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Georgia lost 62-56 on a night that saw our starting guards shoot 4 of 22 from the floor, and our team overall went 4-27 from beyond the three point arc. If you take away the fine effort of Corey Butler (a walk-on), Felton's scholarship players -- all of whom he recruited -- shot 1-23 from three point land.
Why a team with only one legit three point shooter is hoisting 27 threes is positively beyond me.
Here are some stone cold facts to digest. Dennis Felton's SEC road record now sits at a staggering 5-30 after 4.5 seasons. His overall record in true road games (neutral sites excluded) is 8-38. Here are the wins:
- 2008 - (1) Hawaii
2007 - (3) Wake Forest, South Carolina and Arkansas
2006 - (3) Western Kentucky, Vandy and South Carolina
2005 - (0)
2004 - (1) Kentucky
Those are indisputable facts. If there's a mistake, you let me know, and I'll correct it.
Now, here's an opinion. We lose because we go for 5, 7 and 9 minutes without scoring more than a single field goal. Often these long stretches of ineptitude are punctuated with no timeouts from Felton. But mostly, I feel like we lose because we appear to lack the same intensity / effort on the road as at home. Again, that's my opinion.
Now, we can sit here and try to pin blame on Jim Harrick, Tony Cole, Mike Mercer, Takais Brown, Damon Evans, Vince Dooley, Mike Adams or the soap dispensers in Stegeman Coliseum's men's rooms. And maybe some blame still falls there. You've got your opinion on that, I've got mine. I really don't care about causality at this point. I care about outcomes.
The fact is that South Carolina had a 9-10 record going into this game and a coach that is being put out to pasture following this season because he didn't produce results.
Furthermore, while we're counting stats...Dennis Felton is now 69-70 at Georgia. If you eliminate Div II and HBCU teams (only because they are typically some of the lowest rated teams in college basketball) he is about 15 games under .500 in 4.5 years.
I've been to at least 6-8 basketball games a year for 17 years...some years many, many more games than that. I've seen us play in Boulder, Chicago, Charlotte, Columbia, Lexington, Nashville and a few other venues. I'm a hardcore Georgia Hoops fan. The program matters to me.
This...this "progress" and "steady climb" as Felton calls it is getting old.
I'll see you in Athens on Saturday at 1:00 for the Kentucky game.
Go Dawgs.
PWD
32 comments:
Eviscerating, and true.
I had patience and can't fault losses for those 1st 3 years, BUT lack of hustle etc. on the road, where you should be MOST focused is shocking. (And my HS teams shot better ALWAY than 1-23 etc. from 3 pt land, always. ALWAYS) Felton always said we'd be the toughest on the floor defensively, but we don;t even see that. Shame, he was a good coach, right guy, but the last 2 years have been brutal with his own guys, most pretty talented. Of course, most play playground ball now.
I was at the Colonial Center for the game last night. The offense was just diappointing. It reminded me of Hugh's offense nack when I was in school. The defensive effort was not bad, certainly several lapses but there was effort. I took my 90 year-old grandfather with me and his comments were "Georgia doesn't have an inside game" and "Georgia looked sloppy". From what I can see, no inside game + poor outside shooting = not much. I do like the freshman though.
The FACT is this team doesn't have the talent to win consistently. That was obvious before the season started when Brown and Mercer were dismissed. So, why go off on a tirade after every loss? We knew at the beginning of the year this was an NIT team at best. You going to blame Felton for Billy Humphrey missing his first ELEVEN 3pointers last night since Felton recruited him? Yes, they jacked up a lot of 3's, but where do you propose we go with the ball. Jeremy Price has his moments, but he's a true Frosh and still learning...and he's our best offensive post player. Bliss is our 2nd best offensive post player - that's all you need to know about the talent in the post on this team. He's a gamer, but he's usually physically overmatched and isn't going to average more than 6-8 points per game against conference competition.
Anon - Jeremy Price is a 4 star blue chip recruit. The dude took TWO shots last night from the field. Two shots are you kidding me.
He also had 1 offensive rebound despite Georgia having a decidedly favorable size advantage inside.
If you don't have a competent offense that teaches players how to move without the basketball and how to pass, you don't score points.
AFTER Takais and Mercer were suspended Felton told ESPN that this was as talented a team as he's had in Athens in an article title, "Felton believes Georgia has more talent than ever."
We may not have UT's talent. But we sure as hell have South Carolina's talent. And frankly...if we don't have better talent than that program (which Odom has run into the ground), then that's a bigger problem than last night's outcome.
PS -- why in the heck is Price getting 11 minutes when he has a 2 inch and 80 lb size advantage over his man, and he's our most talented big man?
PWD - I'm wondering if Price is ok. He went down grasping at his knee in the Tennessee game. Maybe there is something there we're not being told about.
Why don't we just go get a real B-Ball coach??? I'm ready to be good at all sports at UGA. The B-Ball team is really the only one holding us back!!!
Can we hire an offensive coordinator for basketball? Felton's defense is OK, but the offense is painful to watch.
Yep - I've been on the Felton bandwagon since he's been here thinking that next year would be the year. But it seems, every year quickly and rapidly evaporates into next year.
I do believe DF is a good coach, as crazy as that sounds, and if he were to leave UGA, I've got this sneaking feeling that he'll be very successful. But, maybe a separation is what both parties need.
The rest of this year and beginning of next will go a long way to making that choice more visible.
C Paul
Maybe we need to get a celebration penalty after our first dunk...
Also, I'm paraphrasing here, but I remember the last time a UGA head coach proclaimed that, "this was the most talent he'd had since he came to Georgia."
Is it too late to get Tubby Smith back?
