Bowling & Basketball

Whoo!!!  We're playing a bowl game in Florida.  What, that's not the one we wanted??  Aww, gee shucks, I'm just thankful we got some SEC wins this year.  (That was my best Mark Richt impression, BTW)  Hopefully the boys come out fired up and bring hell to Michigan State, but I have to agree with the good Senator.  I don't know what would be more frustrating; for the team to make a marked improvement showing they had the ability all year long, or the team to continue playing without a care in the world and showing that it's continued regression from the beginning of the season never stopped.  

With the basketball team's awesome show in Chicago yesterday, I'm real fired up about what I hope is the last year in the Felton regime.  The first post I made in this blog regarded Coach Felton, and I advocated he should be fired (granted, this was before the miracle run in Atlanta, but I was one of the few that felt he should still be out of a job).  While I attended UGA from 2002-2007, I worked as a basketball usher from 2004-2006, so I got to see a lot more basketball than the average UGA fan.  The typical Felton team has not changed one ounce from his first year.  Every game the team plays relatively solid defense, but seems to always go on a 10 minute scoring drought and still can't make a free throw if a gun were held to its head.  I don't expect much from our mens hoops team, but I think we can do better than cellar dweller.  Florida was a perennial joke in basketball until they made the effort to improve.  Unless Coach Felton gets this team to the NCAA tourney this year without needing some kind of miracle again, he should be shown the door at season's end.  If I weren't so adamantly against mid-season firings, I'd suggest he be shown the door now.  The program's talent level and stature within the SEC has not improved at all during his tenure.  We're now in year 6 and he's been free of the reduced scholarship burden long enough that the team should be at full strength.  Coach, I love your hard-nosed attitude, but sometimes the results have to match the effort, and I'm not seeing it with you.  In the end, wins are all that matters, and sadly there have been not enough wins to keep Coach around.