One could question the timing of Damon Evans’ decision to fire Georgia head men’s basketball coach Dennis Felton on Thursday with 11 games left to go in the regular season.
But it’s hard to argue that the Bulldogs’ athletics director didn’t make the correct decision.
The Bulldogs are mired in a seven-game losing streak that was capped by a 26-point loss on Wednesday night to Florida. Five of those losses came in the SEC, which isn’t exactly the greatest conference in college basketball right now. Another loss in the string came to rival Georgia Tech, a team that also hasn’t won a conference game.
This latest streak gave Evans the excuse to do now what he would have done at the end of the season and what he probably would have done last season if not for the Bulldogs’ miraculous run to the SEC championship.
Under Felton, the Georgia basketball program has essentially become a poor mid-major program. The team is off the radar for most Bulldogs fans largely because there has been absolutely no excitement — save for last year’s tournament run — in Felton’s five-plus years.
The Bulldogs went 84-91 under Felton, but won just 31 percent of their conference games. They finished with a winning record twice, had two seasons of .500 and one losing season. Last year’s improbable SEC tournament championship sent the Bulldogs to their only NCAA tournament in his tenure.
But Felton suffered losses off the court as well.
Georgia has consistently finished way out of contention for the best players in this talent-rich state, instead bringing in players who either aren’t ready for high-major college basketball or ones who were later dismissed for discipline issues.
Felton’s best signee and only McDonald’s All-American — Louis Williams — entered the NBA draft out of high school. He nearly nabbed the top player in the state this year — Derrick Favors — but the big man from South Atlanta picked Georgia Tech.
Mike Mercer and Billy Humphrey, two of Felton’s higher-profile signees, got into off-the-court trouble.
Felton has recruited better in recent years, landing highly rated prospects in Jeremy Price and Trey Thompkins. But Price hasn’t had the impact as quickly as some might have hoped — the former four-star prospect is averaging 6.8 points per game. Thompkins has been an impact player, but his play isn’t enough to carry the team to wins.
Felton deserves credit for leading the program out of the darkness surrounding it following the departure of Jim Harrick. His teams fought hard and came up with some nice wins and a very nice 2008 SEC tournament.
But there were far too many losses to the likes of Texas A&M-Corpus Cristi and Loyola of Chicago during the years to let that one instance of tournament magic hold too much weight in the final decision. Felton simply never got the players to Athens that he needed to make the Bulldogs an annual contender in the SEC.
Since there was little question of whether or not Felton would be fired, Evans made the right decision at the right time.
Contact Jonathan Heeter at 744-4400 or jheeter@macon.com
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