Georgia loses to Vandy

By Tim Tucker

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

NASHVILLE — Georgia’s hopes of a deep run in the SEC basketball tournament were cut short late Friday night.

The Bulldogs lost to Vanderbilt 78-66 despite a gigantic game by forward Travis Leslie, who scored a career-high 34 points — more than half of his team’s total and the eighth highest-scoring game in SEC tourney history.

And it was not enough.

While the Dogs go home, their season over, Vanderbilt (24-7) advances to play Mississippi State in a semifinal game at 3:15 p.m. today. Kentucky and Tennessee will meet at 1 p.m. in today’s other semifinal.

As he left Bridgestone Arena after midnight, Georgia coach Mark Fox ruled out any possible postseason tournament for the Dogs, such as the third-tier College Basketball Invitational (CBI). "This is it," he said. His first season as the Dogs' coach is over.

One night after posting a 24-point, 16-rebound game in Georgia’s opening-round victory over Arkansas, Trey Thompkins was held to 13 points -- none in the first half -- and five rebounds by Vanderbilt.

Fox attributed Thompkins' poor night to Vanderbilt's effective zone defense, which was shaded toward him.

"We had a tough time finding openings for him," Fox said. "When we've been most effective, we've had more than one guy that has scored next to [Thompkins]. Tonight we really only had Travis effectively scoring . . . and just couldn't draw some of the attention away from [Thompkins]."

Said Thompkins:  "Vanderbilt's a great team. They're strong. They're tall. They're long. And they played great defensively tonight."

The one player they couldn't stop was Leslie, who was 12-for-23 from the field (one 3-pointer) and 9-for-10 from the free-throw line. His 34-point performance followed his 21-point game against Arkansas the night before.

"He was able to put back-to-back games together," Fox said. "I wish we had a couple more guys that could have done that. He's really maturing as a player, and that's good to see."

Vanderbilt’s offensive answer to Leslie proved to be guard John Jenkins, who scored 22 of his 25 points in the second half. He was 5-for-8 from 3-point range, including 4-for-4 in the second half.

Vanderbilt set the tone for the game in the first half, when, in addition to stifling Thompkins, the Commodores  out-rebounded Georgia -- normally a good rebounding team -- by a wide 28-15 margin.

"Vanderbilt came very determined to play tonight," Fox said. "I think our team was excited about playing also, but they really out-rebounded us in he first half and that . . . had a significant impact on the ballgame."

Georgia trailed 35-27 at halftime and could thank Leslie for still being in the game at that point.  He scored 16 points in the half on 6-for-11 shooting from the field and 3-for-4 from the line. The rest of the team was 4-for-18 from the field in the half. Thompkins went 0-for-6 from the field, did not get to the free-throw line and had only three rebounds in the half.

Leslie started the second half where he left off. A breakaway dunk cut the Commodores’ lead to 35-29. Then, 56 seconds into the second half, Thompkins scored his first points of the night on a driving layup to make the score 35-31. Next time down the floor, Thompkins again scored underneath to cut the Vandy lead to 35-33.

That was as close as Georgia would get.

Vanderbilt gradually took command of the game by continuing to play strong on the boards and by getting hot from 3-point range. With seven minutes to play, Vanderbilt led by 12. Soon the lead reached 16 points, Vandy’s largest of the night. After shooting 35.3 percent in the first half, Vandy shot 55.2 percent in the second half.

Just as the Bulldogs led almost the entire game on Thursday, they trailed for almost all of Friday's game.

"It's hard to play from behind," Thompkins said.

Other than Leslie's 34 and Thompkins' 13, no Georgia player scored more than five points. For the game, Vanderbilt had a 43-32 advantage in rebounds.

Vandy entered the game with a No. 20 national ranking and assured of an NCAA tournament berth, while Georgia was 14-16 (5-11) and far off the radar for an NCAA at-large bid.

Despite the disparity in credentials, both teams expected a hard-fought game.

They had split two regular-season meetings, Georgia winning by 14 points in Athens on Feb. 6 and losing by two points in overtime at Vandy’s Memorial Gym on Feb. 25.

In other quarterfinal games Friday, Kentucky survived Alabama 73-67, Tennessee got past Ole Miss 76-65 and Mississippi State beat Florida 75-69.