ATHENS — Mark Fox will not be leaving Georgia to go back West.

New Mexico has an opening for a head basketball coach, and Fox went to Eastern New Mexico and coached at Nevada before taking the Georgia job in 2009. So his name was thrown out as a possibility, and a television station in Albuquerque reported that New Mexico had contacted Fox.

But through a team spokesman Fox shot that down on Tuesday.

“He hasn’t been contacted and he has no interest,” said team spokesman Mike Mobley, who traded text messages with Fox.

Fox was also in the team office in Athens on Tuesday morning.

Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity announced early last month, in response to a Yahoo report, that Fox would be returning for his ninth season at Georgia. McGarity elaborated on that last week in a Q&A with Georgiadogs.com, the school’s in-house web site.

Fox, who is 48 years old, is 145-118 at Georgia, including 70-68 in SEC play. The team has made the NCAA tournament twice in his eight years, along with three NIT appearances.

During his five years at Nevada, which is in the Western Athletic Conference, Fox went 123-43 with three NCAA bids.

New Mexico is in the Mountain West Conference.