As a followup to the tennis post and since it seems to be a day in the Bulldog nation to spread some love around, it’s worth noting that four Georgia teams are currently ranked at the top of their sport:

• Gymnastics
• Men’s tennis
• Men’s golf
• Women’s swimming and diving

It’s not a surprise that any of those programs are ranked where they are. All have legacies of national titles and are consistently competitive. Gymnastics, men’s golf, and women’s swimming and diving are defending NCAA national champions, and the men’s tennis team recently won an indoor national title.

It’s likely that several national titles could come from this group. The Swim Dawgs will be competing for theirs soon. The Gym Dogs continue to beat quality opponents. The tennis team hasn’t lost yet in this young season. The golf team returns a strong core from the national title squad.

We all understand that #1 rankings don’t always translate into national titles. A national championship – even a conference championship – in any sport requires excellent preparation and execution and even a little luck sometimes. A fall during a gymnastics routine or a bad day of winds on the golf course can humble the best teams. But these four programs aren’t at the top as a fluke, and each has to be considered among the favorites to remain at the top at the end of the year.

Georgia has no shortage of standout student-athletes. Tasha Humphrey, Courtney Kupets, DJ Shockley…all Bulldogs known and respected not only among our own fans but also nationwide among the media and fans who follow those sports. In other extremely successful programs like golf and swimming, there are also standouts who just don’t get the press and exposure to the fan base.

You might have heard that this is a pretty good time for Georgia men’s tennis. Manny Diaz usually has a competitive squad, but they recently added the ITA Team Indoor national title to their trophy case. With that indoor title, the Georgia program has at sometime or other won every bit of championship hardware available to an NCAA tennis program. The legacy of Diaz and Dan Magill is rock solid.

As a result of that title and an unblemished record, the tennis Dawgs are now ranked #1 in the nation. Of course a strong team like that needs more than one strong player. Strahinja Bobusic was just named SEC Player of the Week, and a total of four Bulldogs are nationally ranked singles players.

But the name most associated with the team these days is John Isner. Isner is the #1 singles player in the nation and one of the more compelling Bulldog athletes to come through Athens lately. The first thing you notice about Isner is his size. His 6’9″ frame would put him at home in Stegeman Coliseum, and it is imposing on the tennis court. At that height, and with that reach, his serve almost seems to come straight down. His first serve is devastating and nearly impossible to return when accurate. Obviously his game must be more complete than just a good serve to earn the #1 individual ranking, but the serve is the first thing the novice observer notices.

Isner is also an accomplished doubles player. He and Antonio Ruiz won the NCAA doubles national title last spring.

I discovered during my time at UGA that you could do a lot worse than spending spring afternoons at Foley Field or at the tennis complex. If you get the chance this spring, go check out Isner and the #1 tennis Dawgs. Even if you’re not a big tennis person, just watching Isner serve is likely to get a “daaaaaaaaamn” out of you and a bit of appreciation for one of the best athletes currently wearing the Red and Black.

The scenario I talked about last week has now come true.

We’re at a very awkward time right now. It’s easy to leave behind the days of “hey, we got an SEC win isn’t that great?!” and try to leap straight to the chest-thumping “show me the respect we command”. If we don’t beat UT and/or Kentucky at Rupp, we’re right back to 4-7 in the league and talking about how we should be happy that we doubled our win total from last year.

So here we are. 4-7. The Banner-Herald concludes, “The whispers of the Bulldogs earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament likely will be silenced.” Georgia is back in the basement of the SEC East, if only by a half-game.

Let’s back up and say that this isn’t an unexpected condition or result. Tennessee is the best team in the SEC, and Kentucky was nearly a ten-point favorite at Rupp. What’s changed in the past week is that the perception of the current condition is a bit of a letdown, a disappointment. Georgia had a meager two-game winning streak, Coach Felton let out a bit of his frustration and eagerness to get the program on top, and fans – whether defensive or fired up over Felton’s comments – were at least talking about basketball and checking out the program.

