The Georgia Bulldogs are 13-2, you can look it up. If anyone is walking around the Peach State saying that they predicted this before the season, they're giving George O'Leary a run for his blarney.
No way, no how. Just ask the coach, who is as surprised as anyone.
"We're a lot better than expected," Jim Harrick said. "Because no one knew who was on our team. We've come out of nowhere, and I like that."
|  | | Jim Harrick is even surprised (albeit pleasently) about his team's early success. |
Here's how far out of nowhere: The Bulldogs are more than three-quarters of the way to last year's 16 victories, despite a wipeout of returning talent and experience. Leading scorer D.A. Layne made an unwise early NBA jump and their three top post players -- seniors Shon Coleman, Anthony Evans and Robb Dryden -- are gone as well.
In their places has come a merry band of sophomores, virtually none of whom arrived in Athens with discernible recruiting hype. Shoot, none of them arrived at the start of this year with much of any hype.
There was holdover forward Ezra Williams, who was pleasantly productive as a freshman, and solid point guard Rashad Wright. That was about it. Nobody on the roster taller than 6-foot-8 or bulkier than 230 pounds, and not a single senior who averaged so much as 2 points per game the year before.
No wonder Georgia was picked fifth in the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division. And even that looked like an insult to sixth-place Vanderbilt.
Then this group of six sophs and a first-year junior from junior college started playing. And winning. And surprising.
The Bulldogs shocked Georgetown on a neutral floor in Springfield, Mass., by a fat 14. They rolled Minnesota by 22. The waxed rival Georgia Tech by 13. They whipped Pepperdine by 17 on the road. They opened SEC play with a 13-point home victory over Vandy. Then they shocked Kentucky in Lexington.
The only flat notes have been a five-point loss to 2001 NCAA Tournament team Georgia State and a 10-point defeat at Hawaii. But if hoopsworld needs final proof from the Bulldogs, they got it Wednesday night.
Georgia entered the game against No. 9 Kentucky 2-50 -- yes, 2-50 -- in Lexington. The Bulldogs' last win there was 1985, which sounds like a very long time ago -- until you consider that the previous one came in 1923.
Even if historical precedent and superior talent held sway and Georgia had lost again to the Cats, Harrick is well on his way to justifying his eyebrow-raising hiring 2½ seasons ago.
The guy who won the 1995 national title at UCLA seemed close to being viewed as a retread when Vince Dooley named him to erase the two-year mistake that was Ron Jirsa. After a rough first year, that label seemed more apt than ever.
But then the Bulldogs made him look good by skeeching into the 2001 NCAA Tournament on strength of schedule and the skin of their collective teeth. (How tough was the schedule? Harrick could have driven his team down the Atlanta Highway and played the Hawks, and his strength of schedule might actually have decreased.) This year they might make it without sweating the selection show -- and the future looks bright with all those sophomores on the roster.
"We've got some athletic ability," Harrick said. "And on a given night, we can be tough to beat. I like our team, like the way we've played."
The statistics portray a typical Harrick team:
Not much depth (he's basically playing seven men, eight in a pinch, with all five starters averaging at least 28.6 minutes per game).
Proficient at getting to the foul line (Georgia has made more free throws that its opponents have attempted).
Not going to be beaten from the 3-point arc (opponents are shooting just 27.5 percent from that range).
Williams leads the way offensively, averaging 17.4 points and 6.4 rebounds -- a remarkable number for a guy who stands 6-4. Equally remarkable is the do-everything work Harrick has gotten from 6-7 Chris Daniels, who leads the team in field-goal percentage (.570), rebounds (7.4), steals (32), blocked shots (22) and difficult defensive assignments.
"We've put him on everybody," Harrick said. "Little guy, big guy, quick guy, post. He's been probably our most consistent player."
Harrick's main off-season addition was a two-for-one transfer special from Western Carolina: twins Jarvis and Jonas Hayes, both checking in at 6-6 and 200 pounds.
However, all twins are not created equal. Jarvis has the green light from 3-point range (60 3s attempted in 11 games); Jonas does not (zero 3s attempted in 13 games). Jarvis is the No. 2 scorer at 15.8 per game, while Jonas is strictly off the bench.
If he only had a third Hayes brother named Elvin, Harrick would really have it rolling. But he's not getting greedy.
This season already has bordered on too good to be true.
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Games of the Week
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Marquette at Louisville
Wednesday
Golden Eagles have lost three straight road games, to Wisconsin, Wake Forest and Charlotte. Now they take on a Cardinals team that is 9-0 at home and playing with remarkable spunk for Rick Pitino. Big game among the pursuers of Cincinnati in Conference USA's American Division.
Memphis at Tulane
Saturday
Green Wave's double-digit win at DePaul presents them as a credible threat to National Division favorite Tigers, at least in New Orleans. But Memphis' huge height advantage could make the difference against Shawn Finney's smallish team.
