Georgia nearly let all that late-season momentum slip right through its collective fingers.
Instead, the Bulldogs barely held on. they wiped out a late nine-point second-half deficit and ended the game on a 14-2 run to score a 63-56 victory in the first round of the NIT tournament. The victory gave Georgia (20-13) just its 12th 20-win season in school history and sets it up for a second-round home matchup against Louisiana Tech.
Louisiana Tech defeated Iona 89-88.
Sandro Carrisimo led Vermont with 11 points. The Catamounts season ends at 22-10.
Georgia’s Charles Mann gets credit for both securing the victory and creating all the angst. The sophomore point guard let a turnover parade for the Bulldogs with seven. But he was clutch at the end of the game, scoring 11 of their final 14 points and making 10 consecutive free throws. He led all scorers with a career-high 29 points.
Marcus Thornton added 16 points for Georgia, which had a season-worst 22 turnovers.
The Bulldogs trailed by nine with 9:10 to go but Mann led a rally that saw them finally wrestle away the lead on his three-point play with 2:25 to play.
Had Georgia handled the ball with more care it could have dominated the Catamounts. Twice the Bulldogs slipped ahead by 10 points, but each time it handed the ball — and points — back to the visitors.
Georgia went ahead 36-26 when Mann buried a 3-pointer at the 16:34 mark, his seventh consecutive point for the Bulldogs. Already with 14 turnovers to that point, Georgia committed five over the next four minutes and Vermont turned it into a quick 8-0 spurt.
It got a whole lot worse from there. The Bulldogs kept committing turnovers and the Catamounts started making 3s. When Hector Harold made a trey for Vermont at the 9:10 mark, that capped a 21-2 run for the visitors. Georgia went over eight minutes without a field goal.
It also seemed to awaken the previously sleep-walking Bulldogs. They came out of a timeout and scored seven unanswered points, topped by a three-point play from Mann. His free throw made it a two-point game with 7:31, and now you had a ballgame.
The Bulldogs led 29-20 in the first half, which was a minor miracle considering how poorly they played.
Georgia had 13 turnovers in the opening 20 minutes — it averaged 12.7 for whole games during the season — and five of them were by the point guard Mann, the point. Most of them were of them unforced variety.
But when the Bulldogs held onto the ball they were fairly proficient. They shot 56 percent (10-18) from the floor. The Catamounts had no match inside for Thornton, who led the way with 11 points even while shooting to short air balls.
Georgia had just one turnover in a four-minute span toward the end of the half. Not coincidentally, it quickly built a 10-point lead.
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