I saw it coming!!Dennis Felton fired as Georgia Bulldogs head coach

Thursday, January 29, 2009

By Mark Schlabach
ESPN.com

ATHENS, Ga. -- Dennis Felton, who last season led Georgia's basketball program to an improbable SEC tournament championship, was fired by athletics director Damon Evans on Thursday morning, multiple sources close to the situation told ESPN.com.

Evans' decision came after the Bulldogs lost to Florida 83-57 on Wednesday night, their seventh consecutive defeat. Georgia is 9-11 and 0-5 in SEC play. The school has scheduled an 11 a.m. ET news conference to announce the firing. Felton had an 84-91 record in six seasons at Georgia, including a 26-59 mark against SEC opponents. Evans seemed poised to fire Felton a year ago, but the Bulldogs won three games in two days to win the SEC tournament. Georgia was forced to play a condensed schedule after Atlanta's Georgia Dome was damaged by a tornado. By winning the SEC tournament, Georgia won an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, its only appearance on college basketball's biggest stage during Felton's tenure. The No. 14-seeded Bulldogs lost to No. 3 seed Xavier 76-61 in the first round. Felton inherited a Georgia program that had been crippled by NCAA sanctions. He succeeded Jim Harrick in 2003 after Harrick was fired following the discovery of academic fraud and other NCAA rules violations.