And now, they wait.
The battered and bruised Georgia Bulldogs finally succumbed to the avalanche of injuries that has befallen them this season. They lost to No. 2-seed Arkansas 60-49 in the SEC tournament semifinals here at Bridgestone Arena on Saturday.
But Georgia will play again, and virtually every expert who projects the NCAA tournament field seems certain that the Bulldogs will play in that event. The only real question is seeding and destination.
“We think we’ve done enough to earn our way in, and that’s all we can say about it,” said senior forward Marcus Thornton, who led Georgia with 13 points and 12 rebounds Saturday. “It’s out of our control. Tomorrow we’ll get together and hopefully we’ll get good news. Then we’ll go from there.”
Said coach Mark Fox: “I think this team deserves to go. I think we have earned our way in. We respect that it’s not our decision. We respect that the committee will do its due diligence in studying teams. But when you do that, I think we have earned our right to be there.”
It wouldn’t be a question at all had the Bulldogs been able to take care of business against Arkansas on Saturday. But the injury situation that has dogged Georgia since SEC play opened in early January continued to impact it in the conference tournament.
Shooting guard Kenny Gaines was unable to play because of a sprained left foot that also kept him out of the regular-season finale. And small forward Juwan Parker tried to play. But he was able to give Georgia only six minutes before aggravating the Achilles injury that kept him out of 14 games this season, including the SEC quarterfinals.
With those guys out, the Bulldogs simply didn’t have enough legs to keep up with the fast-running Razorbacks. Backup players such as Cameron Forte and Taylor Echols tried to pick up the slack — they finished with 13 and 10 points, respectively — but Georgia fell behind by 19 in the second half and got no closer than nine.
The Bulldogs, seeded third in this tournament, fall to 21-11 on the season. Arkansas (26-7), which beat Georgia for the second time this season, advances to the championship game to face No. 1-ranked and unbeaten Kentucky (33-0). The Razorbacks lost to the Wildcats 84-67 in Lexington on Feb. 28.
It was the second the second year in a row that Georgia’s SEC run ended in the semifinals. The Bulldogs, who also had a double-bye then, lost to Kentucky in Atlanta last March.
With Gaines out, J.J. Frazier got his 15th start of the season at point guard, and Kenny Paul Geno started at small forward. Parker came off the bench as the first perimeter player in the rotation, but aggravated his injury in the first half and did not return.
“We were a little fatigued and a little banged up,” Forte said. “We had a couple of injuries, but that was nothing new. … Overall I think we didn’t really execute the way we needed to and that led to us losing tonight.”
The Bulldogs did some things well. They managed to get Arkansas to play at their pace and held SEC player of the year Bobby Portis to four points on 1-of-14 shooting. The Razorbacks shot shot 37 percent from the floor and 26 percent from 3-point range. They got 15 points from Michael Qualls and 10 from Anthlon Bell, but the 60 points was their lowest scoring total in a win this season.
But Arkansas did what it does in the second half. After being frustrated by and grinding through Georgia’s preferred pace in the first half, the Razorbacks were able to take advantage of some turnovers and get loose and run early in the second half. The stretched an eight-point halftime lead to 15, 38-23, over the first five minutes.
Arkansas would build from there. Back-to-back 3-point baskets by Bell resulted in the Hogs’ biggest advantage of the game. They led 44-25 when Fox called for a timeout at the 13:03 mark.
“We’re not a team to make excuses, first off,” Thornton said. “And this was never a game that wasn’t winnable at any point. This was a very winnable game the whole time. We just didn’t do some things that would have given us a chance to win today, and we waited too long to start fighting.”
It was Echols’ third 3 of the game that brought Georgia to within 56-47 with four minutes to play and put a brief scare into the Razorbacks. But they were able to make free throws and get run-outs on missed Bulldog 3s from there.
“I thought fatigue affected both teams,” Fox said. “It’s a challenging schedule. Obviously not having Kenny was part of it, too.”
Trying to get healthy between now in the tournament is the focus now, Fox said.
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