They were picked to finish seventh in a 10-team league. They had lost one of the greatest players in the galaxy. And as February ground them down, the 1983 Georgia Bulldogs had lost six of eight games to fall to 6-7 in the SEC.

All they retained were their wits, resilience and, of course, The Belt.

File photo / 1983 (ENLARGE)

James Banks and the Bulldogs feasted on the school's first NCAA bid, going all the way to the Final Four in 1983.

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"We knew the game well," recalled James Banks, then a 20-year-old UGA forward. "We just pulled it together. I can't stress enough the cohesiveness we had off the court."

Or the phenomenon they became on it. Twenty-five years ago this month, a Georgia team that was headed straight to nowhere, in just one splendid month, slashed through the SEC tournament and converted the school's first-ever appointment to the NCAA tournament into a spot in the Final Four.

As unlikely as it sounds now, it seemed less likely then. Dominique Wilkins had left for the NBA the previous spring. The SEC was top-heavy, with three teams — Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama — all having appeared in the Associated Press' top eight spots. Only three schools managed winning records in the conference.

Yet to those who had seen them up close, something about the Bulldogs that winter shone through.

"You don't have to be the best team. You just have to be the best that day," said Charles Barkley, a sophomore at Auburn that year. "I've always thought their talent was underrated."

In the fifth of 17 seasons in Athens, coach Hugh Durham still liked what he saw. Four starters — Banks, forward Terry Fair, guard Gerald Crosby and All-American guard Vern Fleming — would join UGA's 1,000-point club. The team's 997 field goals remain a school season record.

But it was the defense that became the team's anvil. Georgia held opponents to 64.7 points, which remains the school's lowest average in the past 57 years. Four players accumulated more than 50 steals each.

While Durham was preaching defense, the team was preaching to itself, using The Belt. It was a plain leather strap, but the captains — Fair, Lamar Heard and Derrick Floyd — made it into an inspiration.

The Belt would be awarded after each game to the player who screwed up the most. It had to be worn until the next game.

"We'd be in a timeout, and Coach Durham would be talking," Floyd said. "And we'd be behind him pointing at the guys. 'Don't you be the one to get The Belt.' "

Durham never knew about The Belt until his players threw him a roast two decades later. Floyd once even dared to drape The Belt over the locker-room blackboard before one road game, and when Durham went to remove it, Floyd snatched it for safekeeping.

Completing the regular season at 18-9, the Bulldogs hit the SEC tournament in Birmingham and took it apart. Ole Miss went down by 14, Tennessee by 19, and in the final, the Bulldogs ripped Alabama by 15. Instead of spring break, UGA was headed for the NCAAs.

"We believed in one another," Banks said. "When we got there, we said, 'That wasn't too hard.' But it was."

Granted a first-round bye — the tournament was then a 32-team event — the Bulldogs outlasted Virginia Commonwealth 56-54 on a late tip-in, which hardly boded well. Next, they advanced to the East Regional in Syracuse, N.Y., where No. 1 seed St. John's, No. 2 North Carolina and No. 3 Ohio State waited.

"The truth of it is," Durham said, "we were up there as cannon fodder."

But in the heart of Big East country, Georgia took down Big East champion St. John's 70-67. Fair outscored Big East player of the year Chris Mullin 27-19.

UNC, after eliminating Ohio State, was far from impressed. Tar Heels forward Sam Perkins could not tell reporters what conference Georgia played in. Sophomore Michael Jordan said he was "in the dark" about the Bulldogs. Those items went straight to the team bulletin board.

Even with Jordan scoring 26 and Fair sitting most of the second half in foul trouble, UGA eliminated the defending national champions 87-77 on March 27.

Carolina coach Dean Smith said, "The book on Georgia is to zone them." The Bulldogs responded by shooting 56 percent — Banks went 7-for-10 for 20 points — and suddenly Floyd found himself standing atop the basket, waving of all things a Confederate flag.

"I was so happy, I probably would have waved a picture of Hitler, if he had a Georgia shirt on," Floyd said.

Georgia had joined Kentucky and LSU as the only SEC teams in history to make the Final Four.

In N.C. State, Georgia drew in the semifinals one of the most fated teams in history. While the cognoscenti held the eventual champion would come from the other semi — Louisville vs. Houston — Durham looked at State's backcourt of Sidney Lowe and Dereck Whittenburg, both 6-footers, and wondered how much damage the 6-5 Fleming could do if the Wolfpack dared guard him man-to-man.

He never found out.

"I liked our match-up, except State zoned us and we didn't shoot the ball. If we had shot the ball well ... " Durham said. "They were big [inside]. If we had made some shots early, they would have had to cover us 'man,' but they didn't have to. We just didn't hit."

UGA missed 16 of its first 21 tries and finished with a meek 35.1 percent floor rate. Fair took plenty of criticism for his 2-for-9 night, but he had company: Banks (5-for-19), Crosby (5-for-15) and Fleming (7-for-17).

It ended 67-60, UGA's first loss in 33 days. N.C. State went on to win the title from Houston on Lorenzo Charles' epochal last-second dunk. Georgia hasn't been to a Final Four since.

Durham defended UGA's 25-year interim.

"We go to the Final Four, and it'd never been done in the history of Georgia basketball," he said. "So now people are saying, how come they haven't gone again? ...

"When you're in the SEC, it's a tough league. And getting to the Final Four is not the easiest thing to accomplish."

Banks — who admits no one wore The Belt more than he — recalled a conversation with his old coach about 1983.

"He said to me, 'James, it means a lot more to you now, because you're older,' " Banks said. "And that had never dawned on me. When you're young, you're just living in the moment. You know it was special.

"But you realize it more when people come up to you or pass by at a game or in the grocery store and they say, 'We really enjoyed watching you guys play.' That's when you pause and say, 'Gosh.' "