But now the Dawgs have lost two straight, and though the Dawgs might not have been expected or favored to win either, there was some plainly bad basketball in there. The inability to bring the ball upcourt against pressure, missed foul shots killing a rally, balls bouncing off heads after a pick-and-roll, and minutes upon minutes of ineffective scoreless offense have people asking, “this was the team whose NCAA Tournament credentials we were talking about a week ago?”.

Now we have Vanderbilt at home this weekened – a winnable game that could give the team a nice shot in the arm and move them out of the SEC East cellar. A nice home crowd would be a welcome change from the “Memorial Magic” Georgia overcame in their earlier win at Vanderbilt. It’s not that the past week cost us a sellout for the Vandy game, but these two very high-profile losses ensure that the only interest in the Vanderbilt game (and probably the South Carolina game) will come from the diehard fans who have been there all along.

Making a big deal over the crowd for the Tennessee game should not have been the focus of the moment. That was a set-up, and it has caused unnecessary disappointment and grumbling among the fan base. Instead, it was the beginning of the audition for crowds in the remaining three home games which Georgia could win and really add to the accomplishments of this season. With the recent performance of the team, Coach Felton can be sure of lukewarm support the rest of the way this season. Hopefully a strong finish to this season can drum up some momentum and support for next season when this entire team will return and add some frontcourt bulk. A winning record over these last five games and an NIT berth would be impressive and clear progress over last season, and hopefully that message can get out over the disappointment of not making the NCAA Tournament.

Looking ahead, only Florida would seem like a heavy favorite over Georgia. Mississippi State should be a win, but that’s on the road. Arkansas, Vandy, and SC all could go either way. Georgia’s spread could go anywhere from 5-11 to 8-8. Perception-wise, that’s a pretty big potential swing.

Other than your family, think about the thing(s) in life about which you are most passionate. It might be a career, golf, Civil War diningware, but for most of us it’s the Dawgs – specifically Georgia football. Have you ever tried to explain to a non-believer what the High Holy Feast Day of National Signing Day is all about? Do you stare blankly when asked why you are rushing to set up tailgate at 7:45 AM for a 7:45 PM kickoff? Are you frustrated when the casual Georgia fans in your office don’t know who the third-string linebackers are? When you start talking about the Dawgs, do you notice how others smile uncomfortably while backing away slooooowly, taking care not to make any sudden motions?

Welcome to Dennis Felton’s world. The man lives basketball. NCAA limits on practice time were made for Felton – sleep gets in the way of time that could be spent improving the program. Preseason military-style training is a nice warmup for practice. Basketball consumes Felton to a flaw, and that flaw comes to the surface every now and then.

It’s an obsession, and that’s not necessarily a bad trait for a coach. You certainly prefer that over a guy just punching the clock. And let’s be honest – Georgia basketball needs its coach to be obsessive and driven about the job. Anyone else would have been discouraged and on anti-depressants within a week of taking the position.

But that same drive and passion for the game leads to impatience. Indifference and apathy are foreign concepts. You don’t get that a fan base that keeps getting let down after every limited morsel of basketball success doesn’t jump on board at your first signs of progress and promise. You can’t process why you have to beg people to come see SEC basketball when you’ve worked your whole life to get to this opportunity. If successful at Georgia, Felton will have been responsible for not only a good basketball team but also a cultural shift.

I’ve been right there with the “just stick a cork in it and coach” camp, but I still have to recognize (and appreciate) missionary zeal when I see it. His job isn’t just to coach the team. You don’t get the passionate coach willing to invest four years in resurrecting a dismal program without the rest of the package. Someone not far away from developing a competitive team wants the fan support and administrative support to be right there alongside his effort, and getting those are often left up to him.

