Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

You put your release form in.
You pull your release form out.
You put your release form in,
And you call West Paducah State.
You do the "Do You Want Me"
And you shop yourself around.
That's what it's all about.
Troy Brewer confirms what was expected and then denied and now done. UGA has officially confirmed that he asked to leave the basketball team.

Speaking of in state high school basketball players that aren't playing in Athens because we have scholarships tied up with out of state kids who didn't contribute in a meaningful way.

The AJC reported yesterday that at least 40 kids who played high school basketball in Georgia are participating in the NCAA Tourney. Is that a bunch? Well, consider that around 700 total scholarship players are participating in the tourney. The 40 discussed in the article only make up 5.7 percent of the total players.

If you assume an even spread of talent across all 50 states, we should have 2 percent. Weighting for population, you might come to the conclusion that 5.7 percent is within the margin for error for how many kids should be in the tourney from GA. Until you consider this....UGA, GT, GSU, Georgia State, Mercer, Kennesaw and Savannah State aren't in the tourney.

To have 5.7 percent of the players in the NCAA Tourney from Georgia, and not include the 50-60 players from our own colleges is a jump off the page stat.

At one point this season, FSU had three starters from Georgia high schools. As FSU's coach Leonard Hamilton said:

“We like to have a presence [in Georgia] because it’s kind of like football in the state of Florida,” he said. “It’s a great football state. It seems every great program in the country, they have stars from Florida. It’s almost getting that way with basketball in Georgia. They have so many outstanding basketball players, they’re kind of distributed all over the country.”

If you're wondering why the UGA job has so much potential, this is it. We don't have to build a fence around Georgia or Atlanta to be exceptional in basketball. We just have to get our fair share.

If we could consistently recruit and retain one of the Top 3-4 players per year in state plus two more Top 5-15 players in state, we could consistently compete for the SEC title and the Sweet 16.

For perspective. The coaching staff apparently had to choose between Drazen Zlovaric (Tennessee by way of Serbia and several US high schools) and Tanner Smith of Norcross last year. Draz participated in 17 games and went 1 for 7 in SEC play for UGA.

Tanner Smith, who's mother is a UGA graduate, played in 31 games, averaged 13 minutes and 4 points while shooting 36% from three point line for the Top 25 ranked Clemson Tigers.

This is a good job. If we just take advantage of the abundant and painfully obvious resources at our disposal.

PWD


(BTW - If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm extremely bullish on the future of Georgia Basketball. It's simply a question of 'when." Not "if.")