Tennessee now a state for winners

Norm Parker remembers the empty brown seats, hearing the coaches shout instructions over the sound of a bouncing basketball and experiencing a sense of emptiness during games at Thompson-Boling Arena.

“I remember when games there were like a funeral,” said Parker, coach of the AAU Georgia Stars, a Nike team.

Parker, surrounded by about 20,000 orange-clad fans, felt the revival of Tennessee basketball against Kentucky this past Sunday. Apparently, so did one of his best players in attendance, 6-foot-8 forward Kenny Hall. The Stone Mountain, Ga., resident and highly touted prospect for the class of 2009 gave Tennessee coaches a verbal commitment Sunday, one more sign that the Volunteers are very much alive.

Hall’s commitment also exemplifies two more trends in this part of the country: a star player from the Atlanta area leaving the state for college, and a Tennessee program landing an out-of-state standout.

Tennessee, not exactly known as a basketball state east of Memphis, boasts five NCAA men’s programs that are first in their conferences or league divisions. None of the 12 Division I programs in the state are below .500 in conference play, and seven might break the 20-win mark. The famed Tobacco Road rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is being replaced by Interstate 40, which can take you to three schools ranked in the top 10 of the RPI.

And then there’s Atlanta, known for hot summers, rap music and outstanding high school basketball.

“The best right now in the country,” AAU’s Atlanta Celtics coach Hulio Smith said. “Look at how many kids come out of here every year. It’s crazy right now.”

Smith might be biased. Rivals.com recruiting analyst Jerry Meyer is not.

“When it comes to producing top talent,” Meyer said, “Atlanta is one of the best areas in the country.”

So Georgia’s collegiate programs are reaping the benefits, right?

Not quite. Actually, not at all. Georgia Southern is the state’s only program with a winning record. Georgia is last in the SEC. Georgia State, in Atlanta, is last in the Colonial Athletic Association. Mercer and Kennesaw State, according to the RPI, are among the nation’s worst basketball schools this year. Savannah State went 0-28 in 2005.

No school in the state is expected to play in the NCAA tournament. An NIT bid is also unlikely. The new funeral, to borrow Parker’s analogy, is for postseason basketball in Georgia.

“A lot of the players are getting out of the state,” Meyer said. “Everyone is recruiting that area, so it makes it tough on the state schools. The main programs probably could do a better job getting the top talent.”

This isn’t to suggest that Tennessee’s high schools are wildly underrated for basketball talent. A closer look at the rosters reveals that Tennessee’s schools are getting their players from outside the state.

The top five scorers at Memphis, for example, came from outside Tennessee. Leading scorer Chris Douglas-Roberts is from Detroit. Star freshman Derrick Rose is from Chicago. Robert Dozier is from Lithonia, Ga.

Vanderbilt rarely uses anyone from the state of Tennessee. Shan Foster is from Louisiana, and star freshman Andrew Ogilvy hails from Australia.

Tennessee does represent the state with JaJuan Smith, Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism. But the preseason All-American, Chris Lofton, is from Kentucky. The simple fact is this: Tennessee’s programs are recruiting better, coaching better and playing under much more favorable circumstances.

“A lot of it has to do with the quality of the coaches they’ve attracted at these different schools,” ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said. “The quality of the coaches has led to the quality of play you’re seeing in Tennessee.”

Parker is quick to point out that Georgia and Georgia Tech would be much better if not for unfortunate circumstances. The Yellow Jackets lost freshmen Jarvaris Crittenton and Thaddeus Young to the NBA.

Georgia coach Dennis Felton, who has signed several of Parker’s players, kicked leading scorers Mike Mercer and Takais Brown off of the team.

“I have a lot of respect for Coach Felton, and the players we have there respect Coach Felton,” Parker said. “They like him. They play hard for him. They just tell me, ‘Coach, some of the players don’t follow the rules.’ I will defend Paul Hewitt and Dennis Felton all day long. Georgia Tech and Georgia got caught up in a bad situation. It doesn’t have anything to do with coaching and recruiting.

“It’s tough for those guys. Let’s say Tubby Smith wants a player in Minnesota. He can go in there and get him. But in Atlanta, you’re competing against everyone.”

The prospects will still be there if Georgia and Georgia Tech revive their programs. In the 2008 class, forward Al-Farouq Aminu (Norcross, Ga.) and center Tony Woods (Rome, Ga.) are Georgia’s two five-star prospects.

Both are going to Wake Forest.