Georgia loses close game against Ole Miss

By Jeff Haws

For the AJC

ATHENS — In a back-and-forth game, No. 21 Ole Miss made just enough plays down the stretch to beat Georgia 80-76 on Wednesday night.

After a relatively uneventful first 30 minutes, Georgia (8-7, 0-2 SEC) and Ole Miss put on a show during the final 10. The last quarter of the game featured six ties and eight lead changes, as both teams jostled for position.

The biggest play for Ole Miss might have come with 11 seconds left, when Eniel Polynice threw his inbounds pass from underneath his basket off the back of Trey Thompkins, caught it, then darted under the basket for a quick layup to give the game its final margin.

“I’m thinking to myself that you have to be kidding me,” Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said. “Our coaches were yelling because [Thompkins] looked confused. [Polynice] saw they were face-guarding [Terrico White], so he made a pretty smart play.”

Georgia turned repeatedly in the final minutes to Thompkins, who disappeared from the scoring column for almost all of the middle 20 minutes of the game after scoring 13 quick points.

He scored eight points in the final 10:57, all of which came on free throws or work under the basket. He finished with a game-high 21 points.

But his lack of scoring for much of the game was a matter of the Ole Miss defense deciding that he wasn’t going to be the guy to beat them.

“He made his first four or five baskets, and they made some adjustments,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “He’s a marked man in a lot of ways.”

Georgia, on the other hand, couldn’t figure out who to focus on. Ole Miss, which entered the game with five players averaging double-figures in scoring, got double-figures from four and at least six points from nine players.

The Rebels’ defense also caused some problems for Georgia, especially in the second half when Ole Miss changed its scheme and threw off the Bulldogs’ rhythm.

“We didn’t expect them to go to a zone,” said Georgia guard Travis Leslie, who finished with 17 points and eight rebounds. “I guess we weren’t prepared for it. We just couldn’t get good shots off. They were going back on offense, and they were scoring.”

Ole Miss (13-3, 1-1) got off to a hot start in the second half, with White scoring eight points in the first four minutes to help the Rebels build a seven-point lead by the time the clock hit 13:09.

But 3-pointers by Ricky McPhee and Dustin Ware allowed the Bulldogs to cut back into the Ole Miss lead, and Georgia was back in front when Ware made a pair of free throws with 9:35 left, sparking the wild finish.

The game capped off a stretch in which Georgia played three consecutive top-25 teams -- No. 20 Georgia Tech, No. 2 Kentucky and Ole Miss -- and the Bulldogs came out of the set with one win and two hard-fought losses.

“This is probably one of the toughest stretches on any schedule for any team in the country,” Thompkins said. “But we notice that we can play with anyone when we want to play, and we can beat anyone when we want to play. It’s just that level of maturity that we have to reach that we haven’t reached yet.”