There has been a lot of movement into and away from Georgia’s basketball facility the past couple of weeks.
The Bulldogs on Thursday saw three more players enter the NCAA’s transfer portal. Cam McDowell, Jaxon Etter and Tyron McMillan are the sixth, seventh and eighth players on the way out of the program now run by coach Mike White. That’s nearly as many as the nine that left Tom Crean’s team before last season.
In the meantime, White added Bryce Douglas as director of scouting and “special assistant to the head coach,” according to an announcement sent out by UGA on Thursday. Douglas had spent the previous five seasons with White at Florida. Previous to that, Douglas worked for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, where they won a national championship in 2015, and for USA Basketball for the 2016 Olympic Games training camp.
“Bryce has a huge work capacity and a passion for analytics,” White said in Georgia’s news release. “He’s become very integral relative to our scouting efforts and more. His roles are diverse and numbered.”
Etter’s departure is somewhat surprising. A 6-foot-4 former walk-on, Etter started 22 games last season, averaging 5.1 points, 2.9 rebounds at least one charge taken per game. He had expressed a desire to stick with the Bulldogs the day White was introduced as the new head coach.
“You can feel the energy and the excitement around the guys, the managers, the (graduate assistants),” Etter said. “Everyone’s excited for a fresh start.”
Instead, almost everyone is gone again. Earlier this week, Christian Wright, Cam McDowell and Tyrone Baker announced they were seeking transfers. They joined leading scorer Kario Oquendo and junior Dalen Ridgnal in seeking a new destination for next season. Georgia also lost its only lost signee of 2022 recruiting class as J.T. Elder, a 6-7 guard and 3-star prospect from Phoenix, Ariz., was granted a release from the letter-of-intent.
So, the Bulldogs are in for another major rebuild for the second consecutive offseason. Last week, White added Justin Hill, the leading scorer from Longwood University’s NCAA Tournament team. More transfers are expected soon.
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