New OL coach, HUGE hoops game tonight

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Washaun Ealey has been indefinately suspended from all football related activities, per Ealey and SID Claude Felton, Coach Richt should make a statement later today. Evidently, this is due to Ealey missing a punishment run or something along those lines. Ealey is still in school, still hopes to remain but is also exploring his options. I think the fact he has already had issues last year off the field, he is lucky to still be part of the team. I have heard that he has attitude issues and of course last spring I witnessed first hand him talking trash/starting fights in the G-day game. I am not ready to say get rid of him but I think if you look at this situation, coupled with Caleb King's academic issues, it becomes pretty easy to see why Coach Richt last week said, he would not be surprised if Isiah Crowell was starting in week 1. I think that is certainly the plan as it stands right now and quite honestly, I think Crowell is the best back on our team right now despite the fact he does not even attend UGA yet. Still, I personally would like to have EITHER King or Ealey around for next fall, Crowell has shown that he can play with injuries but he has shown he gets injured quite often as well. It would be nice to have someone experienced back there with him for depth reasons. Malcome might be a really good player but he has the same game experience as does Crowell, NONE. Still, this spring Malcome is someone to keep an eye on. Also, we have Carlton Thomas but again, I am just not sold on him being an SEC RB. He tries hard and seems to be a good young man but that doesn't help us win football games.
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First of all, let's say welcome back to UGA Will Friend. Sounds to me like a pretty decent hire as though he is from UAB, he did play college football at Bama, his Dad is longtime coach, he has worked in Athens before so not like he is a total stranger-bottom line I just don't know much about him except he is bald, a bit overweight it appears, and comes with a strong endorsement of Neil Callaway who Richt hired as our original OL coach back in 2001. Here is the Will Friend Bio-

http://uabsports.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/friend_will00.html


Now the attention will turn to replacing Warren Belin-a LB coach or maybe not. The job posting is for a defensive end coach so who really knows what is going on. Considering we only have 3 down lineman on our 3-4 D, two of those positions are considered defensive end?? Is Rodney Garner going to coach the nose tackles only??? Time will tell, but I imagine they are looking for the best possible coach and will adjust roles accordingly when they hire the new coach. As with the OL coaching hire, I might not be aware of the candidates they are looking at and might not really outwardly strongly approve of the hire BUT I respect that Mark Richt knows what he is doing. In the case of the D coach, I feel like it will be Richt AND Grantham calling the shots there so whomever those guys believe is the best guy for the spot, we just have to trust their judgement and wait to see how it all pans out.


Big game tonight inside Stegman. Xavier, out of the Atlantic 10 conference, pays a visit. This game could REALLY benefit our hoops team because the X is a very nationally recognized program. They have been to three straight sweet 16's, made the dance I believe I read 9 out of the last 10 years. They have an RPI of 24, while ours is 36. Point blank, this game tonight provides our team an opportunity to beat a very quality opponent which would be a feather in our cap come selection Sunday. I just hope our guys come ready to play because I know we will get the best of Xavier. This is a basketball school, a school that is used to winning big games, a team that has veteran players. Lets take a look at the Musketeers now (wow, that is a bad nickname I have to say).

First of all, as I mentioned yesterday, same overall record as us, 16-6, but they are 8-1 in their conference. They are in the same conference as Temple, a team that beat us earlier in Orlando. Xavier beat Temple by 11 this year. As for their wins on the season, they have wins over Iowa, Butler, Wake, UMASS, Rhode Island, Richmond, Dayton-I mention some of those smaller schools just because those schools have been NCAA tourney teams many years before. Losses so far, Old Dominion in a preseason tourney, at Miami of Ohio, at Gonzaga, home against UF, at Cincy, and then the only conference loss at Charlotte-hey, this team has a losing record but they are not a horrible team. If you look at their schedule, certainly not a murderers row but still, respectable enough and of course this is a team that goes to the big tourament every year. This is a big game for them just as it is for us.

Looking at there starting lineup, this is a veteran team, starting two Juniors, two seniors, and one soph. They do NOT play many guys off the bench, much like Kentucky. IF we can get one or two of their guys in foul trouble, HUGE advantage for us. Course, same goes for them against us, but we do have some guys on our bench that play some minutes. Without question they bring a VERY talented guard to Athens in junior Tu Holloway, the kid is averaging 20.8 pts a game, which leads the Atlantic 10. He was just named NATIONAL player of the week for his two games last week. He also averages 5 assists per game and shoots nearly 87% from the FT line. Stopping him will be a big key to winning this game, or should I say trying to slow him down. He is only 6'0" so not like he has a height advantage over our small guards. The next guy up is Mark Lyons, the only soph starter, who is a 6'1" guard averaging 13.8pts a game, almost 4 assists a game. Next is junior center, Kenny Frease, a 7'0" player averaging 11.9 pts and 6.8 rebounds a game. This is a big guy, not only tall but tips the scales at 270lbs, this will be a tough matchup for Trey, Price or Barnes. Next are the two forwards, first is senior Jamel McLean who at 6'8" averages 11.4 pts and leads them in rebounding at 8.8 boards a game. Other forward is senior Dante' Jackson, 6'5" averaging 7.6pts and 3 rebounds a game.

Looking at minutes played, all 5 starters average 28 or more minutes a game. They have one reserve, Jeff Robinson, that averages double digit minutes off the bench, he averages 4pts a game and 3 boards, getting about 17 minutes a contest. Other than that, really no others that make much of an impact off their bench in any statistical category. FT shooting, Holloway is by far the best, Jackson is at 77%, Lyons at 73 but the other two are low to mid 60's. As for three point shooting, that is really not a strength or so it appears looking at the percentages. Holloway only shoots 34.7% while Lyons shoots a little better at 38.9%. Jackson has attempted most 3's but has a bad percentage at 29%. One interesting stat about the 7 footer, he has only attempted 61 FT's on the year-so it appears to me the offense clearly flows through Holloway.

The key to this game will be our ability to continue our great work rebounding but also we must have our guards avoid foul trouble and turnovers. The last few games, especially Gerald Robinson, has been quickly picking up fouls and also turned the ball over quite often. Considering we are playing a team with two very quality guards, it will be very important that our guards play well-we lose a lot when we have to sub out our two starting guards, although I must admit Brantley is playing much better both offensively and defensively. Our bigs will have their hands full as this team has some size to it, with McLean and Frease, but we need Trey back to 100% in the middle. Also, we need Jeremy Price to continue to be an offensive force, that just gives us one more offensive element to go along with Trey, Travis and Gerald. This is a game that we certainly can win, Xavier is a good solid team but if we play up to our ability, we can and will beat them at home. Their AD is coming down for the game, he sits on the NCAA tournament board, this game could go a long way to getting us in the dance even if we finish with an 8-8 SEC mark. We need to prove to folks we can beat quality opponents, other than Kentucky, we have struggled to beat the quality opponents. Course, we have avoided bad losses which is great but quality wins would really help our cause. Game tonight is set for 7pm on ESPNU.