UGA’s basketball coach establishes contact with Derrick Favors’ coach
Derrick Favor: Signing with Georgia Tech in seven days. (AJC)
Georgia’s new basketball coach, Mark Fox, made contact with the high school coach of Derrick Favors, who is ranked as the nation’s No. 1 college prospect by several recruiting services.
Favors committed to Georgia Tech over UGA, Memphis, and North Carolina State in January, and confirmed to the AJC that he will sign with the Yellow Jackets on April 15.
South Atlanta coach Michael Reddick said he spoke around 5-10 minutes to Georgia’s Fox. “He wasn’t asking about Derrick. [Fox] said he just wanted to establish communications with coaches in the area. He said he doesn’t want to let great players get out of Georgia. He wants to make sure he handles himself in the right way when it comes to building relationships with players and coaches in the state.”
Fox is relatively unknown within the state’s high school basketball community, but it appears he is going to do his best to change that as quickly as possible. “Over the phone, [Fox] sounded like a good guy,” Reddick said. “I hope he has a lot of success. I let him know that we have another big kid on our roster. [Fox] said once he gets settled next week, he’s going to make contact and stop by the school in the near future. He said he wants to hit the ground running. I was impressed.”
Did Fox ask about Favors? Did he mention his name at least once? “No, he didn’t really ask about Derrick,” Reddick said. “He knows that Derrick is not going to change his mind. [Fox's] focus is with players for future years. He’s not looking for Derrick because everyone knows Derrick is going to Georgia Tech.”
Reddick confirmed to the AJC that he hasn’t heard from John Calipari, who left Memphis to take over as Kentucky’s new coach. Favors developed a close relationship with Calipari, who nearly landed Favors for Memphis. On Wednesday, DeMarcus Cousins, another one of the county’s elite prospects, switched his commitment from Memphis to Kentucky to follow Calipari.
The 6-foot-9 Favors will sign with Georgia Tech around noon in a ceremony at South Atlanta on April 15.
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30 comments Add your comment
UGA INSIDER
April 8th, 2009
10:40 pm
I’m still not happy Fox didn’t give Favors the courtesy call the same day he was hired. But he made up for it. Good move by Fox. We’re going to be OK. He’s got to hit the AAU circuit hard this summer.
jp
April 8th, 2009
10:48 pm
because Favors was not going to change his mind. That’s as easy as it sounds. Derrick is great and wants to be close to home. Plus GT is closer to the tournament than we are right now.
TW
April 9th, 2009
12:37 am
Enter your comments here
Fin
April 9th, 2009
1:22 am
Wonder how many coaches did Fox call? He needs to call Whitfield Co, Norcross, Dunwoody, Wheeler coaches..lots of talent at those schools
Hairy Dawg
April 9th, 2009
1:24 am
Sounds like Fox knows what he’s doing. Some good recruits certainly wouldn’t hurt.
WTF
April 9th, 2009
2:50 am
Sounds like he needs to hire Fin as his appointments secretary. Fox already showed that he knows how to recruit and just hired Pierson who is well known in Southern recruiting circles.
UGA Insider, get over it. Maybe he has enough integrity to honor Favors commitment to Tech.
Diamond Dawg
April 9th, 2009
7:20 am
Need one or two big recruits from the state and we’ll be on our way
Red Foreman
April 9th, 2009
7:27 am
HAHAHAHAHAHA
ugay
HAHAHAHAHAHA
ugay
Judge Smales
April 9th, 2009
7:41 am
Like anyone would really want to play in a rodeo arena. hahahahahahaha
Ferndolin
April 9th, 2009
8:09 am
Like what I’m seeing in Fox so far. He’s got energy and seems committed to putting UGA roundball back on the map.
foxdog
April 9th, 2009
9:40 am
Judge and Red, he who laughs last laughs best!!
Ferndolin
April 9th, 2009
10:37 am
Red and Judge – I’m telling you. Ever been to Cameron Indoor? It’s not at all about the facility. Maybe you two are in need of cush and all that, but most UGA hoops fans like it just like it is.
BRING IT ON, SEC. WE’LL BE READY!!
esaun
April 9th, 2009
12:35 pm
definitely not a Kentucky fan but man how awesome would it be to see Cali coaching a freakish fab 5. Favors, Cousins, Orton, Walls, and Henry are all elite recruits who are only going to do it one year; might as well make it special.
Chuck Uga
April 9th, 2009
1:01 pm
Hey Techmites, when was the last time GA Tech won a basketball game in Athens? It was over 30 years ago!! Guess that rodeo arena works well for us!
