Under Armour sports apparel made a name for itself with a marketing campaign that featured a muscular athlete screaming at the top of his lungs “we will protect this house” as he prepared to lead his team into a game.
The reference is to winning at home. It’s paramount in all sports, and probably none more so than college basketball.
Georgia, a team that tends to play a lot better at home, will play host to Arkansas on Saturday. The Razorbacks are a team that has not played well on the road. So the teams will battle to achieve opposing goals, both of which are vitally important to a successful season.
The Bulldogs (8-7, 2-1 SEC) will seek to defend their home court. Arkansas (12-4, 1-2) will fight to steal a road win. Something, obviously, has to give.
“You’ve got to really work to protect your home court,” said Mark Fox, whose fifth Georgia team is 7-1 at Stegeman Coliseum this season. “There’s a lot of balance across our league, so protecting your home court’s going to be important.”
Conversely, that makes getting conference road wins a precious commodity. The Bulldogs already landed one, shocking everybody with a 70-64 overtime win over then-No. 21 Missouri in Columbia.
But a week later, they were embarrassed at Florida. The No. 7 Gators annihilated Georgia 72-50. That loss dropped the Bulldogs to 1-3 in away games this season.
“We’ve had a lot of tough opponents on the road the last three or four weeks,” said junior forward Nemi Djurisic, who was held scoreless against the Gators. “We’re just kind of tired of traveling so much. We’ve played a lot of hard games. … Florida is just a team that’s very hard to play against and very hard to play there.”
Said Fox: “It’s so different than maybe football. You’re traveling in the middle of the week, you’re traveling sometimes twice in seven or eight days. Sometimes the games are late, sometimes they’re in the afternoon. The schedule is all over the place. … If you go to a difficult place to play with 10,000 people on top of you and rooting against you, it makes it hard. That’s one of the great things about college basketball. When you have a great home crowd, it can make a significant difference.”
Just ask the Razorbacks. While there are few programs with a better basketball pedigree than Arkansas, it has struggled mightily on the road in recent years. The Hogs are 0-1 on the road this season and 2-19 in coach Mike Anderson’s three seasons (both of those wins came at Auburn, where Arkansas doesn’t play this season).
According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Hogs are 3-25 under Anderson in out-of-state games. The one other win came against Minnesota in Maui this season. In their only conference road game so far this season, the Razorbacks were throttled by Texas A&M 69-53.
It’s not just Arkansas and Georgia. SEC teams are 114-21 at home this season, 12-32 on the road.
“I’m just anxious to see how we respond,” Anderson told reporters this week. “That’s what I’m looking forward to. It’s another test for our guys. (When) we played at A&M I thought our guys probably went in overconfident. … They’ve got to show up and know we’re going to have to scrap and claw just like we play in Fayetteville.”
The Hogs were awesome at home Tuesday. They got a highlight-reel, putback jam from Michael Qualls at the buzzer to knock off No. 13 Kentucky 87-85 in overtime.
As it does so well, Arkansas protected its house. Georgia will look to do the same.
About the Author