Felton can’t be inflexible in this effort though. His success has been too fleeting to really sway this fickle fan base. GSB picked up on and developed an observation of mine last week that Felton can’t afford to jump too quickly through the baby steps that will build fan support. Some of his strongest supporters, and I include myself in that group, have been more than willing to be patient as he rebuilds the program. By getting ahead of himself, he runs the risk of people demanding results much sooner than they can reasonably be delivered. The team is certainly improved this year, and anyone can see the progress made and the roadmap for more improvement ahead. It’s obvious. But we’re not there yet, and casual would-be converts aren’t going to put the emotional investment behind the program to stick with it through the losses.

It’s a cop-out for us to suggest that Felton cool it and recognize that the football-crazy fan base won’t ever embrace basketball. That’s just not true. Stegeman was rocking during the Jarvis Hayes era and even into Felton’s first year when the “guy in the red shirt” entered Bulldog lore. But as GSB points out today, Felton doesn’t seem to appreciate that Georgia’s basketball fan base is once-bitten, twice shy and has been for decades. Time after time, the rug has been pulled out. Those fans might be willing at some point to come back for more abuse, but the best thing Felton can do now is to get this team into the postseason – even the NIT – and do well. The fans will notice and be ready for the next steps.

(And as I said earlier, it could be worse. You could build and sustain a program consistently ranked among the nation’s best, fully understand and be able to communicate with the Georgia fan base, have a Hall of Fame resume, and still have to rely on Tennessee fans to sell out your games. Welcome to Andy Landers’ world.)

Dennis Felton’s got a much easier job than he thinks. He can take a team below .500 in the SEC, make a bit of noise in the press, and get tons of attention and discussion going. Passionate fans will defend the notion that Georgia can be successful in basketball and football. They’ll get indignant about Tennessee bandwagoners buying up tickets. In the end, Felton got his sellout and vocal crowd.

Meanwhile, Andy Landers could offer free beer, and the fans would still stay away in droves.

HeismanPundit has noted (and didn’t pull many punches) that FSU isn’t doing what it used to do with quality recruiting classes. Specifically, the ‘Noles haven’t produced a single consensus All-American since 2000 after producing 18 during its incredible run in the 1990s. As HP shows, that’s one hell of a clean break, and it’s not because the talent pipeline coming into Tallahassee has dried up.

When you get into the whys, there are several things you can point to. The ACC has become more competitive, and the addition of three good programs has made it difficult for FSU to even land someone on the all-ACC first team, let alone the All-American team.

But the year 2000 as a delineating point is just too specific to be a coincidence after that kind of run. Let’s look at two key events:

• Post-1999 season: LB coach Chuck Amato leaves to become the head coach of his alma mater NC State
• Post-2000 season: OC Mark Richt leaves to become the head coach at Georgia. Richt brings FSU strength coach Dave Van Halanger to Athens as well as Barry Every who plays a very important administrative role in evaluating talent and coordinating recruiting efforts.

So while defensive mastermind Mickey Andrews remains, FSU lost in the span of two years both the source of its nasty disposition on defense and the offensive mastermind who trained two Heisman-winning quarterbacks in under ten years. They also lose Van Halanger who is as much spiritual guru and mentor as he is master of the weight room. How many strength coaches are among those leading his team onto the field?

Does it begin to make sense? Under Andrews, FSU maintains a defensive edge against most teams but loses much of the intimidation factor (now in the form of countless unnecessary personal foul penalties in Raleigh). The toll on offense has been far greater as the ‘Noles are still able to out-athlete many teams but have struggled in the post-Richt era to find a capable quarterback who is at once stable physically, mentally, and I suppose in some cases even spiritually.

This isn’t to gloat over the relative “misfortunes” of FSU, but it’s common sense that recruiting and reloading on the coaching staff is as important as – if not more important than – the quality of the kids on the field. Jeff Bowden could coach for many schools, but he’s the three-star redshirting project following the All-American offensive coordinator. Georgia fans are still undecided about the impact of losing DC Brian VanGorder. The ability for Bowden to keep Andrews (not to mention recruiting coordinator John Lilly) on staff has been a big reason for their long-term success.

