Georgia Basketball: Three Potential Replacements For Mark Fox

Georgia Basketball is disappointing night in and night out. Could these 3 coaches step in and replace Mark Fox this season?

After a horrible loss at Vanderbilt Wednesday night, the Georgia Basketball team now sits at 13-10, 4-7 in the SEC, and on the brink of not making the NCAA tournament yet again. They have lost 5 out the last 6, and the schedule isn’t about to get easier with top 25 rival Auburn coming into town Saturday. This team seems like it has no leadership.  At times, they seem as though they are lost. In the past 2 losses, they never held a lead.  All signs point to poor coaching.

Mark Fox is in his 9th season as head coach. Nothing has changed in those 9 years. The team has only made 2 tournament appearances and they were beaten in the first round both times. It looks as if this team will be NIT bound for the 3rd season in a row. Teams from the past 3 years have featured some pretty good players. Charles Mann, Kenny Gaines, J.J. Frazier and Yante Maten were at some point members of these 3 teams and they have no tournament appearances.

That’s unacceptable.

The one constant during this past near-decade of underachievement has been Mark Fox. It’s getting to the point where even the most dedicated of Fox supporters are seeing that it’s time to move on from him as head coach and find someone who can at least get the Dawgs to the NCAA tournament.

This feels eerily familiar. In 2015, I was a part of the camp that felt it was time to move on from Mark Richt as head coach of the football team. I believe I’ve made it fairly clear that I feel the same way about Fox’s time at UGA.  I thought Fox and Georgia should have parted ways after last season, to be honest. A team that had J.J. Frazier and Yante Maten both on it should have had no problem making the tourney, but yet there we were yet again, getting bounced in the 1st round of the NIT by Belmont.

I was met with a lot of resistance and debate at the time. And even now, the few people who think Fox should stay say the same thing that was said to me after last season and in 2015 when I stated that I thought Richt should be fired. “Who are you going to get that’s better?” Those people are basically telling me don’t point out the problem unless I have a solution.

Well, I’m not Greg McGarity, folks. I’m just a lowly Dawg fan and part-time sports writer who wants what’s best for this team. However, seeing as those people asked, I thought that I’d put together a list of 3 people that I think could do the job. Whether all of them would take it is another question, but I firmly believe all of these coaches could improve the Dawgs right now.

Nick McDevitt– UNC Asheville.

I separated this short list into 3 different types of candidates. I have a coach from a smaller mid-major program who has done good things there, one who is an assistant at UGA now, and one who coaches at a Power 5 school who could be a home run hire. Let’s start with the mid-major guy.

Nick McDevitt is in his 5th season as head coach at UNC Asheville, and he has a recent history of getting some big-time players to come to this small school. LSU, Marquette, Arizona, and Louisville have all had players transfer there after playing for Coach McDevitt. He led UNC Asheville to the Big South title and an NCAA tournament appearance in 2016 where they were defeated by powerhouse Villanova. McDevitt is that “done more with less” guy that would be a very intriguing hire.

Seeing what he has done and how he has recruited at a school as small as UNC Asheville makes it fairly obvious what he could do at a school with the facilities, resources, and recruits that UGA has available to it.

Jonas Hayes – Georgia.

Some are going to say Coach Hayes isn’t ready for this job. They will say it’s too big for him due to his lack of head coaching experience. But Hayes knows and loves this program as much as anyone. Here are a few things a lot of people forget about Hayes:

• He’s been an assistant at UGA since 2013
• Played in Athens between 2001 and 2004
• He scored 759 career points and was part of a team that made the tournament along with his twin brother Jarvis in 2002.
• The guy was a 2-time All-SEC selection
• He then went on to play 7 seasons in the NBA.

Hayes is also known locally and nationwide in recruiting circles. I think Coach Fox will make it through the rest of the season. If something crazy happened and he didn’t though, Jonas Hayes would be the obvious choice to take over as an interim head coach and maybe work his way into a full-time gig.

Richard Pitino– Minnesota.

This would be the home run hire. Pitino is one of the biggest names out there right now. With the fertile recruiting grounds available to Georgia, he could not only have us back in the tournament but also making actual deep runs. How awesome would it be to start hearing the Dawgs being talked about during March Madness once again?

This is the guy that can make that happen. The son of the once great Rick Pitino, who was at the forefront of the Louisville basketball scandal, the younger Pitino has turned Minnesota into a pretty good basketball team. In 2016, he took them to their first tournament appearance since 2013 and their highest seed since 1997.

They are having a bit of an up and down season this year with a record of 14-13. There will still be a list of job offers for Pitino after the season, but unless they finish very strong, this may be UGA’s best chance to get this type of coach who will undoubtedly be one of the nation’s best in the near future.

Next: Check out one of the latest Georgia Bulldogs: Quay Walker

I want what’s best for the future of UGA basketball. There comes a time for a change when something isn’t working. Mark Fox at UGA isn’t working. It’s time, Greg McGarity.  You showed with the hiring of Kirby Smart that you can make the right decision.  Show that again for the basketball team please. Let’s go get that guy who can put UGA basketball back on the map.