The Jeckyll and Hyde of it

Good pre-game read by Weiszer today on the frustrating story that is the Hoop Dawgs' second halves, especially of late. Case in point, today we take on the same South Carolina team we held to 9 (NINE!!!) 1st half points a couple weeks ago. We then held on to win 60-56 in Columbia.

Jeckyll, meet Hyde.

The question that persists surrounds why Georgia keeps collapsing in the second half.

The latest came in a 71-62 loss to Florida on Thursday night, a game the Bulldogs led by as many as 11 points in the first half and by seven at halftime.

“I think that we’ve got to have a better mental endurance,” coach Mark Fox said Friday. “I think our ability to concentrate and be assignment-sound for 40 minutes is not where it needs to be.”

Georgia has held halftime leads in each of its past six games, but went 3-3 in that stretch with losses to Xavier, Vanderbilt and Florida.

That has kept the Bulldogs (18-9, 7-6 SEC) on unstable ground for an NCAA tournament at-large berth. ESPN.com’s Joe Lunardi on Friday had Georgia, now with a No. 41 RPI, as one of the last four in his projected bracket.

The Bulldogs allowed 10 offensive rebounds in the second half of games against South Carolina and Vanderbilt to allow those teams to rally.

All kidding aside, I doubt Fox is having everyone join hands and leading the team in singing Kum Bay Yah at halftime. The problem is no one stepping up. For all of Thompkins' talent, I don't see a floor leader in him. Leslie's dunks are loud, but not his voice. Vern Fleming...finished matriculating decades ago Dawg. 


We need someone to jerk a knot when necessary. Someone wearing gym shorts, not just a suit and a tie. We need someone to kill Mr. Hyde. Cuz that dude's insanity is going to get us no where near the madness we're hoping for.

Jeremy Price Interview

Found this Bulldawg Illustrated interview of Jeremy Price by Chelsea Lipocky. I wonder if Perno could use him after hoops comes to a close...??

Three Dimensional Thoughts on the HoopDawgs

ESPN sucks.

Yet I digress. As goes Jeremy Price, so go the Hoop Dawgs. It's a symbiotic relationship that was begging for nutrition last night in the swamp. Yet, despite success from the low block...we just couldn't get it to the big man enough.

Georgia's game is inside, then out. Back inside if necessary. Open up the perimeter honestly through hard work on the inside. Price is big and good enough to carry this team two nights a week. But we couldn't get it to him enough and struggled mightily defensively. I'm not convinced  floriDuh is a better team, but they swept us so there's that.

I was impressed by our attitude in the first twenty. But our energy faded mightily in the second stanza, a habit that must be broken...immediately. I mean seriously, is Coach Fox lighting incense candles and leading the team in yoga at halftime? It's like we're dragging around drip bags of morphine in the the first five minutes of each second half. By the time we work it off, ESPN has already plugged its 3D coverage more than I've seen the wrong side of the backboard from section UU, row 13.

Last night wasn't the end of the world. But it sure tasted like crap. As Buddy said, we tried to dance and they stepped on our toes.

Coaches Gone Wild!

From Uncle David, who happens to be a Damn Good Dawg as well as a Pirate over forty...


Tim Floyd on the other hand, just went crazy as a $hithouse rat the other night.

If that ref is sleeping with Floyd's wife, well...then I might understand. But damn son, take a cue from Eustachy and have a Pabst with a coed.

So you think you can DANCE!

Saturday was awesome! No mistake about that. But I'm anxious about tonight. I'm convinced we can still make it to the tourney without a win in gayturdsville, but it'd be nice to exact some revenge after they broke our hearts we let them kick us in the eye last month.

I think we learn a lot about our team tonight. I expect them to fight hard, show some toughness on the road. If they don't, then it will probably get ugly. Either way, tomorrow I expect to have a better idea of how deep we can make a run in March.

In short, how much bite do these Dawgs have?

