Few people know that Mark Slonaker, who played there in the 1970s, was the coach of the Georgia men's basketball team in the 1980's and 90's.
The Georgia program has seen many highs and lows over the course of nearly five decades, and Slonaker has seen many of the highs and lows.
We have had good teams, we have had short bursts of two, three, four years in a row where we were good and excited. We can't sustain it because something happens when we get to that point.
Those events are referred to as thunderbolts by Slonaker, who previously served as the school's executive director of athletics alumni relations. Over the past 25 years, lightning has struck Georgia basketball twice.
In 1994, with the best recruiting class in school history coming of age, then-athletic director Vince Dooley gave Hugh Durham, the only coach to guide the bulldogs to the Final Four, a mandate to show significant improvement. Durham was let go after 17 seasons.
Tubby Smith was hired by Dooley to replace Durham and he took the team to the Sweet 16 in his first season. Rick Pitino was hired by the Boston Celtics after M.L. Carr was fired. Smith won a national championship at Kentucky in 1998 after taking over the blueblood Cats.
After two mediocre seasons under Smith's top assistant, Ron Jirsa, the Bulldogs went searching for a proven coach to rebuild the program. Jim Harrick, who won a national title at UCLA in 1995 but was fired before the start of the 1996-97 season for trying to cover up a dinner tab for two of his players, was the one they chose.
When Georgia hired Harrick away from Rhode Island in 1999, he almost changed his mind because the school wouldn't let him bring his son as an assistant coach. Georgia was going to hire Delaware coach Mike Brey instead of withdrawing the job offer after Harrick waffled. The Civil War battlefield in Virginia didn't have good cell service. Harrick changed his mind again and accepted the job.
The NCAA investigation into improper benefits and academic fraud resulted in Harrick's resignation in 2003 after he took the team to back-to-back NCAA tournaments.
Since then, they have been climbing uphill, and now they are rock bottom under Tom Crean. Georgia has lost 24 games in a row, a school record, after falling to Tennessee on Tuesday. The last place in the league will be the 1-16 record against SEC foes.
Crean said it has been difficult to focus on the things that he is a part of every day.
Sometime after next week's SEC tournament, Crean is expected to be fired and another coach will be hired. Crean is owed a $3.2 million buyout under the terms of his contract.
The athletic director of Georgia wouldn't comment on the story.
For an athletic program that won a national championship in football this past season, and has won national titles in baseball, golf, tennis, track and field, gymnastics and swimming and diving, Georgia's inability to field a competitive men's basketball team that can annually compete for a title is
Greg McGarity, the former Georgia athletic director, said it was incomprehensible. There are a lot of people that don't know.
Georgia has not won an NCAA tournament game since upsetting No. 1 seed Purdue in 1996. The third longest Power 5 school is the 26 year dry spell. Only Nebraska, which has never won a game in the NCAAs, and TCU, which has never won a game in the NCAAs, have waited longer.
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It has the fourth-longest streak in the Power 5 leagues, even if you include Georgia's first-round victory over Murray State in the 2002 NCAA tournament, which was later vacated because of NCAA sanctions related to Harrick.
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. It has been a struggle to develop consistency at Georgia, where you can be in the tournament or on the bubble year after year. When you are not in contention, that is an odd year. That is where you want to be. It can be done.
Western Kentucky had three straight NCAA tournament appearances under Dennis Felton. He took over a Georgia program that was on the verge of being placed on academic watch and only made the NCAAs once in six seasons. After a tornado hit the Georgia Dome, the games had to be moved to Georgia Tech's arena.
Mark Fox won six of his nine seasons at Georgia. He was fired after he lost in the first round of the NCAAs twice.
Crean guided Indiana to two Big Ten titles and the Sweet 16 three times. He was thought to be a proven coach who could get Georgia over the hump. He has only one winning season in the four years he's been at the school.
Crean said attendance records were set in the first two years. It affected our recruiting in a big way because of the hit to COVID-19.
This season could not have gone worse. Nine Georgia players entered the transfer portal after the 2020-21 season, including the team's six leading scorers. P.J. Horne, the team's only returning starter, missed the season because of a knee injury.
After the roster was gutted, Crean and his staff added nine transfers. Jailyn was expected to be one of the team's better players, but he tore his knee in the ninth game. Transferring from programs across the country never meshed. The team allows 78.2 points per game and has a field goal percentage of 888-492-0 888-492-0.
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Crean said that they didn't have an opportunity to replace Anthony Edwards, the No. 1 pick in the draft. We played through the COVID season and had transfers. Maybe that part of it is different if a couple of transfers are different.
We lost two key guys that we didn't have replacements for. We have tried to manufacture things without those guys.
The losing has taken its toll on the team. The assistant coach was suspended with pay while the athletic department investigated an incident that took place at halftime of the LSU game. Brian Fish is the director of player personnel.