Dawg1
April 9th, 2009
1:23 pm
While not privy to what the new coach is doing, it does seem reasonable that if he called one coach, he likely called several.
If CMF is going to do this the right way, it means a ‘grass roots’ program where he builds it through the coaching community in Georgia. That means it will take some time.
Be patient folks. This is not going to turn around over night. Next year promises to be a year solid fundamental basketball, with limited talent. It means they will likely win the one’s their supposed to win and lose most of the one’s their supposed to lose.
The best thing we can do is show up and support the program, understanding that the best is yet to come.
MB
April 9th, 2009
2:10 pm
Chuck uga—how many years was the game held in the Omni? Who has the series lead? Go pound sand….
Saint Simons
April 9th, 2009
2:58 pm
45-42!!!!! hahahahahahahahahahahahah
Roy Williams
April 9th, 2009
4:47 pm
A once and done year from Derrick Favors won’t change a thing: Hewitt and the Yellow Belly’s will remain ACC whipping boys for the next decade. At least UGA has a chance at getting better in their conference.
St Simons Dawg
April 9th, 2009
7:09 pm
I’m glad to see UGA moving in the right direction with coach Fox. He seems to have plenty of enthusiasm to continue his winning ways, even in a stronger conference and new recruiting grounds. Like all true Dawg fans, I’ll be behind him 100%.
Sudheer
April 9th, 2009
7:23 pm
uga gets basketball recuits that are equal in talent to ga tech’s football walk ons. georgia tech will have a much better chance to compete in the ACC next year than Uga in the SEC.
Joe Schmoe
April 9th, 2009
8:32 pm
Roy, is UGA rising in the SEC Basketball any real accomplishment? Seriously, do they play basketball in that confrence?
Steve
April 9th, 2009
9:16 pm
4 Nat’l Championships in 11 years in the SEC East – I would say we play basketball in this conference. Or how about Calipari, Donovan, Pearl, Stallings – not a bad 4’som of coaches in the East either.
Steve
April 9th, 2009
9:21 pm
My only concern about this entire transition is, “Is Mark Fox better than Dennis Felton”? I don’t know. I think we got Mr. Integrity in Coach Felton to clean us up – told him to focus on Academics then on Wins and Losses. And when he did, we canned him. If you look at his last 3 recruiting classes, he was building a solid program here. His biggest problem was his attrition rate – losing Jacobs and Humphries this past year probably took us from a winning record to the abysmal year we had. But I am a big Coach Fox supporter, and hope he does well. Remember, if he wins this year, it will be a miracle. If he wins the next year, it will be Feltons Sr. and Jrs doing the job.
Willy
April 9th, 2009
9:41 pm
UGA is the worst team in the worst conference. I wonder if there pathetic team would win 4 games in the pathetic WAC conference were Mark Fox came from?
Steve
April 9th, 2009
11:59 pm
No, according to the RPI ratings, the WAC is the 11th ranked conference, the SEC 6th – part of my concern about Caoch Fox performing at this level.He sure seems like the real deal however. I doubt he will never out recruit Paul Hewit, but he might out coach him.
gte268p
April 10th, 2009
9:37 am
a “ceremony”? A “ceremony” to sign a piece of paper saying you’re going to play basketball somewhere?! Look, I’m excited Favors chose Tech, but we as society are not doing anyone any favors by setting these kids up to have giant egos and become vain, rich nuisances of society, or else hit rock bottom and become menaces to society. Of course this doesn’t happen with every athlete at all – more often than not it doesn’t, and I know nothing of the upbringing or charactor of Derek Favors, so hopefully he takes everything gracefully in stride. I just think we need to tone things down!
bwell
April 10th, 2009
12:44 pm
I was very upset with Evans picking Fox; but looking at it now, maybe Ga will benefit from hiring Fox in the near future. I like the idea that coach fox is establishing contacts with high school coaches, what did Felton establish
hop
April 11th, 2009
6:22 am
fox deserves a chance and he will get it from the dawgnation.
there is much talent in the state so it will be interesting to see if he can attract these kids to uga.
chad
April 11th, 2009
9:55 am
No one ugay hires has a chance to do well. The school doesn’t support the team the way it should. Hell Hugh Durham went to a final four, memory serves me correctly the higher ups got rid of him. Face it ugay basketball is a long running joke.
clickdawg
April 13th, 2009
3:47 pm
what has tech basketball program done lately? as for uga, we won a confrence title in your crappy building a year ago. hahaha.