Florida at Tennessee
Wednesday
Can Buzz Peterson's gang make it two straight big league wins at home? The Volunteers have been tough on the Gators in recent years.
Mississippi State at Mississippi
Saturday
More than just state bragging rights in the mix here. With the Bulldogs on the rise, pecking order in the SEC West and potentially in the NCAA Tournament could also be at stake.
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'Cats-Cards II
Kentucky won the game on the court last month against arch-rival Louisville and former coach Rick Pitino, but it is badly losing the subsequent PR battle over transfer Marvin Stone.
Stone was dismissed from the Wildcats by coach Tubby Smith when the 6-9 former McDonald's All-American did not return from Huntsville, Ala., after a brief Christmas break. Then the junior put Louisville at the top of his transfer wish list -- and Kentucky refused to release him to its hated rival.
Athletic director Larry Ivy cited a "long-standing policy" within the athletic department prohibiting transfers to schools under contract to play the Cats. But even beyond the intrinsic unfairness of trying to tell a former player where he can go (a procedure not unique to Kentucky) is the fact that this policy appears to be vastly trumped up to simply keep Pitino from picking up a big man he needs.
Consider: Ivy originally said the policy dated back at least 10 years. But The (Louisville) Courier-Journal reported that in 1995, football player Donnell Gordon transferred from Kentucky to Louisville, and last year a volleyball player did the same.
On top of that, former athletic director C.M. Newton told the Lexington Herald-Leader that there was no school policy prohibiting transfers anywhere; Newton said he left it up to the individual coaches to make those calls. The newspaper also reported that the father of center Michael Bradley, who left UK in 1999, was told that his son's only restrictions involved SEC schools. Indeed, one of the schools Bradley requested a release to was annual opponent Indiana, without dispute from Kentucky.
This one may yet get ugly, deepening a rivalry that reached a new level with Pitino's arrival at Louisville. Stone has retained a lawyer with the intent of fighting Kentucky's hold on his future, and has applied for admission at Louisville for the spring semester and could arrive on campus any day. (He's also applied at Colorado State as a fallback choice. Stone has a relationship with one of the Rams' assistants.)
Stone is hoping for a hearing before a UK committee that could grant him his release. But as Pitino said Tuesday, "The sands of time are running out of the hour glass for him right now."
Stone has been an unqualified disappointment as a collegian, but he could potentially fill a need for the Cardinals. That possibility has Kentucky reacting in shameful fashion, putting the lie to the usual coaching and administrative palaver about putting the student-athletes' needs first.
Around the South
A difficult season got tougher for Auburn when sophomore center Kyle Davis, the leading shot-blocker in the SEC, was lost for at least a month to an elbow injury. Davis, who was averaging 3.5 blocks per game to go with 5.8 points and 5.5 rebounds, had surgery on his hyper-extended right elbow Monday in Birmingham.
After losing to Florida to open SEC play, South Carolina coach Dave Odom threw down the gauntlet to big men Tony Kitchings, Marius Petravicius and Rolando Howell, challenging them to rise to the level of their competition. "Over the years, my inside players have always played well," Odom said. "These guys have played well against lower-level teams, but they're not playing at the level we need to be playing at against teams of this caliber. That disturbs me. It disturbs me a lot."
How much does Florida coach Billy Donovan love senior center Udonis Haslem? He sent him this early valentine Monday: "He's the best player I've ever coached. Anywhere." Donovan bases that on Haslem's coachability and intelligence, which he rates as off the charts.
Kentucky fans thought wingman Keith Bogans had snapped out of a long funk with productive games against Louisville and Tulane. But then came another disappearance against Mississippi State, when he scored seven points in the opening three minutes and zero in the final 42 of an upset overtime loss. Included in that stretch was a blown layup that might have iced the game for the Wildcats. After reluctantly pulling his name out of the NBA draft last June and returning to school for his junior year, Bogans has been oddly unproductive -- perhaps pressing too much in trying to prove that he's ready for the league this time around.
Tennessee got its first big win of the season last Sunday, beating Mississippi 82-76 in Knoxville behind a virtuoso front-line performance from its Big Three of Vincent Yarbrough, Ron Slay and Marcus Haislip. Each scored over 20 points, combining for 66 points and 22 rebounds, easily making up for the eight total points from the Volunteers' lightweight starting backcourt.
Tulane has taken a big jump forward in its second year under Shawn Finney, and the biggest step to date came in the Green Wave's 10-point road win against DePaul Saturday. (first conference road win since Feb. 12, 2000 at UAB) The fact that it came just three days after a 34-point loss to Kentucky shows that Finney's team isn't nearly as fragile as the group that staggered through the final month of the season as serial blowout victims in C-USA.
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com
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