I agree with most of what everyone is saying. Sometimes I love Felton and sometimes I wonder about his coaching ability. Mercer and Brown are old enough to know better when it comes to missing classes and such but for Felton to let things get THIS out of control with them is disappointing. The lack of intensity shown by a lot of the players makes me wonder how much they really care about winning and the basketball program itself. We already know Singleton, Brown, and Mercer are extremely selfish and do not care about their team/fans/coaches who showed them nothing but support. As a student, I have heard numerous times throughout the season about how we don't show enough support at the games. It's hard for students to care about the basketball program when we just keep getting disappointed.
You're using his SEC road record as the crux of your arguement?
I think I read that the overall road winning percantage in the SEC is .250. Amazing how that matches UGA's road record of the past two years.
I've been a Felton supporter since he got to Georgia. He had very little to work with and has (albeit slowly) built the program back up from horrible to mediocre. This year should have been a season to turn the corner and become a factor in the SEC. Not win it, but at least be a factor. Everybody except UT has issues this year in the east. The dogs are just so uninspired. There's no intensity. I hate to say it, but Felton's been here too long to have such little to show. Let's hope that the team can turn it around like the football team did this year. It needs to start on saturday and it needs to start with coaching. If these guys could show some fire, they could go pretty far in a weakened SEC east.
In fairness, I've never found the soap dispensers at Stegeman to be so much of a problem, but those trough urinals??? Yick.
Seriously, though...Count me as another former Felton bandwagoner who has officially gone off the rails. As I've said many times on the Run and elsewhere, I care what kind of hand you're dealt, it simply doesn't take that long to build a basketball program if you've got the right components. In-state talent base? Check. Top-notch facilities (and their implicit administrative backing)? Check. Quality coaching? Eh, not so sure about that one anymore.
As I've also said elsewhere, All of this would be more tolerable if Felton weren't such a stubborn and insufferable megalomaniac.
Rather...I don't care...
RC -- there are no troughs (sp?) in the men's urinals at Stegeman. That's a sink in the middle bro.
Drew - The half of the SEC that plays in the NCAA Tourney does better than .250.
If you want to compare us to the teams that also don't make the tourney...then yeah...we're doing ok compared to the rest of the bottom half of the league.
Hooray! We're the King of the Dipshits
Not really.
Last year's NCAA teams:
Arkanas - 2 road wins
UT - 2 road wins
UK - 3 road wins
Vandy - 3 road wins
Florida - 5 road wins
Florida is the only team that really excelled, but teams that have 4 players drafted into the NBA don't come around that often.
Seriously...Who cares? If the players aren't giving it their all, then they obviously don't. It's sad when another sport's recruiting news is more interesing. Part of me wants DF gone, and losing is the best way to accomplish that...
The bloom has been off the Felton rose for 2 years and yet people continue to defend him. Such fools. Fortunately, it's looking like this will be his last year in Athens - bout time.
Paul- No wonder that old man was staring at me the last time I was there...
Something tells me that unless we have a total collapse this season (a real possibility), then next year will be the make-or-break year for CDF.
Dangit. Consider me another Felton bandwagon who is looking for a soft landing spot. He's had his shot and it's time to move on.
if RC uses the round sinks as a urinal, I shutter to think what he's doing with the soap dispensers! ... LOL!
PWD - I feel your pain. Can't argue with the record either. The only caution I would have is, let's make sure a new HC is going to win so we don't have to be back to the drawing board every few years. And don't compromise integrity; at least CDF has done that right.
'83 Dawg
Ubiquitous- two words...Lip Balm...
what's Ron Jirsa up to these days?
Felton supporters make nothing but excuses. We're in the same boat now we were when Felton got here, only there's far less talent. He doesn't recruit that well to begin with and he can't keep the kids he does recruit on the team. I'm tired of it. UGA deserves better than this. Let him take his schtick back to a small school, we're a bigtime program and with our resources we need to go after a bigtime name.
Let's get a petition going online and send it to the A.D. and see what they do with it!!! Put Adams' name on there too.
ease off the petition talk please
Another Former Felton Supporter here who is also now off the bandwagon. Here is why I am off the bandwagon. Despite the fact that Felton has slowly improved the program year to year and despite the fact he is doing it "the right way" I still have yet to see the players believing or buying into his program. When your 2 best players are missing class and getting into trouble, then you as a coach have failed to inspire them both on the court and off. This is coming from a former UGA athlete who understands the distractions Athens poses for any college kid. However, if you believe in what the team is trying to accomplish, you will keep your nose clean of all that off court trouble. The bottom line is that it is evident that the team does not share CDF's passion and vision and work ethic and it is CDF's responsiblity as a Coach to inspire. He just doesn't have controll of his team and it's time to make a change IMO.
Jeremy Price was in bad foul trouble early Paul, and he was simply ineffective. They were collapsing on the post, and he struggled.
Wednesday night was ugly, flat ugly. We kept going inside, but our bigs weren't able to back down players a solid 20-30 pounds lighter. It was the basic Felton offense we've seen for so many games (try inside, bad pass and not there, back out to someone who penetrates into 3 people and backs out again, couple pointless passes around the ring, back inside, nothing, back outside for a rushed 3 with under 5 seconds on the shot clock. Just ugly. We had a winnable game. A very winnable game. All we had to do was hit shots. The only one who did was Woodbury (who was the only one on the floor shooting when I arrived at a little over an hour before, and was the only one for a good 20 minutes).
It's time to fire is sorry ass. Dennis Felton can't lead this team and as long as he's coaching Georgia Basketball this program will be a failure.
FIRE FELTON NOW!
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