Georgia on Wednesday announced that it had extended the contract of men’s basketball coach Mark Fox by two years. But judging from the comments of Athletic Director Greg McGarity, that doesn’t mean the Bulldogs are satisfied with where the program is at the moment.
Fox will now have four years on his contract, which pays him $1.7 million annually, through the 2017-18 season. He has been at Georgia for five years. He has an overall record of 85-77 and an SEC record of 40-44.
The Bulldogs are coming off a 20-14 season, just their 12th season of 20 or more wins in school history, and finished in a tie with Kentucky for second place in the SEC at 12-6. But Georgia did not get an NCAA tournament bid and instead played in the NIT. It was ousted in the second round with a home loss to Louisiana Tech.
With four of five starters returning and 11 of 13 lettermen overall, the expectations will be even higher next season.
“I think the program should be just like any other program that we sponsor,” McGarity said in a 15-minute meeting with reporters at Georgia’s Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall complex. “We want to be competitive in the SEC and usually if you’re competitive in the SEC then you’re competitive on a national level. Every sport we have with 15 different head coaches - our goal is to all be competing in the NCAA Championship for whatever sport that may be. If you look at our goals as a department, that’s one of our goals – that every team competes in their national championship. Basketball should be treated just as other sports and as far as expectations.”
The SEC has two teams in this weekend’s Final Four in Florida and Kentucky and Tennessee was the only other conference team that competed in the NCAA tournament. The Bulldogs did not do well against them. They were 0-4 and lost the games by an average margin of 19.5 points.
McGarity doesn’t necessarily think that’s an indication of how far Georgia has to go, especially considering all four games were played away from Athens.
“You’ve got to look to where we played them,” McGarity said. “… Next year we’ll have really every power team in the conference coming to the Coliseum. It’s hard to judge. Kentucky doesn’t lose many games at home and Tennessee as we know doesn’t lose many games at Thomson-Boling Arena, so I think it’s unfair to judge it on that one game. … We were able to win at home but we just didn’t have an opportunity to play them, Florida, Kentucky or Tennessee at home this year.”
Georgia’s announcement of Fox’s extension was decidedly understated. UGA sent out a release and McGarity walked down to the media work area in the Butts-Mehre building to answer reporters’ questions.
Fox was en route to Dallas for the Final Four only issued a prepared statement in response.
“From Day One, we have worked to establish basketball success within the SEC, academic success in the graduation of our players and developing a culture where we remain consistently successful,” Fox said. “As we move forward and continue to recruit and develop young men who can compete for championships, this is a great step to aid in the process. The next goal is to remain successful and to move that success to another level through scheduling, recruiting, the commitment of our young people and the help of our administration.”
Fox had two years left on his previous contract. His first contract when he came to Georgia from Nevada was a six-year deals. He signed that contract after leading his second UGA team to the NCAA tournament. The Bulldogs have not been back since.
That will unquestionably be the goal next season. But McGarity stopped short of saying it would be an ultimatum.
“If you ask anybody that follows our program, if you ask our teams or our coaches, absolutely, that’s our ultimate goal, to get in the show,” McGarity said. “And if that wasn’t our objective why are we even playing the game? … Is that the final determining factor? There’s a lot of things that come into play. So you never go to a coach and say ‘this has to happen or else you’re gone.’ You can’t have that conversation. There are so many factors to go into decisions. And I think it pretty much handcuffs a coach, too. It’s just very difficult to work in an environment if you put out those kinds of demands before the season.”
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