UGA’s Fox Gets A Raise And Extension

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Georgia basketball coach Mark Fox did good enough work in his second year to earn a $400,000 raise and a one-year contract extension.  The extension takes Fox’s pact through 2015-16 and the raise boosts his pay to $1.7 million per season.  Both items were approved by the school this morning.

“At one point in time he was basically too low on the SEC ladder,” Georgia AD Greg McGarity said.  “Mark would probably be the first person to tell you he doesn’t think he needs to be the highest paid coach in this conference. … It’s where we need to be.  I think Mark knows this is a long journey and we hope he’s our coach for a long, long time.  It’s probably where we need to be right now.”

The next step in the journey for Fox is to prove that he’s not going to suffer the same fate that befell John Pelphrey and Trent Johnson.  Both coaches had early success with veteran players left behind by their predecessors, only to experience precipitous drop-offs when those veterans departed.

UGA will lose four starters from this past year’s NCAA Tournament team, including two possible NBA first-round draft picks.

Fox has his cash.  Now he needs to show that he’s really building a winner in Athens… and not just winning with Dennis Felton’s players.