Following the expected news of Georgia basketball’s star freshman shooting guard Anthony Edwards leaving UGA after one year for the NBA Draft, junior forward Rayshaun Hammonds announced he will also be leaving in hopes of NBA glory.
The Dawgs’ third year head coach Tom Crean will need to replace the 32 points and 12.6 rebounds a game that Edwards and Hammonds produced last season.
Crean’s 2020 recruiting class isn’t quite what his 2019 class was, finishing 11th in all of college basketball (big thanks to Edwards), but it’s starting to attract some attention.
The Dawgs currently have one more spot open for their 2020-21 roster with seven players leaving and six players coming in.
The top man headlining Georgia’s 2020 recruiting class is point guard K.D. Johnson. Johnson is a 4-star recruit out of Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia. He’s listed at 6-foot-1, 170 pounds and is 247Sports number 17 point guard in the country for the 2020 class. Johnson broke the top-100 national recruits, recently rising 34 spots to the 93rd best player in the country. Check out some of Johnson’s highlights here.
Another big signing for the Bulldogs this offseason was power forward Josh Taylor. Taylor, the 6-foot-8, 200 pound power forward out of Norcross, Georgia, is rated as the 24th best power forward in the 2020 class, and the 120th best overall player.
Jonathan Ned, Mikal Starks and Tyron McMillan round out the remaining signees for the 2020 class, along with graduate transfer Justin Kier from George Mason University.
Ned, Starks and McMillan are all coming to Athens from junior colleges and should be nice additions for the Dawgs. Ned is listed as a 6-foot-9, 200 pound small forward, Starks is listed as a 6-foot-0, 180 pound point guard and McMillan is listed as a 6-foot-8, 225 pound power forward.
Starks and Ned both played at Eastern Florida State College where they excelled as teammates. The two signed their letter of intent together this past November.
Kier averaged 9.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 1.3 assists for his senior season at George Mason. Kier should add some great playmaking ability and leadership to a very young Bulldog team.
The Dawgs 2020 recruiting class still has one spot open and is currently ranked 28th in the nation by 247Sports. It will be tough losing as much talent as they are, but Crean is holding his own in the nation’s recruiting battle, acquiring some very solid players.