Did Georgia basketball do enough with Anthony Edwards in his first year of college basketball?
The University of Georgia is primarily known for producing professional talent on the football field from an athletics standpoint, but the Bulldogs have a star in the NBA right now. Former Georgia basketball player Anthony Edwards is now four wins away from playing in the NBA Finals and is taking the league by storm. He spent just one season at Georgia, as most high-profile college basketball players do, but did the Bulldogs make the most of his time in Athens?
Let’s set the stage for the 2019-2020 college basketball season for Georgia. Tom Crean was entering his second season as head coach following Mark Fox’s long reign at the helm. The program was coming off an 11-21 season under Crean, but things were looking up. Tyree Crump, Rayshaun Hammonds and Jordan Harris were some notable veterans returning that season, but the big story was the recruiting class. Crean finished with the 11th best class in the country, which included Anthony Edwards, the number one player in the country. Georgia also signed three other four-stars from that class. It was by far the best recruiting class Georgia fans had seen in quite some time.
Crean was leading a team that was young but was nothing short of a full roster. He had a facilitator in freshman point guard Sahvir Wheeler, Edwards carried the scoring load, Crump was a great shooter to rely on to create space, Hammonds was a modern-day four and Toumani Camara was a two-way player. with a prolonged presence around the edge. The roster’s only real flaw was depth, but a core unit of those five players should be enough to find success in the SEC.
That season, Georgia would finish with a 16-16 record and win only five conference games. Ten of the losses were by ten points or less, so the lack of success was not due to a lack of talent, but rather came down to training. Edwards that season averaged 19 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game and shot 40.2% from the field. He scored 20 or points 13 different times that season and the Bulldogs went 8-5 in those games.
It’s fair to mention that, while there wasn’t much reason to believe it, Georgia and all other college basketball programs’ seasons were shortened that year due to COVID-19. If the Bulldogs had made a historic run to the SEC tournament, then we very well could be talking about Edwards’ singular college season differently, and with a player like him on the roster, it very well could have happened. But the reality of the situation was that Edwards did his part in committing to the G and Crean did his part in building a good enough roster around him, he just didn’t execute on the court as a head coach.
Edwards is now in his fourth season in the NBA and it didn’t even take a full season for fans to recognize how special of a player he was. In fact, many were quick to compare his playing style to that of Michael Jordan, which Edwards quickly rejected. He is currently in the midst of a playoff run with the Minnesota Timberwolves and is one series away from competing for an NBA championship. And while it’s fun for Georgia fans to see one of their former players have great success in the league while also giving a shout out to the Dawgs whenever they can, it’s hard not to watch and wonder what could have happened during the 2019 season. at the University of Georgia.
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