UGA vs Florida Mens' Hoops Wrapup.
Lost in the madness of National Signing Day for many was the fact that Dennis Felton's Dawgs hosted the No. 1 ranked Florida Gators at the Stege last night. The Dawgs fell 71-61, but unfortunately the game wasn't really that close. Florida outhustled, outshot and, perhaps more than anything else, just outmanned the Bulldogs.
What's really frightening is that it was not the Gators' best performance. Georgia was only down 6 at the half, but things only got further out of hand as the night progressed. Takais Brown continued a quiet three game stretch in which constant double teams combined with poor perimeter shooting have rendered him a near nonfactor (5 points on 1 of 8 shooting). After the game, his tone of quiet resignation spoke volumes: "They doubled me every time I touched it. It's kind of frustrating, but I kind of have mixed feelings about the situation. If I'm getting doubled by the national champions, who have some of the best players in the SEC, then I must be doing something right."
In other words, if you're going to go down, go down fighting to the top team in the country.
It is now officially gutcheck time. We have six league games remaining, with three on the road and three in Athens. At 14-9, the Dawgs need to at least split those league games to have any shot at the NCAA Tournament. Even that would require making a run to at least the second round of the SEC Tournament and counting on the Selection Committee to take note of our "quality losses" (an oxymoron if ever there was one).
More likely, we need to beat Auburn, Missy State and Tennessee at home, while beating one of our three remaining opponents on the road (South Carolina, Ole Miss and Kentucky). I don't like our chances at (Cor)Rupp(t) Arena, but I think we can take one of the other two. To beat anybody however, we're going to have to figure out how to get the ball to Brown down low, and that's going to require getting better looks from outside and hitting the ones we get. Right now that's anything but guaranteed.
What's really frightening is that it was not the Gators' best performance. Georgia was only down 6 at the half, but things only got further out of hand as the night progressed. Takais Brown continued a quiet three game stretch in which constant double teams combined with poor perimeter shooting have rendered him a near nonfactor (5 points on 1 of 8 shooting). After the game, his tone of quiet resignation spoke volumes: "They doubled me every time I touched it. It's kind of frustrating, but I kind of have mixed feelings about the situation. If I'm getting doubled by the national champions, who have some of the best players in the SEC, then I must be doing something right."
In other words, if you're going to go down, go down fighting to the top team in the country.
It is now officially gutcheck time. We have six league games remaining, with three on the road and three in Athens. At 14-9, the Dawgs need to at least split those league games to have any shot at the NCAA Tournament. Even that would require making a run to at least the second round of the SEC Tournament and counting on the Selection Committee to take note of our "quality losses" (an oxymoron if ever there was one).
More likely, we need to beat Auburn, Missy State and Tennessee at home, while beating one of our three remaining opponents on the road (South Carolina, Ole Miss and Kentucky). I don't like our chances at (Cor)Rupp(t) Arena, but I think we can take one of the other two. To beat anybody however, we're going to have to figure out how to get the ball to Brown down low, and that's going to require getting better looks from outside and hitting the ones we get. Right now that's anything but guaranteed.
posted by MaconDawg at 2:59 PM
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