Georgia Basketball off to decent start under Tom Crean

Georgia Basketball has stated it’s season 4-3 after a win the other night over Kennesaw State as the Tom Crean era has shown early promise.

Things have been very different this year for the Georgia Basketball team. When Mark Fox departed, UGA Athletic Director Greg McGarity brought in a high profile head coach in Tom Crean to bring the program back to the heights that many expected. Nobody expects UGA’s basketball program to suddenly be challenging for national titles, but it should be competitive in the SEC and that was simply not the case with Fox around.

Since arriving, Crean has made some big changes. He’s been relentless on the recruiting trail and while he’s yet to land any major signings, you can already see a big difference in the way that high schoolers look at the program. Crean, after all, was the coach who launched the careers of Dwayne Wade and Jimmy Butler, two NBA superstars.

UGA’s results so far this season have been mixed. They started out with an expected win over Savannah State before being defeated by Temple. Then in the Camen Islands Classic Tournament, they won their first two games but were blown out by both Clemson and Georgia State in the second two. Their most recent victory over Kennesaw State has given them a 4-3 record after seven games and showcased a lot of the issues that Crean has inherited from the previous regime.

Georgia is solid when it comes to forwards with the likes of Rayshaun Hammonds, Nicolas Claxton, and Derek Ogbeide all offering a variety of talents. The issues, however, lie at guard, a position group that Fox struggled mightily with for the final few years of his career.

UGA has started to use Tyree Crump and Jordan Harris so far this season for the majority of games. Both of them are capable shooters which is something the Dawgs really lacked last season and that has really helped the team score more points than expected. It’s hard to envision that this team wins 20+ games due to the serious flaws that clearly still exist but at least the team is trying to play with some tempo that we never saw under Fox. We’ve also started to see some of the same 5-star video segments come out of the Basketball dept. that Kirby Smart has used so effectively in building up the football program over the past few years. I mean how can the following video not get you just a little bit pumped for what Crean is building in Athens right now:

By no means is this team the finished article but it a lot more fun to watch than last years group, even without perennial All-SEC talent Yante Maten. Hammonds looks like he could step into a similar role as the season goes on and there is some young talent on the roster. One player I’m very excited about is freshman Tye Fagan who has done really well early this year and has seen significant time on the floor despite his age.

As the Football season winds down, we’ll start to focus and write more and more about how the Dawgs are doing on the court this season. However, for now, it’s simply worth pointing out that Crean does seem to have started things off in the right way. We’re all goint to have to wait and see if that continues as better teams start to appear on the schedule.