Georgia’s Woodbury shoots to play — despite pain

Athens — Imagine if he had some good wheels.

That’s what one is left to wonder about Georgia’s Terrance Woodbury after watching his performance against Florida this past Saturday. He blew up the Gators, hitting 7-of-10 3-point shots and scoring a career-high 32 points to lead the Bulldogs to an 88-86 upset at Stegeman Coliseum.

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Jason Getz/jgetz@ajc.com

Georgia’s Terrance Woodbury’s goal is a career 42 percent shooter, 34 percent from 3-point range.

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Everybody saw that.

What people didn’t see were the grimaces of pain on Woodbury’s face as he hobbled to Georgia’s locker room after the game. They don’t see the treatments he gets daily on both of his ankles. They didn’t see the pain-relieving shots injected into the tops of his feet two weeks ago.

No, fans see only fun part: Woodbury rising up off a screen to nail a 20-foot jump shot.

“He’s in a ton of pain,” said trainer Colby Polham, who has overseen Woodbury’s treatment the past two seasons. “It’s something we have to deal with daily. He’s on some anti-inflammatory medicine right now but other than that there’s not much else we can do.”

Yet, Woodbury hasn’t missed a game in 2009. In fact, the Bulldogs’ leading scorer (14.2 ppg) has played 25 or more minutes 18 times this season. He sat out four games over the Christmas break after aggravating the injuries. Otherwise, he has averaged slightly less than 30 minutes in SEC games. He played every minute against South Carolina last week, 36 of 40 against Gators this past Saturday.

And he pays for it.

“Oh, yeah, I was hurting,” Woodbury said of this last game. “But I couldn’t worry about it. I’m usually in pain but I try to keep that to myself.”

Woodbury has a chronic ankle condition caused by bone spurs that have grown in several spots inside his ankles. It’s a common injury for basketball players, who run and cut for hours. Woodbury has suffered from it throughout his career. But it worsened this season.

“He’s got some bone spurs in there that we’ve just got to get rid of when the season’s over,” Polham said, referring to postseason surgery. “There’s nothing we can really do about them right now.”

Said Woodbury: “I usually just take some ibuprofen before games and that’s about it.”

Woodbury will be in the lineup Wednesday when the Bulldogs (10-15, 1-9 SEC) take on Auburn (16-9, 5-5). He will be the focus of the Tigers’ defense.

“He’s the one guy on their team that can really get it going offensively and from 3,” Auburn coach Jeff Lebo said. “He was on fire that last game and we’ve seen him do that over the course of his career.”

Florida wasn’t the first team to see Woodbury get hot. He averaged 15.8 points — including 25 against Ole Miss — in Georgia’s four-game run to the SEC Tournament title last March.

Being a more consistent scorer — and shooter in particular — has long been Woodbury’s goal. He’s a career 42 percent shooter, 34 percent from 3-point range.

“Shots fall or they don’t fall,” Woodbury said. “I’m a shooter so I just have to shoot myself out of it. I’m not going to stop shooting.”

And pain or no pain, he’s not going to stop playing.