Mark Fox: Strong UGA Basketball Culture Established?

Mark Fox is entering his seventh season as Head Coach of the University of Georgia’s Men’s Basketball Team. Fox has a winning record at UGA (195-106), thrice won 20 games in a season (2010-11, 2013-14, 2014-15), and has taken the Dawgs to the NCAA Tournament twice (2010-11, 2014-15). Has Mark Fox established a strong basketball culture in his six previous seasons in Athens?

When Mark Fox took over the Georgia Bulldogs’ basketball program, it was in a rough place with sanctions placed upon it by the previous regime’s incompetence. Fox managed to take his second team in Athens to the NCAA Tournament with the help of SEC stars like Travis Leslie and Trey Thompkins, only to run into a talented Washington Huskies team led by Isaiah Thomas.

-= Can Mark Fox Get the Dawgs Back in the Tournament? =-

It took four season for Fox to get his Dawgs back to the Big Dance, but it was four years of program building that leaves a UGA Men’s Program in arguably its best position to succeed in the long-term. Fox had to establish recruiting connections in the Southeastern United States after coaching the Nevada Wolfpack in Reno the previous four seasons (2004-09).

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Mark Fox convinced top-flight talent like former SEC Player of the Year and starting SG for the Detroit Piston Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to bring his talents to the Classic City. KCP’s 8th overall selection in the 2013 NBA Draft proves that Fox can attract premier prep school talent in the state.

Fox’s ability to get the most out of players proved wonderful for seniors like Marcus Thornton and Nemanja Djurisic in their development. Both Marcus and Nemi were major reasons the Dawgs got back to the Dance in 2015, as two of the most polished player in the SEC.

Returning for Fox is a three-headed backcourt monster consisting of Charles Mann, Kenny Gaines, and JJ Frazier. Mann attacks the rim like Houston Rocket’s James Harden. Frazier can make shots from distance like Stephen Curry. And Gaines can do it all like a Jeff Teague.

Young players like Yante Maten, Juwan Parker and Kenny Paul Geno give the Georgia Bulldogs some bite for Mark Fox entering the 2015-16 Campaign. With the SEC becoming an increasingly difficult basketball conference, the exposure for Fox’s UGA program will only grow in the coming years.

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Last year’s near defeat of the #1 Kentucky Wildcats would have been a complete and undisputed program changer, similar to how the 2007 Stanford Cardinal topped the #2 USC Trojans on the gridiron. Stanford has become a powerhouse football program in the last decade. I know it’s a different game but going the distance against UK and putting up a strong fight against Tom Izzo’s Michigan State Spartans, a Final Four Team in 2015, in the NCAA First Round proves that UGA Men’s Basketball is on the rise.

Even with Djurisic and Thornton’s graduations, I still like UGA’s chances to go dancing in 2016. Though the SEC has strong teams like Kentucky, Arkansas, LSU, and Vanderbilt and teams on the rise like Tennessee, Mississippi State, Florida, and Alabama with their new high-profile head coaches, I still feel that Mark Fox’s UGA team is a Top 4-6 team in the Conference heading into this winter.

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