Programs lose coaches all the time, and there’s usually an impact. Of course the impact should be expected to be much greater if several coaches are lost in a short time. Southern Cal will be an interesting experiment to watch. We’ll see if the departures of Chow and Orgeron have long-term effects as they continue to rope in top talent. Will they fade? Will the abundance of talent overshadow any drop off in coaching? Or will the replacements prove to be personnel decisions every bit as impressive as their ability to reload at key positions on the field?

PS…it says something about where FSU has been and the level of success to which they were accustomed that we are talking this way about a program which has played in three BCS bowls since the 2001 season. All but about five programs would give anything to “fade” that badly!

Far too much recruiting coverage out there to add anything specific about the solid class.

Even three or four years ago, the month of January was controlled chaos in the Georgia recruiting process. There would be a parade of 10 or so prospects into town each weekend, and fans studied the basketball schedule not because they cared about basketball but because it provided a chance to scrutinize the prospects in town, note who was sitting with whom, and interpret every facial expression as a hint as to how the weekend was going. January was critical. Less than half the class had committed, and it was necessary that each weekend go well and produce commitments.

We still saw some of this circus in 2005 during the weekend of Bryan Evans’ visit and commitment. But in 2006, the interest in the January visits of high-profile prospects Rashad Jones and Stafon Johnson barely rose above casual concern. Why? Two reasons. First, and probably most importantly, Jones and Johnson had pretty solid home-state favorites. Georgia felt solid about Jones despite the best efforts of LSU, and even the most optimistic recruitnik saw the long odds in winning a recruiting battle with Southern Cal for a California prospect. Second, Jones and Johnson were icing on what was already a very nice recruiting class. Each is an outstanding prospect and looks likely to help any program they considered, but neither would make or break the Georgia class. So the sense of urgency which usually comes with January visits was noticably missing.

There is a definite tradeoff when much of your signing class commits early. There could be injuries. Still-developing juniors and young seniors might not improve during their senior season and fizzle. They might begin looking around and require hand-holding as the recruiting process drags on. Then there’s the case of Texas. You might not be able to cash in on a likely recruiting shot in the arm from a national title if many of your scholarships are already promised (nice problem to have).

When you’re talking about early commitments like Matthew Stafford or Brandon Wood, you’re not taking huge risks. Georgia’s pre-January commitments were good enough to quickly move Georgia among the Top 10 recruiting classes, and they maintained and even improved that position with late commitments from Jones and Moreno. Meanwhile, instead of pouring a ton of energy into January recruiting, the Georgia staff went all-out on the few specific remaining targets and was able to begin using the momentum from another SEC title to target the Class of 2007. The number of known offers to this next class is already well into double-digits and climbing.

Someone on Signing Day said to me, almost with a bit of wistfulness, that there was just no last-minute recruiting drama this year. The late decisions of Moreno and Jones were stories worth watching, but most felt confident that they’d end up in Athens. Calm years like this are surely the exception even for top programs. Calling it “easy” or “dull” insults the effort put in by the staff and ignores the amount of work necessary to have this kind of class fall into place with plenty of time to spare. Still, while noting some of the drama and disappointment among some of Georgia’s regional rivals, we’ll take this kind of “boring” every year. Great job, coaches.

Ray Melick of the Birmingham News wonders why graduation rates are dropping across women’s basketball. It’s not a huge decrease. Among the reasons offered are 1) more pro opportunities and 2) an increase in transfers looking for a chance to play.

My guess? As womens basketball becomes a bigger and bigger economic engine and more national attention is paid to the sport, the pressures to win are increasing. The sport is no longer dominated by the same group of ten programs, and a good group of players can make a big impact quickly (see Baylor). As a result, teams are willing to take bigger risks on marginal students in order to land players who might help their program make a splash. This isn’t the case of course at the major programs where schools still cherry pick from among the best, but for a mid-major or a lower-tier member of a big conference desperate for that breakthrough player, taking a risk on a poor student might be a risk-reward tradeoff more schools are willing to try now.

