ATHENS – Georgia basketball coach Tom Crean summarized the coming basketball season about as succinctly and honestly as anyone possibly could Tuesday when asked about the Bulldogs’ opener Wednesday night at Stegeman Coliseum.
“I love our team, but I have no idea what to expect,” Georgia’s third-year coach said.
He wasn’t joking. He was telling the truth.
Not only are the Bulldogs having to completely remake themselves yet again, with last season’s leading scorers Anthony “Ant Man” Edwards and Rayshaun Hammonds now plying their trade in the NBA and eight newcomers filling the roster, but then there’s the added and ever-changing element of the pandemic factor.
Georgia didn’t even get to play its first game Wednesday night against Columbus State (5 p.m., SEC Network-Plus livestream) before COVID-19 issues canceled its second game, which was supposed to happen Sunday afternoon against Gardner-Webb. In a matter of 24 hours, the Bulldogs had filled the void with Florida A&M, which signed the game contract just an hour or so before Crean’s scheduled Zoom call with reporters Tuesday.
That’s better than a lot of basketball teams across the country. SEC-brethren Florida, Ole Miss and Tennessee each had to pause all men’s basketball activities this week because of the presence of the virus in their programs.
Crean said the Bulldogs have been through that. They experienced outages of both players and staff members because of infection or exposure earlier this fall and back into the summer. He figures it will probably come up again at some point.
Meanwhile, there is the strange environment in which Georgia is going to have to conduct home games. Like all other SEC arenas this season, 10,000-seat Stegeman Coliseum will be reduced to less than 20 percent capacity to adhere to social-distancing regulations. So, a sellout will be 1,638 masked-up fans.
Likewise, the bench areas had to be retrofitted to accommodate indoor health-and-safety guidelines. So, the Bulldogs’ bench had to be moved across the court diagonally from where it usually is. There, all 22 members of the team and support staff will have a designated seat only they will use. Those seats will be spread out and scattered into different rows, including a couple of them on each baseline.
“It’ll all be different,” Crean said.
Having to go to such lengths has left many wondering if it’s worth all the trouble and fuss, especially to play these somewhat meaningless non-conference games in November.
“If at all possible to play games right now and start getting that experience again, then we have to do it,” Crean said. “The schedule’s here now, and you want to get that experience for your team.”
Crean believes it’s especially important since they did not get any exhibition games or even organized scrimmages in the preseason. More than ever before, basketball teams are winging it this year.
Georgia might have been anyway, considering all the new faces. Georgia’s octet of newcomers features a representative of every class, with freshmen K.D. Johnson and Josh Taylor, sophomore Tyron McMillan, juniors Jonathan Ned and Mikal Starks, and graduate-transfer seniors Andrew Garcia, P.J. Horne and Justin Kier.
Junior guard Tye Fagan is the only Georgia player who has been with Crean all three seasons.
“It’s very exciting just to able to play basketball again,” Fagan said. “There’ve been rumors all year about if and when the season would start. So, we’re excited just to be able to play the game we love.”
There’s a lot of excitement about Horne, in particular. The 6-6 graduate transfer from Virginia Tech, who hails from Tifton, is expected to make an immediate impact. On a team short of leaders and scorers, he has had no problem taking on both roles.
In a season in which nobody knows what’s going to happen, Horne said it’s important to expect the unexpected and roll with the changes.
“I think it’s going to be pretty chaotic,” Horne said. “But, you know, as team and as individuals on this team, the one thing we can do is stick together and make sure we’re on the same page no matter what happens throughout the season because there’s going to be a lot of changes.”
There already has been, and the season hasn’t even started.
