ATHENS -- Georgia basketball coach Mark Fox remembers exactly where he was when Kentavious Caldwell-Pope committed to the Bulldogs in July of 2010.
Fox was seated on a commercial jet that was taxiing down the runway when the 5-star prospect from Greenville, Ga., rang.
"I saw it was his number, so I answered the phone," Fox said. "And this flight attendant was saying you've got to hang up."
Fox had Caldwell-Pope on the line just long enough to hear him say, "I've got good news for you."
"I said, ‘Kent, that's great and thanks for calling' and this woman is basically standing over me now," Fox recalled Monday. "I said, ‘I've got to call you back, OK?' We were actually airborne by that time and I lost the connection."
That's not the worst part. "It took three or four days before I could talk to him again because we had already burned our call," said Fox, referring to the NCAA contact limit.
Eventually the two parties were able to connect and Caldwell-Pope became a Georgia Bulldog. With the nation's newly-minted No. 1 team -- the Kentucky Wildcats (19-1, 5-0 SEC) -- coming to town in a nationally televised game Tuesday (ESPN, 9 p.m.), that's a really good thing.
Caldwell-Pope, a 6-foot-5 wing player, comes into the contest leading the Bulldogs (10-9, 1-4 SEC) with a 14.7-point scoring average. He is the first freshman to lead Georgia in scoring since Jumaine Jones, who also averaged 14.7 points during the 1997-98 season.
Caldwell-Pope is coming off the best offensive game of his career, a 25-point effort in a loss to Ole Miss on Saturday, and leads the team in minutes played (31.6 per game), steals (34) and attempts (240) and is third on the team in rebounds (5.1 pg).
In summary, Caldwell-Pope does it all for the Bulldogs.
"I'm telling you he's one of the best in our league," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "He's a game-changer as a player for their program. Mark has done well to get people like that into Georgia. You're talking about one of the best young players in our country."
Caldwell-Pope is the first McDonald's All-American to sign with the Bulldogs out of high school since Carlos Strong from the 1992 all star team.
Too often players of Caldwell-Pope's ilk have chosen to play for traditional basketball powers such as Kentucky. The Bulldogs already lost out on one of their top targets in 6-foot-9 post player Robert Carter of Snellville, who signed in the early period with Georgia Tech. They're still in it for Cedar Grove's Tony Parker, the No. 5 center in the country per Rivals.com, but he seems to be leaning toward the likes of Duke, Ohio State and Kansas, among others.
"It is important for us to continue to recruit the best players to help us win, and there are a lot of them in this state," Fox said. "Kentavious' recruitment was very genuine. I think it was about just being honest about what we felt like he could do for our program and what our program and our institution could do for him. They're a very genuine family and I think the sincerity of it is what they were looking for."
Kentucky came calling on Caldwell-Pope, too, but the Wildcats never made that personal connection.
"I never really looked at Kentucky," said Caldwell-Pope, who chose Georgia over Tennessee, Florida State, Florida and Alabama. "I never took my official visit there. I'm not sure how interested they were."
Caldwell-Pope is intensely interested in the Wildcats now. That is, he really wants to beat them. Not only is their lack of interest a motivating factor, but Caldwell-Pope is good friends with several Kentucky players. Kentucky's Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Marcus Teague, players with whom he competed in AAU ball and on All-America teams.
"I played against a lot of the guys on their team in AAU and in the McDonald's All-American game," Caldwell-Pope said. "So I'm pretty motivated to play against them again."
Everybody on Georgia's team should be supremely motivated for Tuesday night's game, Fox said.
"How many people get this chance in life, you know?" Fox said. "I mean, I never got it as a player. You don't get it real often as a coach. It's just a great opportunity."
As for taking recruiting calls inside a commercial airliner on takeoff, Fox declined comment.
"I take the 5th on that," he quipped. "FAA."
About the Author
