Bulldogs hope to find offense against Arkansas

By Chip Towers

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATHENS — How bad has Georgia been on offense this season? Historically bad.

The Bulldogs (10-12, 1-7 SEC) enter Wednesday night’s game against Arkansas (16-7, 4-4) with an SEC-worst scoring average of 60.6 points per game. Only one Georgia team has been worse at scoring since UGA began to keep up with such things in 1960. That was the 2004-05 team that went 8-20 under Dennis Felton while rebuilding from the wreckage of the Tony Cole scandal.

Georgia ranks last in the league in field-goal percentage (.389) and ninth in 3-point shooting (.314). Combined with a conference-worst rebounding margin of minus-2.9, that has been a recipe for defeat. Case in point: The Bulldogs are in the midst of a four-game losing streak.

“Just consistently finishing plays is our No. 1 issue,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “I think we’ve been a little better defensive team now that we have Marcus [Thornton] back and a better rebounding team. We just have to be more consistent at finishing plays.”

Finishing was the issue against Tennessee on Saturday. The Bulldogs’ top three post players — Donte’ Williams, Thornton and Nemanja Djurisic — combined to go 4-for-18 from the field in a 73-62 loss. Included in that mass of misses were several makeable layups and point-blank jumpers.

That was the problem for that game. Against Auburn three days earlier, the Bulldogs’ perimeter shooting did them in. They shot 26.1 percent from 3-point range — and 25 percent overall — in losing 59-51. It was the 10th time this season Georgia scored fewer than 60 points.

“We seem to always have those little bumps in games where for a couple of minutes we just can’t put the ball in the basket, whether it was from outside shooting or from inside the paint, like you saw in this last game,” said Djurisic, who shot 3-of-12 against the Vols.

Some of it has been almost flukish. Senior guard Dustin Ware led the SEC last season in 3-point shooting at 49.3 percent and remains fifth all-time at Georgia in career 3-point shooting, at 37.7 percent. Yet he made only 15.2 percent of his 3-point tries (5-of-33) in a four-game stretch leading to the Tennessee game. He made three of four against the Vols, but he’s still shooting 33 percent this season.

“I’ve been doing what I’ve always been doing, just working hard,” said Ware, who has been hoisting hundreds of extra jump shots on his own after practices. “I’ve been looking at some film and trying to correct some little things that might be wrong, and I think it really helped.”

The 3-point problems aren’t limited to Ware. Gerald Robinson is shooting 31 percent and long-range specialist Sherrard Brantley is down to 22 percent.

Enter Arkansas. Scoring is the least of the problems for the Razorbacks, in their first season under coach Mike Anderson. They’ve averaged 74.5 points playing the run-and-press style reminiscent of Nolan Richardson. Anderson, who came to Fayetteville from Missouri, was an assistant for Richardson at Arkansas.

“Nolan says ‘40 Minutes of Hell;’ Mike says ‘The Fastest 40 Minutes.’ So there are a lot of similarities, obviously,” Fox said.

Georgia enters the second half of the SEC schedule somewhat desperate.

“We’re still trying to get that swagger,” Fox said. “I think that we’re getting longer periods of good play. So I think they’re starting to develop some confidence even though we haven’t gained the result we want.”