Embarrassed Georgia holds players-only meeting

Athens — There has been a lot of talking and soul-searching going on inside Georgia’s locker room the past three days. On Tuesday, the Bulldogs will have to put all those words into action against Virginia Tech.

Georgia (5-3) held an impromptu — and reportedly fiery — players-only meeting after being embarrassed in a 76-42 loss to Illinois in Chicago on Saturday. That was followed by a 45-minute lecture from coach Dennis Felton.

The result has been intense practice sessions and more discussions on how to turn things around. The hope is that the combination of sweat and rhetoric will help tighten down the lug nuts on a dangerously wobbly early season.

“I expected us to be a team that had a lot of lessons to learn,” Felton told reporters before practice on Monday. “So nothing is surprising me. But I think it’s been compounded because we’ve had some injuries to mess with the pace of our development.”

The problem has been fitting freshman forward Trey Thompkins into the offense. Thompkins missed the season’s first four games with an ankle injury.

The Bulldogs rank at the bottom of the SEC in every significant offensive category, including scoring (12th), field-goal percentage (12th), 3-point percentage (10th), assists (11th) and turnovers (ninth). Those poor tendencies were exaggerated in the 34-point loss to the Fighting Illini. Georgia had 27 turnovers and didn’t score in the game’s last 7:18.

“So this game we definitely want to make a step forward,” Felton said. “We’ve turned a good bit of attention to offensive execution and patience.”

The Bulldogs will need plenty of that against the Hokies (5-3), who have been the hard-luck kids of the ACC. Tech has lost buzzer-beater games to Xavier and Wisconsin and lost to Seton Hall by four points. It’s coming off a 79-70 victory against Navy on Sunday.

The Hokies have scoring covered from three sides, with A.D Vassallo (18.4 points per game) providing it from the wing, Malcom Delaney (16.4) from the backcourt and Jeff Allen (15.0, 8.8 rebounds) inside.