Cinderella Is For Shape Shaggers And Tossers, Meet Cinde-doro-rella-thy

Mr. Bliss feels like many Dawg faithful do today

Legend regulars will notice the addition of a third member to our writing staff this week, The World's Tallest Jockey. The WTJ once killed a man for disrespecting the Georgia Bulldogs (I can't back that up), and suffers nobly as a fan of the Atlanta pro sports teams. He's also a huge UNC hoops guy, I think he likes that pretty Carolina blue. The WTJ was going to debut later this week, but Georgia's shocking run in the SEC tourney came, and he has some sh** to say about it. Here's the WTJ's take on the Dawg's awesome weekend. --ES


A single fairy tale wench cliche really can’t describe it justly. The UGA men’s basketball program needs a combination of two fairy tale wench cliches. Not only is she the homely underdawg who had no chance of getting to the dance, but she’s also the barely legal farm girl chick propelled into a magical dream-like journey by a vicious tornado, this one ripping into her home Georgia Dome. Thus began one of the most ridiculous WTFs of all college basketball WTFs.

First, how did we get here? Well, the storied history of UGA basketball consists of 102 seasons of futility: 9 total trips to the NCAA tournament (each since 1983, and 2 of which were eventually “vacated” due to NCAA sanctions), and 11 trips to the NIT (all since 1981, none back when it was actually a relevant event). Only 14 UGA players have gone on to play in the NBA, including of course the human highlight film. After Nique’ left, the Dawgs beat Jordan’s Heels on their run to the 1983 Final Four. That was the absolute pinnacle of success for the program, it’s been pretty vanilla ever since.

The program never cracked the top 25 until a one week stint in the 1969-1970 season. We (yeah, biased UGA fan here) didn’t hit it again until it a preseason #16 ranking heading into the ’81-’82 season, a ranking that didn’t last through the first week of the regular season. But it was the beginning of a golden age of UGA hoops, which spent a total of 15 weeks (15!!!) in the top 25 over the next 4 seasons. Then in the 3 seasons from 1988-1991 they made it in again 9 times!!! Finally in 1995 the Hugh Durham (the John Wooden of UGA basketball) era ended.

Then came Tubby. This caption from Georgia’s media guide pretty much says all you need to say about UGA basketball and the Tubby/Jirsa era: “Tubby Smith and Ron Jirsa guided Georgia to an unprecedented three straight 20-victory seasons (1996-98).”

Woo hoo! Tubby definitely brought in some talent, he won games, and he got the program rolling. He quickly parlayed that success into a jump to Lexington to win a championship, and Jirsa took over. Jirsa running Tubby’s program was eerily similar to Toonces' career as a chauffeur. At first it appeared he knew what he was doing, but soon it was obvious he was just a regular cat driving an automobile off of cliffs. He spiraled us back to .500 by his second season, and made us desperate enough to hire the devil himself.

Jim Harrick could recruit and he could coach, but he was an NCAA rules violation junkie. It didn’t matter to him if it was a small violation or a big one, he just had to score some of that sh*t any way he could get it. He had the team on the rise and the fanbase energized, but he left it in absolute shambles.

When Dennis Felton was hired it seemed like a perfect move. Hard nosed, no nonsense, and capable of getting more out of less talent; Felton had the task of rebuilding from scratch. If you had told me back in 2003 that he’d win an SEC championship in 2008, I wouldn’t have been shocked at all. He seemed to be the real deal. But if you would have told me that the championship would follow an embarrassing regular season (it was widely rumored he’d be fired once it ended), well then yeah, I would have been pretty damn shocked.

Felton has had success recruiting solid talent but the problem’s been keeping them around. They either dart for the NBA, get dismissed for various reasons , or leave the program for another school. Hopes were high this fall before Mike Mercer and Takais Brown were sent packing, but the season was a disaster. The team had only 4 conference wins in the regular season, finished at the bottom of the standings, and entered the tournament as a 6 seed (each division has 6 seeds, so in other words, we sucked).

Less than a week after losing to Ole Miss to put the regular season out of it’s misery the Dawgs beat the Rebels on a Jordanesque Dave Bliss jumper with 0.4 seconds left in overtime. Friday night’s damage to the dome and more expected bad weather on Saturday forced the games into nerd den of all nerd dens: Georgia Tech’s Alexander Memorial Coliseum. UGA beat Kentucky in another overtime game early that afternoon, and then took down Mississippi State late Saturday night.

On Sunday afternoon they pushed through tired legs to beat Arkansas, winning the program’s second SEC championship (first since that legendary 1983 season), right there on Cremins Court. Let’s face it, it’s been way too long since a local team won something of significance on that piece of hardwood.

So now Cinde-doro-rella-thy heads to the dance with some real momentum, and finally some sliver of hope that good days are ahead for one of the greatest programs in the history of collegiate athletics.

- World's Tallest Jockey