Georgia basketball coach Mark Fox inherited the one-two punch of Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie for two seasons and then helped develop Kentavious Caldwell-Pope into one of the Southeastern Conference's premier players.
Fox is halfway through his sixth season with the Bulldogs, and he's never had a dynamic like this.
Entering tonight's home game against Vanderbilt, the Bulldogs (13-5, 4-2) have all five starters averaging in double figures. Senior forward Marcus Thornton leads the way with 13.4 points per game, with junior guards Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann averaging 11.8 and 11.4, senior forward Nemanja Djurisic 10.7 and sophomore guard J.J. Frazier 10.7.
"We've been really trying to develop a balanced offensive team, and we finally have one," Fox said Monday. "We have five guys scoring in double figures, and they're having success because they've truly become a team. They play off one another, and they're unselfish. They don't care that one night somebody else might get 20 and they only get eight, because they know their night is coming.
"I think it's been an asset to our team, and it's helped us win games. It's been a fun team to coach, because we've got different places to go to get scoring."
There was nothing balanced about Georgia's last performance, when Frazier erupted for a career-high 37 points in Saturday's 72-66 win at Mississippi State. The 5-foot-10, 150-pounder made all seven of his 3-point attempts in tallying the most points by a Bulldogs player since Litterial Green netted 38 at UCLA in 1992.
Frazier was named Monday as the SEC's player of the week.
"The first one felt really good coming off my hands, and after that, I just felt really comfortable and confident shooting the ball," Frazier said after the game. "I felt like everything I put up was going in, and my teammates did a great job finding me in the offense. I can't remember the last time I made all my 3-point shots."
Said Fox: "None of us knew he had that many points, because that was just J.J. and how he is in practice all the time. Until he was near 30 or just above it, I don't think any of us recognized he was as hot as he was. He was just playing out of our offense. We weren't running special things for him."
After hosting the Commodores (11-8, 1-5) tonight, Georgia will play at South Carolina (10-8, 1-5) on Saturday. If the Bulldogs win those two, they would own their first six-game winning streak within the league since 2001.
To win seven straight, Georgia would have to sweep this week and prevail next Tuesday night at No. 1 Kentucky.
"Georgia is very experienced, and like the rest of us, Mark has gone through times where his teams haven't been as experienced," Vandy coach Kevin Stallings said. "His team now is very experienced and very physical, and their ability to shoot from the perimeter has really made a difference. The 3-point shot is more of a weapon for them compared to some of his teams in the past.
"They've always been very good defensively and very good on the boards and very good at running their stuff, and the emergence of all those guys from 3 is stretching people out. They can be physical at every position, and any time a team has that type of balance, you can't load your defense on one or two guys."
The Bulldogs were listed as a No. 9 seed Monday in Joe Lunardi's latest projected NCAA tournament bracket on ESPN.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.