Georgia hopes to find its target against LSU

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By Chip Towers

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ATHENS — Former Georgia basketball coach Hugh Durham used to say, “I’ve got plenty of shooters; what I need is some makers.”

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Georgia guard Dustin Ware (3) drives past Mississippi State guard Jalen Steele (0) during an NCAA college basketball game in Starkville, Miss., Saturday Feb. 11, 2012. Georgia won in overtime 70-68.

Kerry Smith, AP Georgia guard Dustin Ware (3) drives past Mississippi State guard Jalen Steele (0) during an NCAA college basketball game in Starkville, Miss., Saturday Feb. 11, 2012. Georgia won in overtime 70-68.

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Current Bulldogs coach Mark Fox could say the same thing right about now.

Entering Wednesday night’s against LSU (16-6, 6-6 SEC), Georgia no longer has a mere shooting problem. It has a full-blown epidemic on its hands.

“I’d say right now that’s probably our No. 1 issue,” Fox said.

The Bulldogs (12-14, 3-9) rank last in the SEC in field-goal shooting percentage (.392). That number drops to .373 in SEC play.

Nowhere was that shortcoming more pronounced than in Sunday’s loss to Vanderbilt. Georgia took a six-point, first-half lead before the proverbial cover went over the basket. The Bulldogs shot 29 percent in the second half — including 1-for-17 from 3-point range — and the Commodores made 58 percent of their field goals and 67 percent of their 3-pointers in a 61-52 come-from-behind victory.

With the return of senior guards Gerald Robinson and Dustin Ware and the addition of five-star wing player Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, shooting was expected to be the least of Georgia’s problems. Yet they entered this week ranked eighth in the league at 32.2 percent from 3-point range.

“We have some good shooters shooting those shots,” Fox said. “Dustin Ware and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are both very good shooters. Neither one of them shot the ball well [against Vanderbilt], so it wasn’t a matter of having a bad shooter shoot it. It wasn’t a matter of taking a bad shot. We just didn’t complete the play, and that’s the issue for us, the consistency of finishing, whether it be a jump shot or something around the goal.

Another illustration of Georgia’s shooting woes lies within Ware’s statistical body of work. As a junior last season, Ware had the top 3-point shooting percentage in SEC games — 49.3 percent — and entered the season shooting nearly 40 percent from long range for his career.

Ware has shot 23.5 percent from 3-point range and 28.7 overall in conference play this season. He was 1-for-9 from 3-point range against the Commodores to continue what has been an agonizing and mysterious season-long slump.

“I’ve done just about everything there is to do,” Ware said, who has taken hundreds of extra shots after every practice. “It’s the most frustrating thing ever. But you just have to keep on trying. The biggest thing is knowing that I’m not delivering for my team when it counts; that’s the most frustrating thing. But you’ve just got to keep battling.”

The shooting problems have become a mental strain not just for Ware, but for the whole team.

“I think they’re pressing a little bit,” Fox said. “I think they know it’s been a little bit of an issue, and now they’re making it a little harder.”

Though some of the shooting struggles are a surprise, having trouble scoring as a team is not. The Bulldogs lost 63.6 percent of their points producers off last year’s team with the early departures of Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie for the NBA and the departures of seniors Jeremy Price and Chris Barnes.

“I think [Fox has] done an exceptional job when you start to look at how young they are and what they lost ...,” observed LSU coach Trent Johnson, who has coached with Fox at several stops. “Watching them play Vandy, in terms of how hard they play, the amount of shots they got and could have scored, anybody who knows basketball, they look at that team and they know they’re playing their tails off.”

Fox said the only thing to do is what Ware is doing — keep putting up shots.

“I think the biggest part of it right now is those guys just need to get in the gym and see that ball go through the net,” he said. “They need to make some shots and get back into a rhythm. It’s like anything, if you make a few you’re feeling good and you’re confident and you see a bigger basket. Right now we’re not seeing the bigger basket.”