Mark Fox maintained a set jaw and a forward gaze all season when it came to Georgia’s avalanche of injuries. “Injuries are part of the game,” he would recite when the subject came up, “but we’ve had more than our share.”
But with the sweat of the season’s final battle in the NCAA Tournament still beading on his forehead, Georgia’s coach finally allowed himself to wonder what might have been.
“I’ll always wonder what we might’ve done if we’d stayed healthy,” Fox said a half-hour after the Bulldogs’ 70-63 loss to Michigan State in the East Regional in Charlotte. “Where it really impacted us was we never became the offensive team we thought we could because we were always missing a different part every couple of weeks. I thought it impacted us more offensively than defensively because we were always changing lineups. So we’ll always wonder.”
As it was, the Bulldogs didn’t do too bad, considering the circumstances. Including starting small forward Juwan Parker sitting out his 16th game Friday with a chronic Achilles tendon injury, Georgia racked up 35 illness- or injury-caused “DNPs” this season. Twenty-one of those were logged by starters.
And that doesn’t include all the games players played hurt. Guard Kenny Gaines led the team in that category. He played Friday with a foot sprain that knocked him out of two other late-season contests. But he also played the season’s first games after missing almost the entire preseason with mononucleosis, and played through a shoulder sprain in December that forced him out of 10 consecutive practices.
“I feel like we would’ve been great (without all the injuries),” said Gaines, who managed 15 points in 20 minutes despite playing at “75 percent” healthy Friday.
“I wish we could’ve played our best basketball, but we had a lot of injuries. That’s just the way the dice rolled this season. We played through it pretty well. We’re a mentally tough team and that’s what we’re about.”
Despite it all, Georgia managed to win way more than it lost. The Bulldogs finished with a 21-12 overall record and tied for third in the SEC (11-7). It marks the second time in program history Georgia has posted back-to-back seasons of 20 wins or more.
And the Bulldogs know there was much more to be had. They’ll look back with regret at early-season losses to Georgia Tech (80-73) and Minnesota (66-62). They remember leading LSU by nine in the first overtime, only to lose in a second one 87-84. And though injuries definitely impacted the performances — Marcus Thornton missed one with a concussion, J.J. Frazier the next — the back-to-back home losses to Auburn and South Carolina late in the season were tremendously disappointing.
And then there was that time the Bulldogs led No. 1 Kentucky by six points with five minutes to play. But instead of scoring one of the greatest victories of all time, Georgia instead gave up 14 consecutive points and became just another notch on the Wildcats’ championship belt.
But wherever those disappointments came, they always were followed by other conquests. And most of the time on the road. The Bulldogs were 8-4 on the road and 6-3 in conference play, their best mark ever.
“I think it will help them later in life,” said Fox, who signed a two-year contract extension earlier this year. “We’ve just tried to teach them how to respond to adversity and they’ve had heavy doses of it.”
The good news is most of those experiencing all that adversity will return. Gaines, Frazier and Charles Mann are back in the backcourt, while Yante Maten, Cameron Forte, Houston Kessler and Osahen Iduwe will post up the frontcourt.
The Bulldogs lose three seniors in Thornton, Nemanja Djurisic and Taylor Echols and have three promising freshmen coming in William “Turtle” Jackson (6-foot-4 guard), Derek Ogbeide (6-8 forward) and E’Torrion Wilridge (6-7 wing). And they’re battling the likes of Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina for the services of Wheeler’s Jaylen Brown, the top player in the state and one of the top two or three in America.
An addition like that, the Bulldogs believe, could take them to another stratosphere. But either way they insist that Georgia is here to stay.
“Our goal is to have a program that’s healthy year in and year out and that competes for postseason play and a team that is successful off the floor and in the classroom,” Fox said in a somber UGA locker room at Time Warner Cable Arena on Friday. “And I feel like our program is healthy now. Every year is a new year and a new battle, but I’m proud of what we’ve done. Hopefully that’s enough for people to continue to support us. But we need to continue to build on what we’ve done, and see if we can keep climbing.”
About the Author
