I know, it was only one game and I still hold out hope our team can make the NCAA tourney but to be honest, with the way we have played the past couple weeks, I really just don't think our team is good enough to be considered at this point. Xavier was a good team, there is no question about that. But, those are the type games you MUST win at home. Same for the UF and UT games, to be considered an NCAA team, you have to be able to beat the good teams-at least some of the time. We have a victory over Kentucky at this point, but otherwise every good basketball team we have played, we have lost. The good news, we don't have any bad losses to this point and the loss to Xavier is NOT a bad loss. Also good news in that UK beat Tenn last night, which means we are now tied with Kentucky and Tenn for second place in the SECe, two full games behind UF for the division lead. The bad news is we still have games left at UF and UT, along with at Bama and SCarolina. At home, SCarolina, Vandy and LSU. IF we could somehow split the road games and win all three home games, we would sit at 10-6 and 21-9 overall. If that happens, I like our chances a lot. But, I can certainly see this very promising season slipping away here, because of the now three home court losses.
For last night, I didn't think we played bad but just had a lot of trouble scoring in the second half. We could NOT hit any 3's while they did hit some crucial ones-I was surprised they hit as many as they did because coming in they had not been a great 3 point shooting team. We kept Holloway under his average-he got 18 points but some of that was late when we were just simply fouling to save clock. Donte' Jackson was the key man to me, hitting 3 of 4 3's on the night and if you remember, he came in shooting about 29-30% on his 3's for the season although I did hear the announcers say he shot 3's at an over 40% clip last year. For us, Trey had 14 points but had 10 in the first half. A lot of teams now are starting to double, in some cases triple Trey as soon as he touches the ball. He struggles to get rid of the ball when this happens and often times turns it over. We got very little production from the bench, Barnes scored 7 points, but we only played 8 men last night with Thornton and Brantley barely breaking a sweat with getting about 5-6 minutes each. I don't want to second guess Coach Fox too much, but I still don't understand why Connor Nolte does not get more playing time. He might not be as talented as others but the kid just makes plays every time he takes the floor. The 5th foul on Trey was questionable of course but assuming the ref didn't see him get pushed down to the floor, he HAD to call a foul as Trey stood up and the guy tripped on him as he drove to the basket. It was just unfortunate but again, this team just doesn't seem to have that spark to win these games against quality opponents late in the game. We take bad shots or turn the ball over far too many times, last night we struggled all night to stop the drive to the basket-I know Fox loves his man defense but I really think he needs to think about zoning some, his 1-3-1 or 1-2-2 might not be a bad idea especially if he is not going to sub very much.
Now we move on to a game at South Carolina. They host Florida tonight, if they win, they will be tied with us at 5-4. They already beat UF in Gainesville so anything is possible. To say we need to win that game is an understatement. I will take a look at SCarolina later this week but we play them twice in the next couple weeks so a sweep of the Gamecocks certainly would do a lot to improve our chances of making the dance. I am going to post a couple mock tourney's on this post, most likely they will not include our game last night. The loss certainly hurts our chances but not the same as a loss to Auburn would have or a loss to SCarolina will hurt us. Looks like right now we are in, of course this before the game last night, around a 9 or 10 seed.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology
Back to football for a minute, and the Washaun Ealey story. I listened to radio shows yesterday and today and while some folks think Richt is handling this situation the correct way, many others believe Ealey should be gone. I happen to believe those folks, Ealey should be booted, and right now. I have read too many stories about this kid and his attitude, I think a kid that has already had problems and really ticked off his head coach should not be making any further mistakes. The fact he was in trouble-which forced him to have a punishment run, THEN chooses to skip that punishment, that just tells me this kid is not going to follow the rules and I don't have any further tolerance for kids that don't follow the rules. IF this had been his first offense, ok, maybe I can let him earn his way back. But this was not his first offense and thus, SEE YA Mr. Ealey. Now, Richt is in a tight spot here because he knows he must win in 2011 or he will lose his job. Granted we signed possibly the top RB prospect in America a few days ago but let's not kid ourselves, he is still just that, a PROSPECT. We have no idea how good he will actually be in college we can just speculate. At least with Ealey you know what you got, a decent but not spectacular SEC RB. Now, we also have Caleb King and assuming he will be eligible for the 2011 season, that provides you with experience. Carlton Thomas, well, I have said before and will say again that CT is just not an SEC level tailback. He can do some things in certain situations but that is it. We do have Ken Malcome that the coaches seem to be very excited about and obviously a lot of eyes will be focused on him this spring. But, considering we have two big, REALLY BIG, games to start the 2011 season, I am sure Richt really does not want to kick Ealey off the team. I just think he should personally and I even read yestereday on the message boards that word around Ga Southern is that Ealey will transfer there soon. That would be interesting since we play Southern in 2012 when Ealey of course would be a senior. We shall see what happens with this Ealey mess but as far as I am concerned he should be gone. We have had enough problems with discipline and I think Richt showing him the door would send the proper message. Besides, I have also read/heard that Ealey is not viewed as the most popular guy on the team anyway.
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