If hard work means anything, Georgia basketball coach Mark Fox said his Bulldogs are already off to a good start with the first official day of preseason practice set to begin Sunday afternoon.
“The kids have worked extremely hard,” Fox said earlier this week in a one-on-one interview with UGASports.com. “I’ve been very pleased. The players we have returning have taken a lot of ownership, and as a coach that’s always good to see.”
His team’s recent trip to Spain where the Bulldogs went 3-0 was certainly an eye-opener.
“I would say the guys who got the most out of it was the younger guys, meaning not only Tyree (Crump), Jordan (Harris), Papi (Diatta), but (Mike) Edwards and Derek (Ogbeide) because they were thrust into bigger roles,” said Fox, who returns eight of his team’s top 10 scorers from a season ago, including point guard J.J. Frazier and forward Yante Maten, who Fox believes is ready to become one of the better all-around players in the SEC.
“I think Yante can be an outstanding player, but also, I think he’s now in the positon where he can make the players around him better,” Fox said. “While I think he’ll once again make plenty of plays for himself, it’s the ability to make people around him better that’s the next step for him.”
The return of the versatile Juwan Parker, who missed all of last year with an Achilles injury, also has Fox excited.
“Juwan is doing outstanding. I don’t think he was quite himself this summer but I think in Spain, probably the third game, I think the rust came off and he was Juwan again,” Fox said. “His versatility, his ability to shoot, defend, rebound, he’s just a complete player and his experience is something we need. I think he’s in a really good place right now.”
Ditto for Turtle Jackson, who is 100 percent healthy and according to Fox anxious to continue the momentum from the SEC semifinal loss to Kentucky that saw him score a career-high nine points on 3-of-5 3-point attempts.
“He missed the summer before with the knee surgery, so he felt like he was behind the whole time, so he needed a game to give him confidence and build off of because he’s a very good player,” Fox said. “Hopefully that gave him confidence to build on, but he said today he made 20 in a row the other day in a drill.”
Meanwhile, Fox said senior Houston Kessler has had a good offseason while sophomore forward Derek Ogbeide also appears ready to take another step forward.
“He’s had a phenomenal summer. He’s in great shape, he’s just more comfortable, more confident, I think he really geared up this summer to make a jump as a sophomore,” Fox said. “He’s very committed to being a good player. We think he’ll score more for us, he’s worked hard on his free throws, he’s still has some work to do there, but he’s worked most on getting in great shape and he’s been able to do that.”
As for who replaces the minutes and points left by the graduation of Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann, look for sophomore E’Torrion Wildridge, Kenny Paul Geno, Parker, Crump and Harris to carry that load.
Defensively, however, Fox said his freshmen have a long way to go.
“We’re at square 1. Kentavious (Caldwell-Pope), he was benched as a freshman and now he’s an elite defender in the NBA and he sent me a text thanking me,” Fox said. “But those guys are at Square 1 and to be honest, we really didn’t have time in the summer to address it. They’ve got a lot to learn.”
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