Back-to-back 20-win seasons was one thing to help validate the work that senior guards Charles Mann and Kenny Gaines have done to establish a new foundation for Georgia basketball. But it was one loss that might have done just as much, if not more.
When the 10th-seeded Bulldogs lost to No. 7-seed Michigan State 70-63 in Charlotte in the first round of last season’s NCAA tournament, they learned something new about themselves. That was confirmed after watching the Spartans make a run to the Final Four before losing to eventual champion Duke in the national semifinal.
“If we were healthy, we could have been in the Final Four,” Gaines said.
Gaines, who was in Charlotte for SEC media day Tuesday, was the primary culprit. He played against Michigan State on a fractured foot, something he said doctors told him he probably shouldn’t have done. But he managed to score 15 points in 20 minutes before coach Mark Fox had to pull him because he couldn’t play the usual standout defense they needed from him.
Georgia had 21 games missed by starters from Jan. 1 on because of concussions (Marcus Thornton), an orbital fracture (J.J. Frazer), a torn Achilles (Juwan Parker) and a concussion (Yante Maten hit by a car).
The Bulldogs have made two trips to the NCAA tournament in Fox’s six seasons as coach. The next obvious hurdle is to win there. Georgia last team to win an NCAA tournament game was in 2002, when the Bulldogs beat Murray State in the round of 64 and lost to Southern Illinois in the second round. Georgia had to vacate that win after the academic scandal under coach Jim Harrick.
Georgia’s most-recent NCAA tournament victory that’s still in the books came in 1996 under Tubby Smith, when the Bulldogs beat Clemson and Purdue before losing to Syracuse in the regional semifinals in Denver.
The Bulldogs could go a long way toward meeting that goal if they improve their seeding and get a better early-round matchup. They’ve drawn tough early-round matchups under Fox. Georgia also was a No. 10 seed in 2011 when it lost to No. 7 Washington, also in Charlotte.
“It’s great now that everyone thinks that’s an issue,” Fox said Wednesday. “Because before it was like ‘Do you have a heartbeat?’ Now that we’re healthy, there’s a different challenge in front of us. That’s great.”
Fox tackled the scheduling issue with an improved non-conference schedule that includes 11 opponents who averaged 19.3 wins last season, and what Fox feels is one of the toughest road schedules in the nation with trips to Kentucky, Vanderbilt, LSU, Baylor and Seton Hall. Georgia’s on-the-court challenges center around the departures of Marcus Thornton and Nemi Djurisic, who accounted for 23.3 points and 12.5 rebounds in the post last season.
Georgia brings in four freshmen, and “all four have shown they can really impact our team,” Fox said. Two of those, Derek Ogbeide and Mike Edwards, are fighting for playing time in the post, with Ogbeide emerging as a possible starter at center. Freshman guard Turtle Jackson has shown just the right amount of skill and humility to earn the respect of his senior backcourt mates. Fox said his abilities as a “scoring point” will give him the flexibility to move Mann off point guard to play some No. 2 and No. 3 when Georgia goes to a smaller lineup.
“We have a lot of flexibility in our roster, once we learn the basic things we have to do,” Fox said. “We’ll have more versatility and more depth, after we get young guys up to speed.”
Most important, the Bulldogs are healthy. Both Gaines and Parker were cleared this week to begin full participation in practice. And the backbone of this team — Georgia’s senior backcourt — isn’t so worried about strength of schedule and potential NCAA seeding. They’re more concerned with a Dec. 19 date with Georgia Tech in Athens.
“We need to beat Georgia Tech,” Mann said. “They have beaten us the last three years. That’s a big goal of ours.”
“We’ll worry about the (NCAA) tournament when it comes,” Gaines said.
The fact that he said “when” and not “if” isn’t a bad sign for Georgia either.
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