Saturday, April 4, 2009

More on Fox

Fox has made his pitch to Trey Thompkins.

And Fox is right. If Georgia is to be successful next year, Thompkins will have to be in great shape and score a lot of points. Leading scorer, Terrance Woodbury, will have graduated, and it's Thompkins' place to step up.

So the biggest recruiting job for Fox is to keep the roster intact. He hasn't mentioned much about recruiting for next year, and I think that's wise-- manage expectations at the outset, and if you can find a sleeper, sign him up.

What does the future hold for Georgia? Some are genuinely excited about the hire, and point to the fact that Fox was very effective in his conference.

To be honest, having successive 20-win seasons in the WAC doesn't do much for me. If you beat Sonoma State, Arkansas Pine Bluff and Montana State, and then win twice each against conference competition the likes of Boise State, Idaho, Fresno State, and Hawaii, then you're more than half-way there.

However, if Fox and his team had played Mississippi State and LSU and Auburn and UF and Kentucky and Tennessee and South Carolina, what would Nevada's record have been? Was his Nevada squad better than any of the top teams in the SEC East? Anybody realistically think so? Keep in mind that Nevada lost in the first round of the CBI (not the NIT and not the NCAA).

I want to give Fox a chance, and I certainly hope he wins a lot of games. The thought did cross my mind that if Fox is unsuccessful, the task of snagging a marquee coach three years from now will be much, much harder than it was this year. However, I battled that idea off. I was optimistic with Harrick, the same way with Felton, and I'm sure I will eventually view the cup as "half-full" with Fox.

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