Following last week’s lackluster loss to Kentucky, a lot of people were justifiably down on the frontcourt. No points, no rebounds, not much of anything but fouls and turnovers.

As poor as the frontcourt was in that game, the guards were worse last night at LSU. Worse? Yep. Oh, they scored – eventually. I say their performance last night was worse than the frontcourt’s 0-fer last week because the guards are supposed to be the strength of this team. Georgia’s forwards and centers are either projects or injured. We know that, and most sane observers have accepted that reality with the hope that in a year or so 1) the projects will get better, 2) the wounded will heal, and 3) help is on the way from recruits. Production from the frontcourt is supposed to be better than it was last season, but it’s still more or less gravy this season.

So we know that as the guards go, so goes the team. And last night, they went nowhere. Georgia went 36 minutes of the game without a three-pointer. Levi Stukes didn’t score in the first half and has been slumping since his game-winner in Columbia. Mike Mercer led the team in shot attempts again and missed all but one. Billy Humphrey showed early in the season that he can be a sharpshooter, but he can’t seem to get open and find a shot in 2006.

Five assists. For many point guards, that’s a decent night. That was Georgia’s team total on Wednesday night. You have to make the shot in order for someone to get credit for an assist, and Georgia shooting 30% for the game didn’t help the assist column. Still, a grand total of five assists indicates a complete offensive logjam and an unholy union of poor shooting, turnovers, and forced shots.

The problems followed to the defensive end of the court. LSU shot over 50% overall and over 60% from beyond the arc. Georgia had no answers for LSU’s hot hand of Darrel Mitchell. The strong frontcourt led by Davis had some success as expected, but LSU’s success on the perimeter made their job much easier.

Usually you prefer to forget about blowout losses. Things aren’t that bad, these things happen, and so on. Georgia should not be so quick to get over this loss though. We saw just how dependent this team is on guard play. On most nights, someone is on (lately it’s been Mercer), and you adjust to find that player. When the frontcourt as a unit has a bad night, the team struggles but can sometimes overcome it against lesser teams. When the backcourt has a bad night, Georgia will beat no one and will usually lose pretty ugly.

The relative inexperience of the guards is understood, but the unit does need to step up its level of play if the postseason – even NIT – remains a goal. Georgia’s greatest concentration of scoring power and athleticism is at the guard position, and the team’s success going forward will depend on this unit to find some consistency.

As an aside, kudos to Dave Bliss for his second-straight game scoring in double-figures. I don’t know if the back is getting better or he’s doing anything differently after being shut out by Kentucky, but that’s a very good contribution from a role player who should be able to find some success inside if the guards can draw some defensive attention.

News outlets are buzzing that Mark Richt will soon sign a contract extension that includes a nice raise for winning the SEC title this year. Now please understand that I don’t begrudge him his raise or recognition for a job well done. I also like Mark Richt, respect him as a man and a football coach, and hope he continues at Georgia for as long as he likes. I’m in his corner. It’s a great sign on the eve of Signing Day that Mark Richt isn’t going anywhere.

This mini-rant has less to do with Richt and more to do with the notion in sports that you deserve a new contract and significant raise for actually doing your job. Coaches get paid to win, professional athletes get paid to perform. Richt won the SEC in 2002 and his contract value doubled. The other side of the coin is that had he been another average 7-4 coach, he’d be looking for a job now. There just seems to be no medium and no end in sight.

At least Richt’s compensation isn’t tied to some ridiculous index that requires him to be the highest-paid coach in the SEC or the NCAA. Pay him well – he does a good job in a stressful perform-or-else position, but it would be insane to peg his compensation to the whims of some free-spending AD in Tuscaloosa or Baton Rouge. Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis was rewarded with an unheard-of ten year contract this season worth about $4-$5 million per year. How long until that salary is viewed as sub-par and the contract renegotiated? I give it three years.

