The ACC-SEC blog has published their Georgia-South Carolina basketball preview. The recipe for a Georgia victory is includes a heap of unlikely with a dash of damn near impossible.

What Georgia must do to win…
Honestly, Georgia has to play their best game of the year to beat this South Carolina team right now. They need Woodbury and Thompkins to have big games and they need to limit Downey and Frederick offensively. The Bulldogs can’t afford to have their average of 17 turnovers against this team which forces nearly 20 per game.

And here is a surprising tidbit:

TV: Fox Sports South

I will be tuning in hoping to see the ‘Dawgs pull together and, even if they’re not victorious, put forward a competitive effort. It’d bode well for Georgia to get a victory or two so the next coach has something to build off of.

Also, picked up on this bit of info from the Athens Banner-Herald article on the immediate impact that new South Carolina head coach Darren Horne has had:

Ironically, Horn was Felton’s replacement at Western Kentucky when Felton left for Georgia.

Ouch.

Image:Brant Sanderlin/[email protected]

The Georgia basketball team ran into the buzzsaw known as the LSU Tigers in Stegeman tonight and walked away (barely) with an 80-62 lashing.

Georgia’s losing streak is the Bulldogs’ longest since they lost 11 consecutive during the 1974-75 season. The Bulldogs have lost five in a row at home, the first time that has happened since the 1974-75 season. The Bulldogs finished 8-17 under John Guthrie that season.

“That was a pretty good veteran team that beat us tonight,” said Herrmann of the Tigers, who start three seniors and a junior. “We need to learn our lessons from them, especially our younger players. I’m committed to our team, and I’m committed to effort and unselfishness and enthusiasm every day. That’s the way I’m going to take these guys through, and they’re with me. We’ll play for the integrity of the school and our game.”

This is rough on everyone involved with the basketball program. Hopefully the Dawgs can gut out another couple of wins to restore some confidence in their game going into the offseason.

Also, as seen above, seven Bobby Knight supporters viewed the game shirtless.

Image: ESPN

Seth Davis over at Sports Illustrated says that Georgia has been zeroed in (scroll down a little) on Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel since last year:

Jeff Capel is the first, second and third choice at Georgia. In fact, Georgia had an offer ready to go after Capel last year until Dennis Felton saved his job by winning the SEC tournament. You can be sure a lot of schools will go after Capel this spring, but they will have a formidable adversary in OU athletic director Joe Castiglione, who may well be the best AD in the country.

This is actually great news if you’re in the “Just say no to Bobby Knight” camp. Can we get Capel though? It sounds like we’re going to be pulling out all the stops to lure him to Athens.

Oklahoma seems like a place where they could outbid us for his services, though.

Chip Towers from the AJC caught up with former Georgia Basketball coach Hugh Durham over the weekend and he had some interesting commentary about the Georgia Basketball job and the current situation involving the Bobby Knight rumors.

(3) A lot of people think Georgia is a tough job, hard to recruit to. Durham believes Georgia is not only a good job, which it was when he had it, but “a great job.” He said it still has its unique set of obstacles to negotiate but, with Stegeman fixed up like it is these days and the $30 million practice facility, there should be nothing holding them back. (4) Said he likes Bob Knight and thinks he would create a nice buzz for Georgia but he doesn’t believe it’s what’s best for the Bulldogs in the long run. (5) Of the candidates we discussed Anthony Grant seemed to be the only one he was real enamored with but he didn’t want rate candidates, not right now anyway.

This is a good read. It’s nice to hear Hugh is still pulling for the Dogs and following the program. I’d say Durham’s legacy is aging well considering the facilities and the “football first” mentality of an SEC program (excluding Kentucky) during his tenure.

Of course, I also think he is spot on about Knight and articulates the case against him coming to Georgia perfectly in a single sentence.

Hugh Durham… DGD.

Image: ESPN

Georgia players expressed their enthusiasm in the potential hire of Bobby Knight, the Indiana coaching legend, as their head coach.

Georgia freshman Trey Thompkins…

“Coach Knight is a legend,” Thompkins said. “I’d love to have him coach here, and I feel like he’d make me even better than I am now.

“That would honestly be a tremendous thing to me. I’d be really happy.”

…and Albert Jackson…

“I would love to have a coach of that caliber, that stature,” Jackson said. “You have a Hall of Fame coach, you have somebody like that, all you can do is be happy.

“If Bobby Knight wants to come in here, I’d be more than happy.”

…and who could blame them? Love him or hate him, Bobby Knight is a sports icon and coaching legend. If you were down and out over your coach being fired and presented with the possibility of having the position filled by the winningest coach in NCAA history, you’d probably be excited too.

You’d always be able to tell your grand kids you played for “The General”. You’d benefit from the increased media exposure, etc…

I have been surprised by the amount of support that Knight has received amongst Georgia fans though. My own brother, who’s never really followed the basketball team that closely, is crazy about the idea. He really just wants to see the lightning bolt of media coverage that will descend on Athens if he’s hired.

In other words, he’s excited by the novelty of it.

It’d be neat! And if it didn’t work out, basketball never meant that much to him in the first place.

Fortunately for the future of Georgia Basketball I believe Damon Evans will take a longer view and hire someone that will be able to begin work on building a winning, and sustainable basketball tradition.

Mark Schlabach of ESPN just identified Jeff Capel (Oklahoma), Sean Miller (Xavier) and Anthony Grant (VCU) as Georgia’s A-list of candidates to replace Dennis Felton.

If so, that is good news, as each one would be capable of building the tradition of which Georgia hoops fans have been deprived, without the baggage that may just drag us further down.

Image: AP/Tuscaloosa News

UPDATE 2: Hale has published some notes from tonight’s game.

Afterward, Herrmann seemed like a guy who was just happy to be coaching basketball, a game he truly loves. While Felton was clearly a fiery and competitive coach, it really never quite came across as enthusiasm. It does with Herrmann, and given the struggles of this team, a little excitement about their jobs might be the best possible medicine.

If Felton didn’t seem like he was enthusiastic maybe the game was slowly drained of it’s fun for the players?

UPDATE: AP write-up available at ESPN.

Georgia was defeated by Alabama 75-70.

Trey Thompkins led all scorers with 22 points on 8-17 shooting from the field while going 3-7 behind the stripe. Terrence Woodbury contributed 15 points while Dustin Ware scored 11 points in 29 minutes of play. It’s the 8th loss in a row for Georgia Basketball.

Pete Hermann is now 0-1 as Georgia’s head basketball coach.

The Georgia Bulldogs dropped their seventh basketball game in a row to the Florida Gators in Gainesville tonight… to noone’s surprise.

Trey Thompkins and Cory Butler lead the scoring with 10 points a piece while Ricky McPhee went 2 for 3 from behind the arc for 6 points.

There have been some rumors of some action being taken tomorrow on the Felton situation. Seems unlikely but who knows…

Relevant Links

• Gators hand Bulldogs seventh straight loss – David Hale
• ESPN Recap
• Box Score
• Play-By-Play
• Photos