Jacksonville Vs. Georgia: Mark Fox leads Bulldogs he recruited into opener

Georgia Bulldogs men's basketball head coach Mark Fox enters Friday's season opener against the Jacksonville Dolphins complete with a roster of players that he recruited, a first since he took over.

The fourth-year coach has only one four-year player on the team in guard Vincent Williams, who averaged 2.9 points, 1.0 rebounds while playing in all 32 games and starting 11 last season:

"The last four years kind of flew," senior guard Vincent Williams said. "There's been a lot of changes, like from losing to winning. That's the biggest change. It hasn't been that difficult. It's all about how you function. You get used to functioning like that, it's not that hard."

Other seniors on the roster include junior college transfers, guard Sherrard Brantley and forward John Florveus, who were both backups last season. Entering Friday's game, Fox is happy with the group of players he will be coaching this season:

"It's a wonderful group to coach every day, I can say that much," Fox said. "This is the first team that I've had that I really look forward to coaching every day. I really look forward to seeing them every day and I can't say that's always been the case. That's not a knock on the first couple of teams I've had here."

A big reason Fox likes this team is because it's not a selfish one, with players such as Donte Williams, Nemanja Djurisic and Marcus Thornton all getting extensive playing time with others departing:

"We don't fight selfishness anymore," Fox said. "We don't fight behavior. We don't fight the process. They're fully vested in how we want to function. There's less push-back from them. They're very supportive of each other succeeding. That's really something that excites us."

The Bulldogs play the Jaguars Friday night with tip-off scheduled for 7 p.m. at Stegeman Coliseum. A radio broadcast of the game will be available on WRFC 960 AM.