A heady senior point guard, one of the most consistent and experienced performers the Lady Dogs have ever had, ignored the called play and instead launched a 25-foot prayer in the closing seconds of yesterday’s loss to LSU. This is up there with Leonard Pope deciding to freelance on the last play in 2004’s loss to Tennessee.

Down one point needing a basket to win, LSU found a way to get the ball to its All-American, Seimone Augustus. Augustus got a good look over Sherill Baker and nailed the go-ahead shot. Georgia’s All-American, Tasha Humphrey, had another monster game against LSU with 31 points, but she never got a chance to attempt the game-winning shot.

It was a classic battle, and there are many more what-ifs and plays that could be talked about than the final few seconds. Georgia missed several chances to extend a 60-55 lead and soon found themselves down 61-60 to begin the see-saw exchange of points in the final 90 seconds. Slow shooting at the beginning of each half put the Lady Dogs in holes from which they had to fight back. Overall, the feeling is one of a big missed opportunity to earn a signature SEC win.

The recent games with Tennessee and LSU show without question that Georgia, even after its devastating frontcourt losses, can play with anyone. Coach Landers had a brilliant defensive scheme to limit LSU, and it worked much as it did in last year’s SEC Tournament. Still, it would have been nice to steal one of these games. With Tennessee and LSU both on the schedule twice during the regular season, the losses put pressure on Georgia to play at a high level and win most of its other SEC games, including an upcoming road swing to South Carolina and Florida, if it hopes to finish among the top three teams in the league.

“This is one of the best wins of my career. The only thing I thought about when Sundiata gave me that great look was get it above the rim and hopefully give it a chance to go in.”

– Levi Stukes, on his buzzer-beating gamewinner at South Carolina

What a relief to finally see the Georgia basketball teams rediscover their defense over the weekend.

The men had been giving up around 90 PPG in their SEC games to date, but they held South Carolina to 61 points to earn a rare win for the program in Columbia. It was Georgia’s first road SEC win since the 2004 season. South Carolina is a mediocre team this year. Most teams will beat them in and away from Columbia. Last year, Georgia was the team that couldn’t beat most teams regardless of the effort they gave.

Most impressive and important was that the defense made plays when it had to. I made a big deal out of this in my “go-to guy” post below. Good stats are nice, but good stats at the right times win games. At the end of regulation and the end of overtime, Georgia used a defensive play to create a turnover to set up one possession to win the game. The final shot didn’t fall in regulation; it did in overtime.

You rarely hear Dennis Felton gush. There’s always something to work on, and the guys could always give more effort. He’s hungry for improvement. But his comments on Saturday showed how much this win meant not only to the current season but also to Felton’s turnaround of the program. “I would have felt good even if we would have came up a possession short in this game, because we got back to really playing with passion on defense and it was our best performance of the year so far in terms of staying tough and composed in a game where nothing was easy,” he said postgame.

You make years of investment in effort and faith, and eventually you hope to see some results. At this stage of the program, the results won’t always be consistent. Even on Saturday, Georgia did enough things poorly on offense to be in a position to lose. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who found myself constantly yelling, “TWO FREAKING HANDS ON THE BALL!!!”. The signs of progress are unmistakable though. Georgia has already beaten three teams they lost to last year (WKU, Clemson, and South Carolina). Who’s next?

The women didn’t use defense to survive a close game. They used defense to put a stranglehold on a dangerous opponent and pull away. Miami isn’t a great team, but they are athletic and quick enough to cause problems for lesser teams. With early foul trouble on Tasha Humphrey, the Lady Dogs weren’t able to build much of a comfortable lead. During the first ten minutes of the second half, Georgia held Miami to eight points and one field goal. The lead grew to over 20 points, and Georgia was able to close out the game with an easy win despite a rash of turnovers and sloppy play.