NCAA Goin' Ham in Knoxville

Let's connect the NCAA investigative dots, shall we?


First, Lane Kiffin. Used Knoxville as a trampoline to vault himself into sunny LA. In his wake however was more than a stench of smoldering Tempur-pedics, the NCAA was long sick of his...ahem!...shenanigans and was ready to knock on doors and pore through files. Now it looks like KiffyBaby's successor will be left with casualties, but nothing insurmountable.

The violations outlined in the NCAA’s report could end up costing the Vols some recruiting visits, limit who goes out on the road during contact periods and maybe even dock them a scholarship or two, although precedent in similar cases suggests scholarship reductions probably won’t be one of the penalties handed down by the NCAA.

But the more serious charge of failure to monitor was slapped on Kiffin … and not Tennessee.

For Dooley and the current team, that’s a huge win. 

Then there's Bruce. His fate appears to have been sealed by his own belligerence.  

The worst of it all is that after being caught, Pearl didn't stop breaking rules. His press conference where he tearfully apologized for his transgressions happened on September 10, 2010. The Notice of Allegations documents that Pearl and Jones made improper contact with a recruit on September 14, 2010. Just four days after getting formally busted and having a heap of sanctions put on his program, Pearl was back out there violating bylaws again.

Given that fact, I can't see how Pearl will make it through this whole process and still be employed by Tennessee. He's not just a rule breaker, but a committed rule breaker who kept doing it after being caught. If Pearl can survive this, how can anyone take any kind of ethics code at UT seriously?

Pearl was tarnished by his own misdeeds. Kiffin may have hung himself with a rope as long as I-40. But it was another who cracked open the oyster. There's a third party that supplied the idiot boy with the hemp.


Mike Hamilton, you make Dave Braine look like he actually had one. 

AnkleGate -One small step for accountability, one giant leap into the craptasm

AnkleGate has been a bitter pill to swallow at 540 Baxter St these last couple days. The news world moves so fast these days the pressure to be FIRST!! is ever increasing. The Red and Black's Zach Dillard had a long drive but fumbled on the one yard line. But give credit to him for knowing when it's time to come clean. After reading the diatribe admittance however, it comes across as if he left the soap on the shelf.

At around 1 p.m. on Monday, The Red & Black broke the story that Murray, Georgia’s starting quarterback, had injured his ankle and was getting around campus on crutches and in a boot. The Red & Black broke how he injured the ankle, in an activity with teammates and friends (it came out later to be a pick-up soccer game). The Red & Black broke that he injured the ankle on Saturday.

No other publication had the information or the story, and the article sent the Georgia sports media and fans into a tailspin of hysteria trying to catch up on every detail of the injury.

Now that's just a snippet of the "story". Dillard uses phrases like "personal responsibility" and admits that the story he wrote was inaccurate. But as a whole the essay comes across as more of a long advertisement that the campus newspaper was the first to report of the injury. A broken ankle would've been a huge story in a long dull off season. A sprained ankle is pedestrian print at best. And when he types things like -

The only regret, my only regret, is those two words — broken and injured — that made all the difference between a completely accurate breaking news story and being shunned for “yellow journalism.”

- it leads me to believe that the most important lesson has yet to learned. For it's not who's FIRST!! Mr. Dillard that matters most. It's who's RIGHT!!

Of Aaron Murray and Bicycle Kicks

Personally, I blame AJ Green. Word on the intramural fields is the all world receiver can execute a perfect bicycle kick on the pitch (official soccer lingo for field). He leaves campus before passing along said knowledge, skills to his QB.


Well, my name is Bernie. I'm here to help.

Thanks Chris. After that brief instruction, I think where Murray went wrong was he planted his non-striking foot then tried to overcorrect while in the air before landing awkwardly. That may sound like a rookie mistake on the surface, but even for an athlete as finely tuned as #11 it takes practice.

