier is paying off

The reality is, nobody has believed more in Frazier than Fox. He was on Frazier in recruiting way before any other schools knew anything about him. And once they figured out the little kid from Glennville could really play, it was too late. He was all Bulldog.

Officially, the only two major-college offers Frazier shows on his recruiting portfolio came from Georgia and Jacksonville. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Other programs discovered him in time. They were just too late getting to the party.

Matthew Sellars, athletic director at tiny Faith Baptist Academy in Ludowici, was basketball coach when Frazier played there. He remembers when colleges other than Georgia finally took notice of his hot-shooting guard.

“Virginia was in our gym and saw him,” Sellars said Monday. “We were playing The Rock (Academy of Gainesville, Fla.) and they were here to see Mitch Wilbekin. And J.J. torched them, basically.”

Wilbekin, the younger brother of former Florida star Scottie Wilbekin, was a blue-chip prospect and now plays at Wake Forest. But after that game, it was Frazier that everybody was talking about.

The 5-foot-10 guard — who was only about 5-8 then — scored 36 points and led his team in rebounds and assists against the nationally-renown basketball powerhouse. It was a performance much like the one Frazier just put forth against Mississippi State in the Georgia’s 72-66 win this past Saturday.

Frazier scored a career-high 37 points in Starkville, was 7-for-7 from 3-point range, had a team-high 7 rebounds and closed out the game from the foul line. He was named SEC player of the week on Monday.

“Honestly, (the Mississippi State game) was like a replay,” Sellars said. “He was just killing it. Right after our game, the Virginia coach came up to me and said, ‘what do I have to do to get him to come play for us?’ I said, ‘man, he’s all Georgia. That’s where he’s going and nothing is going to change that.’”

While Virginia was seeing Frazier for the first time, Fox had watched Frazier play numerous times before and after that. And he always liked what he saw.

“I just saw a dimension that we didn’t have, the we could use, and that would be hard to guard,” Fox said Monday as the Bulldogs (13-5, 4-2 SEC) prepared for Tuesday night’s game against Vanderbilt. “I thought, first of all, that he was an extremely competitive little rascal. He could really shoot the ball, and he had a great feel for the game. I just thought he was going to be a great player.”

Said Sellars: “Every game Fox saw J.J. play he scored 30 or more.”

But there remained the question of whether Frazier’s size would allow him to play major-college basketball. Fox said the sophomore guard has actually grown an inch since last season. But Frazier’s listed height of 5-10 remains a stretch.

So even though Frazier’s legend grew with Faith Baptist and as the point guard for the South Georgia Kings AAU team, there remained doubters. Coaches from other SEC teams and ACC teams saw him play but reasoned that Frazier’s game wouldn’t translate to the next level.

“When you’re small, you’re going to get that all the time,” Frazier said. “Coach (Fox) said, ‘you’re going to be small and you will have a tough time guarding certain people, but I think your talent is going to get you there. You just have to have the heart to keep the drive going.’”

To this day, Fox’s belief in Frazier is what drives him.

“This being my dream school and wanting to stay home, I didn’t want people saying he made a mistake on me,” Frazier said.

That’s definitely not the case now. Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, who is preparing the Commodores (11-8. 1-5) to face the streaking Bulldogs on Tuesday, raved about the effect Frazier has had on his team.

“He just changes the game in so many ways because of the range on his jump shot and then he has quickness offensively with the ball and defensively,” Stallings said. “He has speed to get to his shot and get to the lane and things like that. … Sometimes guys like that get overlooked.”

Frazier’s previous career high at Georgia was 20 points and came earlier this month against Norfolk State. In fact, he’s in the starting lineup only because of injuries.

The Bulldogs are without Juwan Parker and Kenny Paul Geno at the small-forward position. So they moved Charles Mann out to the wing and moved Frazier into the starting point guard position four games ago. Since then, Frazier is averaging 17.5 points, 4.3 assists and less than one turnover per game. And Georgia also hasn’t lost

None of which comes as any surprise to the good folks of Ludowici, located “20 miles from anywhere” in Southeast Georgia.

“It wasn’t out of the ordinary from what we’ve seen,” Sellars said. “When he was here his 10th, 11th and 12th-grade years, we played a national schedule. We played prep schools, we played Oak Hill, we played Huntington Prep, we played all those teams. And that’s what he did every night. It’s like I told him: ‘Coach Fox didn’t recruit you to be some pass-first guard.’ He went off the other night, but he’s got the ability to score 15 or 20 a game every game if he just takes his shots.”