South Bound & Down
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Georgia basketball: time to get serious

By Richard Gnann

KANSAS CITY, MO - NOVEMBER 21: Head coach Mark Fox of the Georgia basketball team claps from the bench during the CBE Hall of Fame Classic game against the George Washington Colonials at the Sprint Center on November 21, 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
KANSAS CITY, MO - NOVEMBER 21: Head coach Mark Fox of the Georgia basketball team claps from the bench during the CBE Hall of Fame Classic game against the George Washington Colonials at the Sprint Center on November 21, 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /
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Head coach Mark Fox of the Georgia basketball team claps from the bench during the CBE Hall of Fame Classic game against the George Washington Colonials at the Sprint Center on November 21, 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Head coach Mark Fox of the Georgia basketball team claps from the bench during the CBE Hall of Fame Classic game against the George Washington Colonials at the Sprint Center on November 21, 2016 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /

Georgia fired basketball coach Mark Fox, beginning the too familiar process of finding a coach for Georgia basketball fans to rally around.

Georgia basketball needs a basketball head coach, and the sights seem set on Thad Matta, former head coach at Ohio State.

Of Georgia’s previous nine full-time basketball head coaches, seven were fired. Babe McCarthy  quit before practice started and Tubby Smith took the first train to Lexington.

On Saturday, Mark Fox joined the fraternity of hired and fired Georgia basketball coaches. If Georgia is to create any exclusivity in this not so little club, Athletic Director Greg McGarity and University President Jere Morehead must do something that Georgia hasn’t done since former athletic director Joel Eaves brought Hugh Durham to Athens.

Get serious about hiring the right coach.

“In the end, I felt like we have not reached our full potential as a basketball program,” McGarity said when announcing Fox’s firing.

That’s what the next Georgia basketball head coaching hire must be about: fulfilling the potential of Georgia basketball.

we have not reached our full potential as a basketball program

In the past, hires were made flippantly. Hires were reactions, not measured decisions, and that’s why Georgia basketball has been a fail for a half century.

Some of the names floated as head coaching candidates are definitely not serious.

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