“We realize after the Tennessee game that we’re not real effective defensively,” said Coach Landers. I hope that realization came before the Tennessee game; the defense hasn’t been effective for most of the year. We’re not going to beat that nor the reasons for it into the ground. But what has been effective this year is the pressure and the ability of guards, Sherill Baker in particular, to steal the ball. That’s what Georgia turned to in the second half. They had the speed to keep up with and frustrate Miami, and the result was a lid on the basket for the Hurricanes. After a draining game at Tennessee on Thursday, Georgia survived a potential let-down game with relative ease, though it wasn’t pretty.

I don’t mean to overlook (yet another) great performance by Chambers and Baker, but Sunday’s game was perhaps the best of the season for Hardrick and Bostice. Bostice had to step up after Humphrey’s foul trouble, and she did. Good positioning led to good rebounds and scoring chances, and she was effective defensively. Hardrick might have had better games on offense, but she hasn’t shown that kind of fire and effort on defense in a while. She made a living on the floor and was a key to Georgia’s decisive second half run.

Welcome Georgia Sports Blog visitors!

The next big capital project for the Athletic Association will be a multi-purpose facility for mens and womens hoops as well as the gymnastics program.

The first thing to notice is the size relative to Stegeman itself. It looks just about as long and tall as the Steg. That’s a lot of volume. All three programs should have ample room to spread out.

Another thing to note is that the building just won’t be a practice facility. It will be the public face and showpiece of these three programs. The main entranceway will be a museum-like area to greet and impress visitors (ever been on the main floor of the Butts-Mehre building?) and make a very nice first impression on recruits.

It’s built-to-order. All three coaches were very involved in specifying what will go into the facility. Basketball offices will overlook the practice courts – a small detail that meant a lot to a coach. As with many of Georgia’s capital projects over the past decade (Ramsey Center, Rankin Smith Center, Gate Six, Milledge Ave. Complex, and so on), we should expect a first-rate facility as a result.

Of course once this gem is completed, it will be contrasted immediately with the dinosaur of a coliseum adjacent to it. What’s the future of the Stegoseum? Clearly it isn’t Bud Walton or the new John Paul Jones arena at Virginia. It’s not a pit either after the improvements that have taken place in steps since 1994.

The discussion over the future of Stegeman Coliseum won’t be confined to the context of basketball or gymnastics. There will be consideration of the debt load of the entire Athletic Association. Spending for a new or refurbished arena will draw vocal criticism from an academic community facing tough cuts. It will be a discussion that involves much of the University and likely local and state governments, and it will be a big leadership challenge for Damon Evans in about twelve months.

There are athletes who make names for themselves by excelling in statistics other than scoring. Dennis Rodman made an NBA career out of the rebound. Tim Duncan differentiated himself in college by blocking every shot taken in his ZIP code. There have been dozens of great point guards, but no one was a better assists man than John Stockton.

A steal in basketball is a sign of individual defensive effort. You must have yourself in position, be alert and react instantly to the opportunity, and you must intercept or tip the ball away without creating contact and fouling the opponent. The reward is usually a transition opportunity and often easy points – defense creating offense. In a pressing or trapping defense, a steals specialist can help fuel game-changing runs or get that crucial late-game defensive stop.

Last Thursday, Sherill Baker became the career steals leader for Georgia womens basketball. Baker passed by Teresa Edwards – one of the biggest names in the history of the sport. It was very cool that Edwards was on hand Sunday to present the Ole Miss game ball to Baker during player introductions. Though she doesn’t seek out the spotlight, this was a very well-deserved moment in the sun for Baker, and kudos to Georgia for coming up with a unique and memorable way to recognize her achievement.

In typical Sherill style, she responded by stealing the ball in Florida’s first two possessions, setting the tone for a good team defensive outing that led to a rout of the Gators. It seems silly that Tasha Humphrey’s 26 points and 15 rebounds are considered another day at the office, but it’s her 20th double-double in a season and a half in Athens. Just incredible. After dominating inside, she stepped out to the left wing during the second half and knocked down three-pointers on consecutive possessions almost just to show she could.

Oh, Baker isn’t doing so poorly in the scoring column either. She reached 20 points against Florida – the third time in four games she’s reached 20 points.