By Ray Glier For the AJC
ATHENS -- Trey Thompkins, a 6-foot-10 junior forward, and Gerald Robinson, a 6-1 junior guard, two of the avengers of the Georgia basketball program, were sitting on stools 10 feet apart here Tuesday in an interview area.
They did not exactly say the Bulldogs are preparing to come roaring out of the coma induced by NCAA sanctions in the Jim Harrick Era and the mediocrity of Harrick’s successor, Dennis Felton.
But Thompkins and Robinson had this presence about them, something easily sensed that Georgia is about to get even for a few things over the past seven seasons.
“I knew we could do something great with the nucleus that we had, and I just didn’t want to leave something that was possible,” said Thompkins, who was NBA draft-eligible following last season, but decided to return. “I wanted to leave my stamp as a guy who was a winner and as a guy who wanted to create something great and who was part of something that changed at the university.”
The Bulldogs are going to be in most national polls when the season starts Nov. 12 against Mississippi Valley State. They have four returning starters, and add Robinson, a transfer from Tennessee State, who Thompkins describes as “blistering” fast.
Coach Mark Fox, who is in his second season, hauled in high school star Marcus Thornton from Westlake to add to the mix for a team that likely will challenge Kentucky and Florida in the SEC East.
Georgia was 14-17 last season. It was 12-20 the season before in Felton’s last season. The Bulldogs have not engendered much respect since Harrick left in disgrace in March 2003. Their record in the next seven seasons was 101-117.
Not much was expected of Fox’s first team in 2009-10, which lacked depth in the backcourt and was overwhelmed on the road (0-11). This season with Thompkins, Robinson, and the Columbia High School duo -- acrobatic Travis Leslie and rugged power forward Jeremy Price -- the Bulldogs have the makings of a powerhouse.
“Last year we were trying to prove everybody wrong,” said Fox, whose reputation is growing as a tactician and teacher. “This year we’re trying to prove everybody right. I love the fact we have a buzz about our program.”
Thompkins returns after averaging 17.7 points per game last season. Leslie, who burst on the scene last season, comes back with a 14.8 average, which included the 34 he dropped on Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament in Nashville.
The club adds Robinson, the lickety-split fast guard who can gash a defense. When he decided to leave Tennessee State, where his father is the tennis coach, Robinson picked Georgia over Alabama, UCLA, and Memphis.
Price, who is 6-8, 270 pounds, comes back in the best shape of his career and has the ambition to thrust himself into the 2011 NBA draft discussion. Dustin Ware, a 5-11 junior, led the SEC in assist-to-turnover ratio in the 16-game conference schedule.
Georgia will continue to run a variation of the Triangle offense that Phil Jackson uses with the Lakers, but what will be different will be the style on defense.
“I played more zone last year than I played in the previous five years,” Fox said. “We didn’t have the depth to play a different way. We have more depth.”
Going from zone to man-to-man is not the only culture change around the program. The front door to Stegeman Coliseum, home of the Georgia program, is undergoing a $13 million facelift and the caretaker of the program, athletic director Greg McGarity, insists basketball will get as much of his attention as football. He was formerly executive associate athletic director at Florida, which won titles in both sports in the same season.
Thompkins, who was sharing the interview room with Georgia football players Tuesday, provided another hint of what is about to unfold.
He gestured toward the football Dogs and said, “They’re going to be coming to our games now” as if to say basketball was going to be the spectacle on campus for a few months, not football.
GO DAWGS
