UGA BEAT: AD issues not hurting recruiting

Not having an athletics director is apparently not a bad thing for Georgia recruiting. Over the weekend, the Dawgs received commitments from football recruits Nathan Theus and Zach Debell on Friday before receiving a pledge from 2011 hoops recruit Kentavious Caldwell on Saturday.These bigtime commitments come just two weeks removed from former AD Damon Evans resigning from his post after a DUI.

The two football commits will help add depth to a veteran offensive line that will feature several juniors and seniors in 2010. In the past, Georgia teams have been light on depth after senior-laden lines have run out of eligibility, but appears that Mark Richt and his staff are trying to remedy that issue.  Debell is an offensive tackle prospect and is the second such propect in this class. He chose Athens over offers from Florida, Notre Dame, Tennessee, UCLA and others and joins Dalton’s Watts Dantzler as the only OT prospects in the class.

The other commitment over the weekend to Richt’s squad was Nathan Theus, a long snapper/center prospect from Jacksonville. Theus attends the same high school – the Bolles School – that Georgia freshman Brent Benedict and senior Shaun Chapas graduated from. Also, Theus’ younger brother is a highly-regarded OT prospect for the 2012 class. Some have speculated that the offer was given to Theus in order to encourage his younger brother to sign with the Bulldogs.

Caldwell, a shooting guard, has been recognized as the No. 1 recruit in the state for his class and symbolizes  Georgia’s highest-ranked basketball commitment since Louis Williams signed with Dennis Felton in 2005 before declaring for the NBA Draft. He also represents the first commitment for the 2011 class and is the latest in a line of high-profile state of Georgia natives to have committed to Mark Fox’s program.

Nick Marshall of Wilcox County and 2010 Mr. Basketball Marcus Thornton have also committed to UGA. Marshall is expected to play both football and basketball at UGA and chose the Dawgs over Alabama, Florida State and Georgia Tech. Thornton was originally committed to Clemson, but decommitted after the departure of basketball coach Oliver Purnell who left the Tigers for DePaul. He then selected the Dawgs over offers from Alabama, Florida, Georgia Tech, Kentucky and Texas.

The commitments of Marshall, Thornton and Caldwell have excited a once-dormant UGA basketball fanbase and given Fox’s program a huge boost perception-wise. When hired, Georgia fans were concerned about Fox being able to recruit the state successfully, as he had admittedly never had a job in this part of the country.

But those concerns  have been alleviated, as assistant coaches Stacey Palmore, Kwana Johnson and Philip Pearson have managed to make waves throughout the state and the southeast in recruiting. A season that saw the hoops team defeat conference powers Tennessee, Florida and Vanderbilt while also giving ultra-talented Kentucky a run for their money in Lexington showed many that Fox could coach and that UGA was for real. The Dawgs also defeated a highly-regarded (at the time) Tech squad that was favored to beat them easily.

The future is bright for UGA hoops, as the Caldwell commitment proved.