This was gritty. This was blue collar. This was a night that Georgia didn’t play well but won anyway.
Ole Miss was the victim. The SEC’s road specialists did everything they were supposed to do, zoning the Bulldogs to death on a poor shooting night and making tough shots of their own. But then it came time for the game to be decided and Georgia made the shots it had been missing and the plays it needed to make. It all added up to the Bulldogs’ third straight victory, a 69-64 win Tuesday night at Stegeman Coliseum.
“We anticipated that this would be a real slugfest,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “They have a terrific team and they forced us to play poorly in the first half; give them credit. But we just hung in there and found our rhythm in the second half and ended the night with a really good win because we beat a really good team.
The Rebels (11-7, 2-3 SEC) came into the game with a No. 43 RPI. They were coming off a 96-82 road win over Arkansas and put a huge scare into No. 1 Kentucky before leaving Rupp Arena as overtime losers on Jan. 6.
Georgia (12-5, 3-2 SEC) was firing blanks for much of the night. The Bulldogs missed every 3 (seven) they tried until well into the second half. Charles Mann couldn’t score at all in the first half. But the junior from Alpharetta was good for 12 points in the second half, eight of them coming within the first five minutes.
That was critical as it catapulted the Bulldogs back from what had been an eight-point deficit and warmed up what had been an icy offense. Georgia ended up shooting 48 percent in the second half as Marcus Thornton led with 16 points and J.J. Frazier and Nemanja Djurisic added 11 each. The latter two did most of their offensive work after halftime as Georgia outscored the Rebels 44-33.
“We just played hard,” said Mann, who also led the Bulldogs with 7 rebounds. “We’ve been in this situation before. We’re confident in each other and that’s why we came out with the win.”
The Rebels got 26 points from Stefan Moody, the guard they imported from junior college to fill the void left by Marshall Henderson’s graduation. He has done a good job of that, averaging better than 18 a game in SEC play. But he was unable to score in the final 1:56 when the outcome was hanging in the balance, and he was only 2-of-9 from 3-point range, where he has been a real killer this season.
“I’ve never seen a player like that,” said Georgia’s Cameron Forte, who scored nine while Mann was benched with foul trouble in the first half. “I’d always put my money on Kenny (Gaines), but tonight I don’t know what happened.”
Gaines, who averages 12.4 points a game, finished with five on 1-of-7 shooting.
The Bulldogs trailed almost the entire first half but mounted a comeback early in the second behind Mann and a couple of timely 3-pointers.
Mann scored driving baskets on four of Georgia’s first seven possessions and was called for a charge, wiping out a basket on another. He’d played just six minutes in the first half due to foul trouble.
Meanwhile, Frazier jarred the Bulldogs’ first 3-pointer of the game at the 17:51 mark. When Gaines finally made the Bulldogs’ second at the 12:40 mark, they had finally run down the Rebels to lead 43-39.
Georgia would stretch it out to seven points from there, getting the last two on an emphatic dunk from Thornton, who’d received a half-court feed from Frazier. That forced an Ole Miss timeout at the 8:08 mark.
The Rebels then switched back to a zone defense and the Bulldogs proceeded to miss open 3-point tries as they had most of the evening.
Ole Miss went on a 7-0 run and tied the game at 51 on Sebastian Saiz’s jumper at the 6:16 mark. But that’d be the last time the Rebels would pull even. A Frazier 3 with 5:24 to go gave the Bulldogs a lead they’d never relinquish.
“Before the game I thought the arena was a little flat, I thought our team was a little flat, our coaches were concerned during the warmups,” Fox said. “I told them before the game, you have to be able to play on the days you don’t feel good. Not every night is the rival Florida Gators and a packed house and all that. You’ve got to be able to grind out and find ways to win. Fortunately for us we did.”
