Georgia men’s basketball overcomes slow start to beat Florida Gulf Coast
For much of the second half in Monday’s game against Florida Gulf Coast, coach Mike White saw the potential of what his Georgia team could be.
Suffocating defense. Transition offense. Confident shooting. Smart possessions.
The Bulldogs, who trailed the Eagles from the Atlantic Sun Conference for nearly 10 minutes in the first half, used a dominant 21-4 run to open the second half on their way to an 80-72 win.
White was pleased with his team’s second-half defensive effort. The Bulldogs forced seven turnovers in that half, including multiple shot clock and five-second violations. They had two blocks and a steal, too, as they built a 23-point lead, which led them to a 3-0 start to the season.
“They tested our discipline (in the first half),” White said about the Eagles. “We had shot clock violations. We had a five-count. We had a 10-count. If you can muster up 25, 30 minutes of that instead of the 14 or 15 minutes of that in the second half, then all of a sudden we’ve got close to a finished product defensively. We’ve got a ways to go offensively.”
Georgia took its first lead courtesy of two Kareem Stagg free throws with 5:40 left before halftime. James Scott missed a layup at the buzzer to head to the locker room with the Bulldogs up 44-41 despite the team turning the ball over six times and being outrebounded 18-14.
Seniors Blue Cain and Marcus “Smurf” Millender stepped up and rallied their team at halftime.
“We were some of the leaders last year, so we’re still in that role this year,” Millender said. “As soon as the half ended with James with the missed layup at the end, we sprinted in and we were talking to each other, just trying to get each other on the same page and get to what we wanted to do.”
Whatever was said in the locker room at Stegeman Coliseum worked as the Bulldogs looked quite different in the second half. They started with that aforementioned run. It felt like the Eagles might not score again with Georgia on a 17-0 run midway through the half.
Florida Gulf Coast finally scored with 7:08 left to end a seven-minute drought.
“I feel like in games like this when the first half doesn’t go how you expected it to go or how you wanted it to go, it kind of lights a fire under you,” said Kanon Catchings, who scored eight of his 13 points in the second half. “Coach is always talking about how important defense is. You can’t win in the SEC without playing great defense. I feel like it’s just something to build off for sure.”
Georgia, with the crowd feeding into its lead, had to face a 16-0 run from the visitors, who crawled back to just a seven-point deficit.
Catchings, Millender and the Georgia defense won the game on a stretch with a little under four minutes to go. Cain got a steal and pushed the ball down the court. Millender drew a double team, then lobbed it to Stagg for a deafening slam to make the score 80-68. Rather than get back on defense, the Bulldogs pressed and Millender forced a jump ball in the corner right in front of the Georgia bench.
The Eagles advanced the ball into their half, worked it around the perimeter and had no shot. They suffered their third shot clock violation of the half.
“I thought that our attention to detail and our ball pressure (were good),” White said. “Our guys really exerted themselves and played really hard in the first 10 minutes of the second half. It was enough. That was the difference in the game. If we don’t do that early second half and spread (the lead) to 23, it could have been really interesting down the stretch.”
Four Bulldogs scored 13 points, with Catchings and Scott each having seven rebounds. Three games into the season with nine new players, Georgia is averaging 83 points per game and shooting 46% from the floor.
They’re not where they want to be yet.
“This game I feel like we did a better job of flowing in the offense than we did in other games,” Millender said. “Coach be preaching and telling the media all the time that we’re going to score a lot of points on the offensive end. We’re just trying to get better on defense.”
A new test awaits this edition of the Bulldogs as they hit the road for the first time, traveling to Chapel Hill to take on North Carolina on Friday night. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. on ESPN2.
White has never been to the Dean Dome, where there are championship banners and retired jerseys galore.
Still, the confidence oozing from the Bulldogs’ locker room has them unafraid to face the new-look Tar Heels.
“They put their jersey on like we do,” Millender said. “They bleed how we bleed. It’s not nothing that we’re not prepared for, that Coach White and the other coaches haven’t prepared us for since June. I feel like it’s going to be a good game, it’s going to be a tough game. They do have a new coach (Michael Malone) that’s coming in. I’m so confident in our team that we’re going to come out victorious.”