Let me start by saying I am glad Mark Fox is the coach of my favorite basketball team. He has done a very good job in bringing Georgia Basketball back to national relevance. I say national relevance because they are legitimately in the discussion of in or out of the NCAA tournament.
That being said, my view is that the things that were weaknesses/struggles at the beginning of the season remained through out the season/never improved. In correlation, this team should not be sitting at home with what should be A LOT of worry about whether or not they're in. For what it's worth, I don't think they're in nor do I think they should be in. I'm a firm believer in winning your way in and the 2011 Georgia basketball team did not do that.
Chief among the aspects that never improved for Georgia is the fact that Fox allowed guard Gerald Robinson to play out of control for several possessions in several different clusters in many games. Robinson would try, at times, to take the game over with dribble drives ending in highly contested shots and/or virtual trick shots, which turned into crucial misses or turnovers. Georgia is a better team with Gerald Robinson no doubt but, he also hurt them in quite a few games.
Free throw shooting; especially Trey Tompkins. Somehow, some way, free throw shooting has to be close to/virtually automatic. No legitimate reason for it not to be. This doesn't warrant any in-depth discussion. Bottom line, make your free throws.
Execution against the press. One could argue that it got better later in the season by way of number of turnovers (of which the Dawgs had A LOT versus the press) but, turnovers due to the press are merely one aspect of beating the press. When facing the press it comes down to getting across half court then running the offense. When they did get it across half court they were so out of rhythm that the half court offense went nowhere and possessions were basically lost.
2nd half implosions. We all know this song, not just in chorus, but verse by verse. Needless to say, improvement was basically non-existent. And the chance at a tournament berth ended with another 2nd half implosion.
I believe the Dawgs are NIT bound which is probably best for them to have a chance at playing more than one game. If they get in the tournament they will be no better than a 12 seed and will probably be one and done. As a matter of fact, they are likely to be a "First Four" participant if they get in and may never make it to a Thursday/Friday game. Georgia earned the NIT, bottom line.
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