In an SEC tournament that coaches are calling one of the more open in years, the Georgia Bulldogs appear to their competition to be a dangerous team.
Georgia enters the tournament as one of four SEC teams with a losing record overall (15-16). But the Bulldogs were 9-9 in SEC play. And people who have paid close attention — and the 14 teams competing here at Bridgestone Arena this week have — know the Bulldogs are capable of winning every game they play.
Count LSU coach Johnny Jones, who called Georgia “a really hot team,” among those.
“We know that we have a tough challenge in front of us with Georgia,” said Jones, whose ninth-seeded Tigers (18-11, 9-9) will face the eighth-seeded Bulldogs at 1 p.m. Thursday. “We think Georgia is playing extremely well right now, and they have done some tremendous things of late.”
Georgia lost four of its last seven regular-season games. But three of those were decided on the last play of regulation, and the Bulldogs lost the other in overtime. All four of the losses were on the road, including the regular-season finale at Alabama on Saturday. Georgia lost that one 61-58 on a half-court buzzer-beater.
Such losses obviously are painful, and the Bulldogs acknowledge that. But the losses also have an alternate effect.
“We’re a very confident team,” said guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who was chosen the SEC’s player of the year Tuesday. “We feel like we can win every game we play. We know we can play with any team in the league.”
Some of that has to do with the league. With the possible exception of Florida, there hasn’t been a dominant team this season, and the top-seeded Gators lost three of their last six regular-season games.
Unfortunately for Georgia, the Gators are on its side of the bracket. Florida is the only team that manhandled the Bulldogs all season, beating them by an aggregate 50 points in two games, home and away. If Georgia can get by LSU, a team it beat 67-58 in January, it will meet Florida in the quarterfinals Friday. In the new 14-team format, the Gators, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Alabama received “double-byes” into the third round by virtue of finishing among the top four in the SEC standings.
“There’s a lot of teams out there that are very, very capable,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “And when you’re dealing with a one-game situation and a one-game tournament, I think anything can happen. I would agree that the tournament’s wide open.”
Outside the Florida games and a 17-point loss to Missouri on the road, Georgia has had an opportunity to win every other game. Tough calls and bad luck made a significant impact down the stretch.
But those gritty games also made the Bulldogs who they are, which is a team that nobody here is taking likely or counting out.
“There were some games (the players) were angry, and it was straight anger that brought them back,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “There were some other games when they just had pride in their team and pride in themselves, and we talk about that a lot in our program. You know, you show up every day and you’re going to have tough times in life, and athletics is a great tool to teach you how to deal with those things.”
Auburn, Texas A&M, South Carolina and Mississippi State faced the toughest task this week. To claim the title they needed to win five games in five days.
Georgia would have to win four games in four days to earn an NCAA tournament berth, which the Bulldogs famously did in the tornado-interrupted tournament in Atlanta in 2008.
But first they’ll have to get by a hungry LSU team.When Georgia defeated the Tigers two months ago, LSU played without senior guard Charles Carmouche. Carmouche was battling tendinitis at the time. He’ll be back in the lineup Thursday, along with his 10.8 points-per-game average.
“Really, we just plan to win,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We just came here with the mindset that we’re going to win the next game, and we’ve got to keep that mindset and stay focused to do that.”
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