Georgia looks to maintain Top 25 rank after 75-70 road win at South Carolina

ATHENS — The formula for a successful basketball season hasn’t changed since Georgia coach Mike White was a point guard himself playing in the SEC at Ole Miss.

“Take care of business at home,” the old axiom states where conference games are concerned, “steal a few on the road.”

The No. 18-ranked Bulldogs (14-2, 2-1 SEC) are off to a good start in that regard after pulling out a 75-70 road win at South Carolina (10-6, 1-2) on Saturday.

The victory could keep Georgia ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 poll, which comes out Monday, and keeps UGA firmly among teams projected to make the NCAA tournament.

The Bulldogs have been ranked the past three weeks — their longest stretch in that capacity since the 2002-03 season — but suffered a 92-77 road loss to Florida on Tuesday.

The defeat to the defending national champion Gators didn’t look quite as bad after Florida took down No. 21 Tennessee in Gainesville on Saturday, 91-67.

Florida (11-5, 2-1) will surely jump back into the Top 25, as Volunteers coach Rick Barnes noted, “Florida has five losses, and I think four of them are to Top 25 teams.”

The perception of the Top 25 is one thing, but the all-important NET ranking — a computerized formula used by the NCAA tournament selection committee — is another.

Georgia was No. 25 in the NET rankings as of Sunday, fourth-best among the SEC teams behind unbeaten Vanderbilt (16-0, seventh), Florida (15th) and Alabama (11-5, 18th),

The NET ranking is worth keeping an eye on for the Bulldogs as they chase what would be a second-straight NCAA tournament appearance.

There’s a lot of season left, to be sure, including a home game on Wednesday against Ole Miss (9-7, 1-2) that represents the sort of game an NCAA tourney team is supposed win.

The Rebels are coming off their first SEC victory — and arguably their best win of the season — a 76-69 victory over Missouri (12-4, 2-1) on Saturday.

As important as Georgia’s first road win of the season was, the manner in which the Bulldogs prevailed was encouraging for White.

Most obvious, sophomore center Somto Cyril bounced back from his first-half ejection at Florida with an 18-point, five-rebound performance that included three blocked shots and several other drives to the basket altered by his presence.

Cyril is seventh in the nation with 2.73 block shots per game and brings a rim-protecting presence pivotal to Georgia’s success.

Keeping the athletic, 6-foot-11, 245-pound Cyril out of foul trouble and healthy will be paramount to UGA’s season hopes, as the Bulldogs lack size, relative to contending teams.

Perimeter shooting is also at a premium for Georgia, like any other team, so getting Kanon Catchings on track (20 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the field, including 4-of-9 from 3-point range) was also encouraging.

Catchings, a prized 6-foot-9 transfer from BYU, was brought in to provide scoring punch but has been slow to adjust to finding his rhythm in the Bulldogs’ up-tempo offense.

Georgia still leads the nation in scoring (97.9 points per game) and fast-break points (25.87 per game), but most of those gaudy numbers have come against a nonconference schedule that ranks 327th in the nation.

Better competition awaits the Bulldogs with SEC play underway, with bigger and better ball-handling teams on the slate that can and will do a better job of controlling tempo and settling games into more of a half-court variety.

White wondered aloud how his team would handle the change of pace, and prevailing in more of a half-court game — on the road, at that — is a confidence builder.

“Every defense will dictate who you play through at times, and who is playing well, and who is making shots,” White noted. “At times we’ll be playing certain teams in this league where the tempo is off the charts.