Every new coach has hurdles as he takes over a problem.

North Carolina's Roy Williams needed a a commitment from Seattle-area stud Marvin Williams in addition to finding a house in Chapel Hill. Kansas' Bill Self spent too much time away from his family and had to ensure that Williams' recruits were still going to Kansas.

	Dennis Felton had plenty of success at Western Kentucky.

But neither coach can compare to Dennis Felton's first 100 days at Georgia. He's had it particularly rough, trying to understand what happened to a Bulldogs program shattered by alleged violations under the watch of former coach Jim Harrick, and to rebuild after a season which eventually cost Harrick his job and kept the school away from the postseason.

Felton lost four recruits who signed with Harrick -- two junior college players transfered elsehwere in the country, and even worse, two high-profile high school players who were allowed to sign and play right away at two SEC rivals.

Felton had to honor a commitment to USA Basketball; he was an assistant to Ernie Kent of Oregon and spent a month with a U.S. junior team in Dallas and Greece, taking him off all but the last week of the recruiting period. He had to stay on top of the likely top player in the class, Dwight Howard Jr., of Georgia, who -- if he attends college -- wants to go to either Georgia or Georgia Tech.

He had to repair a battered image of the program within Athens, and outside with recruits. And he had to oversee the building of a new home, down to every detail -- even when he was calling from Greece.

"I had to go in there and set up structure and discipline and ensure that everyone was accountable to each other and to the program,'' said Felton, who came to Georgia after a successful stint at Western Kentucky, where his teams reached the NCAAs for three straight seasons.

"This summer was a good start with good grades in summer classes,'' Felton said. "We have had a vast improvement and gotten our conditioning program going. There's a sharp contrast with my approach and coach Harrick's and the players were starting to understand that.''

Felton has a unique attention to detail. At his insistence, he spent plenty of time trying to understand what happened under Harrick and what the NCAA could be pursuing in its investigation of alleged improprieties (rumored to be on the NCAA's list: money to former player Tony Cole and possible academic fraud).

"I had to get into quite a bit of dialogue with the people at Georgia to see what was there and where the investigation process was headed and what they had uncovered,'' Felton said. "The most time spent on this issue was educating everyone about it. It's very obvious that people are recruiting against us with it.''

Damage Control

Felton wasn't totally alone in dealing with an image issue in his first 100 days. Seth Greenberg had to alter his sales pitch during the same time period at Virginia Tech. The Hokies will move from the Big East to the ACC in 2004-05. Greenberg had just moved from Conference USA at South Florida to the Big East. "This fits our geographic footprint,'' Greenberg said of Virginia Tech's impending move to the ACC. "Now we're being received in a different way from players in our region.'' But if you're looking for one other fresh sell for a new coach during the first 100 days on the job, then you needed to be at an Iowa State function. Wayne Morgan spoke at 20-plus Cyclone events since he took over Larry Eustachy. Morgan has been trying to reach out to the alumni and to repair an image left tarnished by Eustachy's postgame behavior (he eventually resigned after photographs of him drinking at a coed parties at Missouri and Kansas State surfaced). Morgan has ties to the Northeast for recruiting but he had to spend a lot of his spring in Iowa, trying to convince fans that he was the right choice for the job, even if he wasn't the first choice to replace Eustachy (Wyoming's Steve McClain and Creighton's Dana Altman were ahead of him). -- Andy Katz

Felton considers whispers that it takes a long time to recover from such an incident overblown. But he admits that developing a new image at Georgia's is extremely important with the investigation lurking. And that's probably why Felton didn't fight the previously signed recruits when they decided to leave. Mohamed Abukar signed with Harrick, but got out of his National Letter of Intent and landed at SEC East rival Florida. Jordan Howell did the same thing and ended up at another SEC East team -- Tennessee.

Felton isn't upset about playing two games a year against two former Georgia signees. He was more peeved that the SEC didn't mind breaking a bylaw that had originally forbid such a move without a penalty.

"I didn't spend a lot of time on that, just one meeting,'' Felton said of his in person meetings with Abukar in California and Howell in Alabama. "What concerned me was that the bylaws were dismissed in such a frivolous way. The SEC easily said the bylaws don't mean anything.''

Junior college recruit Marcus Jackson went to Marquette after originally committing to Georgia. Junior college center Cassiano Matheus, who was supposed to play for Harrick, ended up at Utah State.

Felton isn't losing any sleep over their departures. But it wouldn't be hard to blame him if he had plenty of jet lag from his time in Greece. Felton missed valuable recruiting time while he was with the U.S. team that was unable to medal at the World Junior Championships.

And prior to his departure, he often worked until 2 a.m. before heading back to the hotel every night. If his wife and family were in Athens, it would have been harder to clock as many hours. But they remained behind in Kentucky.

The hours have slowed down a bit but the commitment hasn't waned.

"We're building a culture of high achievement,'' Felton said. "The players and the coaches still don't know each other very well yet, nothing like we will in six months time.''

Georgia won't know its NCAA fate for some time, but Felton's team does have a chance to be very competitive with Jonas Hayes, Damien Wilkins, Steve Thomas, Rashad Wright and Chris Daniels returning.

What else we're hearing