Georgia pulls away in basketball opener

Athens — It’s hard to draw a lot of conclusions from Georgia’s uneven performance Friday night against USC-Upstate.

Center Albert Jackson and small forward Terrance Woodbury missed extensive practice time heading into Friday night’s season opener but were able to recover from ankle injuries enough to play. Meanwhile, heralded signee Howard “Trey” Thompkins, who also has an ankle injury, was in uniform but couldn’t play.

So the game that emerged was fairly predictable. The Bulldogs’ play was dominated by defense, and they struggled with shots, shot-selection and generally running the offense. But they finally shook off the rust midway through the second half and used a suffocating full-court defense to dispatch their overmatched visitors 72-48 in front of 6,179 at Stegeman Coliseum.

“Overall, I’m ecstatic,” Georgia coach Dennis Felton said. “Man, did we guard. That’s what we’ve been talking about for the last three weeks. We want teams to feel us from end to end.”

Zac Swansey and freshman guard Travis Leslie led four Georgia players in double figures with 11 points. Terrance Woodbury and walk-on Ricky McPhee added 10 each.

But the Bulldogs (1-0) shot 43 percent from the field, and that was after a flurry of dunks toward the end of the game improved that figure. And they were outrebounded by the Spartans 41-30.

The main difference in the game was Georgia’s defense. USC-Upstate had 28 turnovers — 20 of which were steals — and shot 37 percent from the field.

Georgia’s competition will increase considerably Monday when they meet Loyola of Chicago in the opening round of Preseason NIT Tip-off Classic. After that, they play either host Purdue or Eastern Michigan on Tuesday, pending the outcome of the Monday game.

“We know we’ve got to play better than this,” Swansey said. “Rebounding will be our number one focus the next two or three days.”

Georgia’s starting lineup for the opener was the sophomore Swansey at point guard, senior Corey Butler at shooting guard, the senior Woodbury at small forward, sophomore Jeremy Price at power forward and the juniorJackson at center.

Price was injured with six minutes left in the game after being hit in the eye and did not return. Felton said Price’s eye was scratched and was not sure if he’ll be back for the NIT.

USC-Upstate, formerly known as USC-Spartanburg, moved up to Division I from Division II last season and finished 7-23.