Kenny Gaines, Georgia healthy and confident

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Kenny Gaines can't help but wonder.

What if Juwan Parker doesn't injure his left Achilles? What if Marcus Thornton was able to play a full season? What if J.J. Frazier doesn't take the elbow to the face? What if Yante Maten, of all the freak occurrences in an injury-ridden season for the Bulldogs, doesn't have a car hit him while walking in a crosswalk?

Injuries took their toll on the Bulldogs, with 21 games featuring players who weren't available to play. All of that culminated with Gaines going down with a Lisfranc injury near the end of the season.

Seeded 10th against Michigan State in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Gaines, one of Georgia's best players a year ago, did everything he could to gut out the pain -- which he said was a 9.2 on a scale of one to 10.

The Bulldogs trailed early, but put together a valiant comeback before losing 70-63. Gaines' foot limited him defensively and Parker was unable to play. And as Georgia returned to Athens for the rest of the tournament, it happened to see the deep run to the Spartans made.

And it only made Gaines wonder.

"If we were healthy, we could've been in the Final Four," Gaines said Wednesday at SEC Tipoff in Charlotte, North Carolina. "That's the first thing that comes to my mind."

If Georgia slipped past Michigan State, even with a 100-percent healthy roster, it would have been a tough road to the national semifinal, considering the teams Michigan State beat -- No. 2 Virginia, No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 4 Louisville.

But with a seventh-seeded team like the Spartans making the run they did, Gaines has been thinking what could have been.

The wonder has turned to optimism, however, now that this team is finally nearing full strength. On Tuesday, all 14 players practiced for the first time this preseason. Gaines and Parker have been eased in but have been cleared for contact.

And with Gaines, a senior leader, the Bulldogs appear poised to field its best team in the Mark Fox era. While Georgia lost senior big men Marcus Thornton and Nemanja Djurisic to graduation, four guards with experience return, as does sophomore forward Yante Maten. Freshman center Derek Ogbeide is a potential candidate to start, with freshman Mike Edwards expected to play key minutes.

And most importantly, every player, at this stage, is healthy enough to practice.

"I think if we were healthy last year, we could have maybe had a better finish," Fox said. "It's part of the game. Every year starts over. The fact that we won last year and won the year before, that has nothing to do with this year. We have to turn this group into a winner."

Gaines and guard Charles Mann have assumed the role as Georgia's leaders as the lone two seniors, helping the program record back-to-back 20-win seasons for only the third time.

It's been a while since the Bulldogs have built the kind of buzz it has going into this season. The media pegged Georgia to finish fifth in the conference and placed Mann as a preseason All-SEC second-team selection.

Gaines and Mann both said last year's team had the talent for a deep run in the NCAA tournament. Injuries aside, they believe a foundation has been set to build on the recent success.

"When the two of us came here, that's what we wanted to do," Mann said. "We're in a process of doing it. It's not done yet. We have one more year left, and there's another level we can help the program get to."

This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 11:11 PM with the headline "Kenny Gaines, Georgia healthy and confident ."