The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/3/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: DANIELLE MOORE Reports stated Evans, pictured, met with Fox in Detroit and offered the job. [Click to enlarge]

JASON BUTT

Mark Fox, huh?

I must admit - this is a smart hire. But for different reasons.

This hire is so strange, bizarre and risky that it makes perfect sense.

Think about it: It will take roughly two years for Fox to turn around Georgia's basketball program. And if he does, the hire looks golden.

But if he fails, it's just another middle-of-the-road basketball coach to fail at Georgia, and then the search to bring Georgia basketball to glory begins again.

To be fair to Fox, he has a decent résumé - three NCAA Tournament appearances while riding star forward Nick Fazekas. In two of those tourney trips, his Nevada Wolf Pack won its first round matchup.

But over the last two years, Fox's squad has been relegated to the CBI - yes, the CBI. You know, the other NIT.

Athletic director Damon Evans isn't fooling me with this one.

No one knows who Fox is and that's brilliant. Fox has been off everyone's radar since Fazekas graduated from Nevada. At this point, no one knows what to expect.

If Evans hired Miami's Frank Haith, for instance, he would be slammed by onlookers. Haith is a good recruiter and an average coach who underachieves regularly at Miami. And Evans wasn't getting a big-name coach, such as Oklahoma's Jeff Capel. He tried with Missouri's Mike Anderson. And Anderson took $600,000 less to stay at Missouri.

For a while it seemed there was a misconception in the athletic department's front office about Georgia's basketball program - that it could reel in a top basketball coach from a major program.

And in doing so, Georgia has been forced to swallow its pride.

Who knows what candidates Parker Executive Search, the search firm Georgia hired to help conduct this process, identified and in what order.

But what we do know is no top coach wanted to come to Georgia. And while programs all around the country were hiring coaches, Georgia probably felt compelled to ink somebody sooner rather than later.

And Evans hired an enigma. He hired someone who couldn't be immediately criticized. He's not the best available option, but he's not the worst.

He's got the tourney experience, but he's not a regular

participant.

Along with Fazekas, Fox is credited for recruiting former Nevada star Kirk Snyder. He has a reputation for being a decent recruiter, so maybe he can make the Atlanta inroads Dennis Felton couldn't.

During Georgia's basketball search, I noticed one fascinating issue: entrusting Parker Executive Search. This firm features six of its nine team members as University graduates. Its president, Dan Parker, has a bachelor's and Master's degree from Georgia and donated somewhere between $1,000-$4,999 to the University in the 2007-08 calendar year.

I was chatting with a friend about the search, and he told me it was good to have so many Georgia guys in Parker's firm because "they will look out for [Georgia's] best interest."

I'm still not so sure. How did Parker's firm get Virginia a more qualified coach than Georgia? Truthfully, I'm perplexed as to who Georgia hired. But I'm extremely understanding as to why.

Evans said he wanted to bring in a recognizable figure to coach Georgia basketball, someone to make a splash on the scene. This splash is as small as an Olympic diver's.

The sad reality - this hire proves it - is Georgia basketball is too big of a risk for a big name at a major conference program to take a chance on.

Georgia is not Kentucky. It's not even Western Kentucky.

Virginia filled its coaching vacancy with the help of Parker's firm a few days ago. The Cavaliers pulled Tony Bennett from Washington State, an under-the-radar type hire that would have been perfect for Georgia. He, like Fox, had a CBI season after he lost a lot of players to graduation. But at the end of the season, his team peaked, beating UCLA, Arizona and Arizona State in consecutive games. Bennett teaches exceptional defense, his teams control the tempo and, better yet, he wins - highlighted by two NCAA Tournament runs. His 2007 AP and Naismith Coach of the Year awards look nice, too.

Was Bennett even considered? Or was Fox ahead of him the whole time?

One positive: Fox coached under Trent Johnson until 2004 at Nevada, before Johnson bolted for Stanford and then for LSU. The two coaches run similar systems and LSU was one of the few bright spots of the SEC this year.

But you have to wonder if newly named Alabama coach Anthony Grant would have been a better hire, and if he should have been at the forefront in the beginning.

Then again, reports indicated Grant was never a fan of Parker Executive Search and was turned off by the firm when they contacted him about LSU's opening last year.

But is Alabama a more appealing job than Georgia? I don't think so. They're both comparable programs that have skidded into irrelevance. But the difference?

Alabama athletic director Mal Moore knew where his basketball program stood. He knew Alabama basketball is not elite. He knew elite coaches don't go to non-elite, tradition-less programs. He knew when your program is in this kind of shape, your options aren't as broad as Duke's will be when Mike Krzyzewski retires.

It makes me think it took more than just Anderson's public rejection for Evans to get the memo that Georgia wasn't the program he was trying to advertise.

And I wonder if Fox's mentor, LSU's Johnson, put a good word into Evans and Parker's firm when Georgia initiated contact. Remember, Parker aided LSU last year and got Johnson. And now it has helped Georgia land Fox.

In the end, after questioning this hire, I must say I have to give Evans a "well played" and a courtesy applause. It's possible Fox rights the ship at Georgia. And in the process, he will have no expectations.

But when has Georgia basketball ever had any expectations?


- Jason Butt is the sports editor for The Red & Black.

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