Willie Anderson, a former NBA player, couldn't believe what he saw at the reunion of Georgia players and coaches. Georgia lost to Ole Miss in front of a half-empty arena, but the Rebels got 20 points from a man who had spent three seasons at Georgia.
It has been a familiar sight for the Dogs. Georgia is losing to many players who grew up in the state, or even worse, once played for the school.
Anderson played at Georgia from 1984 to 1988 and spent 10 seasons in the NBA.
In Saturday's loss to Florida, the Gators guard scored a season-high 27 points with five rebound and four assists. Fleming was a two-time Big South Defensive Player of the Year at Charleston Southern, but he was not offered by the Bulldogs after high school.
In the loss to Arkansas, Notae scored 23 points with nine rebound, six assists and three steals. Notae was passed on by the Bulldogs while he was playing atNewton High School and again when he transferred from Jacksonville University.
Notae told reporters last month that they didn't recruit him.
On rare occasions this season, the Bulldogs have played well, like in their game against No. 1 auburn on Feb. 5, but they have been bitten by familiar foes. K.D. Johnson, who played at Georgia last season, scored 20 points in the victory. Walker Kessler is the son of Chad and Alec Kessler and nephew of Houston Kessler.
The only way to get more salt in their wounds would be to jump in the ocean after wrestling a porcupine.
Durham, who is Georgia's winningest coach with That is as simple as you can get. You have to be able to recruit the state and get some quality players out of the area. You might say that we can't recruit Atlanta, but you have to be able to recruit Atlanta.
Georgia has failed when it comes to recruiting in Atlanta, but it has failed in the state as a whole. Only five of the 66 players from Georgia who were included in the ESPN 100 have been signed by the Bulldogs. During that time period, 10 top-100 players from Georgia were signed by auburn.
"It's been mystifying. Because if you look back on the history of the program, you've had some really, really good coaches that never were able to sustain consistency. There are a lot of people that haven't figured it out."former Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity
The top player in the state in the past 10 years has been Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. There was not enough talent around them to make a difference. In the two seasons that Caldwell-Pope was in, they went 30-34 and 16-16.
Slonaker said that they had had coaches who didn't have any feel for the history of Georgia and didn't have relationships with the state.
If you take the five best teams in Georgia's history, the roster is going to look like seven kids from the state of Georgia with two really good out-of-state players. There will be some fluctuations, but that is pretty much what it will look like. We have gotten away from that.
The president of the Atlanta Celtics, one of the top grassroots programs in the country, has helped develop many of the best players from the state, including future NBA players. He worked with Smith, a potential No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
It's very difficult to understand, and I know everybody who recruits, but they haven't been able to get the kids in Georgia.
He has never met Crean. The head coach says that Georgia's coaches worked with other people in the Celtics program and recruited Smith.
The kids love the state of Georgia, but they haven't signed with that program. It is a puzzle and a mystery to me. I don't have a single child that has come through my program that dislikes Georgia football. I cannot put my finger on it.
Fox mostly shied away from recruiting grassroots players in Atlanta.
Most of the top players are playing on the grassroots circuit.
The Celtics have produced 28 NBA players, 17 McDonald's All-Americans and hundreds of Division I players.
The same thing happened with Georgia Tech. The state is loaded with talent. Kentucky, Alabama,Auburn and Tennessee are all coming at us. Georgia ignores us. It doesn't make sense.
Anderson, who trains college prospects at a gym in Atlanta, has been perplexed by Georgia's recruiting efforts.
Anderson said that he sees Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton in Georgia more than he sees the Georgia coaches. We have to beat these guys. The top guys from Georgia at LSU, Kentucky, and every SEC program, but not at UGA. We have enough players in this state to win.
Crean said it has been difficult with so much speculation about his future.
Crean said that there are going to be challenges and there are a lot of things that go into that. It is very difficult to deal with. We were locked in on a lot of good players, but it didn't happen for us. We were close to a lot of guys, but it didn't happen.
Stegeman Coliseum has long been considered a recruiting obstacle. The facility has undergone a number of renovations, including a $13 million renovation in 2010 that upgraded the concourses and an $8 million investment in 2016 that added new seating areas and a center-hung board. According to sources, the basketball facilities are perceived to be near the bottom of the conference despite a $30 million training facility opening in 2007.
You take recruits to the practice facility and then do a few laps around Stegeman Coliseum, but you don't take them underneath that place, according to a former Georgia assistant. It is not comparable to other facilities in the SEC if you get in there.
After Georgia defeated Alabama in the College Football Playoff National Championship on January 10, they were able to stop being hounded about their lack of a football title.
After ending that dubious mark, he is going to try to end another one -- 26 years without an NCAA tournament victory.
Slonaker said that they have to get this hire right.
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