The important things to remember are that our QBs ankle is not broken, any installed bionic part would only be a downgrade and Murray typically hustles back to perform pretty well after an injury.


But don't take my word for it:

Monday's Meatloaf, sans the taters

I stand corrected. I guess sometimes you just have to kick a FG from the 2 yard line. I had almost completely finished today's regular feature post, worked it almost all the way to the goal line to click Publish. But there's some issue that's preventing a full meal this morning. So the taters and green beans will be scraped from the the buffet line. I hope that 3 points the main dish is enough.

Today's Ingredients

• hoopdawg rounds out the win Saturday at the Tommy bowl, first time in a decade.
• Accoring to RealTimeRPI, Georgia's up to 38th with a SOS of 30.
• Speaking of RPI, Corbindawg got a chuckle at "coach" Hewitt's location on Sportscenter this weekend.
• If you're still one of those SEC dweebs that pulls for the conference whenever in whatever, read carefully the Senator's point about conference allegiance in how Boise State is using their frequent flyer miles this off season.
• Weiszer updates us on the progress on Christian LeMay.
• Bill King is ready to revise the book on Georgia's all time greatest receiver, post AJ.
• Thousands of Auburn fans turned out for the rally at Toomer's Corner Saturday and one fan has lost all sense of perspective in the wake of one Bama fan's insanity. (h/t ecdawg)
• Luckily for us, we have Exile to refocus the lens.
• I had forgotten about Bob Nelson's football standup routine until I saw it posted yesterday at Dawgs and B Street. Funny stuff indeed. A classic.

I guess I could've just made it an unprecedented Tuesday edition of meatloaf. But a good cook always uses fresh ingredients.

So here's a napkin Reader. Have a good President's Day.

Bernie

- Posted using BlogPress from Bernie's iPhone

Rough Diamond

Blogger has rendered today's meatloaf untouchable due to login issues. Hopefully by lunchtime it will be remedied. In the meantime, I can evidently still post from my phone...so...

I figured it would be a tough year on the diamond. But swept!.....by Stetson!?!

Here's what Coach Perno had to say.

"We had our chances today and overall, we had some experienced guys just have a tough weekend," Georgia coach David Perno said in a news release. "We've got a lot of baseball left, and I saw some good things, especially from Alex Wood and Patrick Boling on the mound, and Chase Davidson and Jonathan Hester at the plate. We're disappointed at being 0-3, and we have to get better on the mound and at the plate. I thought we played good defense."

I try not to take quotes out of perspective. And the season is only three games old. But it's a theme with Perno to hold players accountable through the media. But the coaches get the pass.

- Posted using BlogPress from Bernie's iPhone

Thank you sir, may I have another?*

Finally, proof that you don't have to guard Scott Hopson a full 36 minutes to win a road game in the Tommy bowl.

Was it over when Bruce Pearl whore'd out for a sideline interview? NO! Who's with me?!?

I am NOT in my living room!

• Was there a second half collapse in intensity? Yes. But unlike Wednesday night when we just cashed in our chips, this time we stared back across the table and went all in. 
• Clutch game for Price. Clutch free throws for Ware. Nice win to impress the NCAA tourney elites.
• Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life Coach Pearl.
• Although we inexplicably left Hopson open too often, too much. I'm still impressed by our defensive strides this season. We can really tighten down when we need to.
• And for all the problems Gerald Robinson has had offensively in SEC play, he's done pretty well defensively since the Florida game.
• Raise your hand held device if you've grown tired of seeing Trey camped out far enough from the basket to score one not score one.
• It tends to always come down to rebounds. And yesterday we won the boards 35-27. Tennessee didn't shoot lights out (about 41%) and we didn't give them too many second chances.
• But more than anything, yes...I'm proud of the team for the effort. Great win. About a decade in the making.

So now it's time to create another road win in Gainesville. 

*this post written almost entirely while watching Animal House for the 101st time. If Dorfman was a legacy, we just had to let him in.