Friday Carousel: Georgia, Oklahoma, Memphis, Arizona

Georgia made it official hiring Nevada's Mark Fox as their new head men's coach...
FOSG Karen Graham caught up with the new Dawg at about the 2:20 mark...
Fellow FOSG Buck Lanford anchors Fox 5 Atlanta's coverage of Friday stuff...

Dave Morris and John Helsley and our friends at newsok.com let us in on the new Jeff Capel extension for seven years at an undisclosed value...
Helsley's article is in black...

Dan Wolken starts the Memphis coverage with the idea that Scott Drew is now their new number one man in their search... to Drew's friend's surprise...
And Geoff Calkins is, apparently, not high on the Scott Drew bandwagon...
To wit...

If the Memphis Tigers hire him — and word is that they just might — it could turn out to be the best thing for this city since pulled pork.

But that’s not what people who know Drew seem to think. I made a lot of calls on this. And Drew was invariably described as:

1) A phony.
2) A man who has never met a recruiting rule he couldn’t bend.
3) A lousy bench coach.
4) And, really, what more do you need?

It’s not just me, saying worrisome things about Drew, either. It’s everyone. Jeff Goodman, the national college basketball writer for FOX Sports, said on my radio show that hiring Drew would be a mistake. Texas coach Rick Barnes has publicly criticized Drew’s recruiting tactics.

George Lapides — a newspaperman without a newspaper — took the extraordinary step on his radio show of warning Memphis not to hire Drew.

Lapides said he thought about saying the same thing when Memphis was on the verge of hiring Tic Price. When the Price era played out as it did, Lapides vowed never to keep quiet again.

Finally, Paola Boivin has a new Number One at Arizona- Virginia Tech's Seth Greenberg.

From her work in the Arizona Republic:

Whether this has gone past the measuring interest stage is uncertain. The Roanoke Times' Mark Berman just emailed me back and said he was told by the Hokies' athletic director, Jim Weaver, that he hasn't been contacted by Livengood.

By the way, cross Xavier's Sean Miller and UNLV's Lon Kruger off your lists. Not interested.

Hoops Silly Season: Monday Update

With most of the teams out of any kind of title contention, it's time ((for those who want)) to look at hiring new head coaches for your college basketball teams.

Here's what we have so far...

Virginia- VCU's Anthony Grant is not in their picture at present.
Those of us at OSG HQ think that there is some ACC snobbery in play...
Tubby Smith is being considered heavily since he's turned Minnesota around. If Smith says no, then they wait for Oklahoma's Jeff Capel's tournament to finish.
The wild card at Virginia is UK's Billy Gillispie- if he is forced out, or if he leaves on his own.

Alabama- VCU has given permission for Bama to speak to Grant. Georgia has not, as of yet, but it is expected that UGA will get in the queue.

But be forewarned, contrary to current publishing, Grant is NOT the first choice of Georgia.
We figure AD Damon Evans is in the mood to make a big-money splash, but whoever the coach is will be fighting the football team for attention. Don't be surprised if they make a play for Capel as well, but we question why Capel would want to walk away from OU and head to Georgia in the first place.

The Grant issue will not come down to money. He makes $900K at VCU right now, and has some parts of a Top-20 recruting class headed his way. Don't be surprised if Grant stays where he is before all is said and done.

Good luck with that one...