The problem with March Madness is it usually means something different in Georgia than any other state.
We don’t have madness. We have maddening. We have so many exasperating moments for most weeks of the college basketball season that by the time it really counts, March Madness plays out like that party that only the cool kids would get invited to in school, while the everybody else stayed home with popcorn and a remote control.
It’s only January, so it’s a bit early to make the leap to power rankings and brackets. But Georgia (the university) is offering some hope for a different script this season. The Bulldogs handed an SEC loss to Florida for the first time in 22 months, defeating the Gators 73-61 on Saturday at Stegeman Coliseum.
Georgia is 2-2 in the SEC (11-5 overall), which is no reason for even a little red wagon parade down Carlton Street. But the victory over Florida follows an impressive win at Vanderbilt when the Bulldogs’ bench was three players short because of injuries. Their last loss at LSU came in double overtime, when depth also was an issue.
Their early-season RPI: 26th in the nation to start the day and third among SEC teams, which suggests they won’t get left out of the NCAA tournament again because of an unimpressive resume. Last year, Georgia was 12-6 in the SEC and reached the conference tournament semifinals before losing to Kentucky, but the only tournament selection committee that took their calls was the NIT.
Georgia coach Mark Fox isn’t thinking too far ahead yet. Probably wise.
When asked the significance of the past two wins, he said, “The significance would’ve been had we lost, we would’ve been in a hole that would’ve been hard to get out of. … I’m not thinking about resumes right now.”
Georgia has a great inside player in Marcus Thornton (16 points, six rebounds, one block vs. Florida) and a strong backcourt with the guard trio of Kenny Gaines (16), Charles Mann and J.J. Frazier. This team has depth and experience and didn’t crack Saturday when Florida trimmed a 15-point lead to two early in the second.
Equally important, nobody seemed to make a big deal about the win over Florida, even though the Gators have dominated recently, hadn’t loss to an SEC opponent since March 17, 2013, to Ole Miss in the SEC tournament finals (24 consecutive wins, including regular-season and SEC tournament games) and lost a regular-season conference game since March 9, 2013 at Kentucky (21 wins since).
Nothing could stop Georgia on Saturday. They even got a key late-game block by Yante Maten, leading to a 3-pointer by J.J. Frazier that gave the Dogs a 54-41 lead with 12:23 left.
Maten didn’t feel like he had been hit by a car — even though he literally was hit by a car six days earlier while walking on campus.
He missed the Vanderbilt game with a mild concussion but played 15 minutes Saturday. He had a bandage on his right ear and scrapes on the right side of his face. After the game, he recalled the accident, saying he jumped when he saw the car in the crosswalk so it didn’t hit him flush.
“I saw it when it got real close, then it kind of hit my leg, the head hit my window and I flipped over,” he said. “I was like, ‘I just got hit by a car.’ (But) I felt all my body parts. It could’ve been a lot worse.”
Slightly.
He wasn’t at his best Saturday, but he didn’t need to be. Georgia led 12-0 after four and a half minutes and 19-4 two minutes later. They made their first seven shots while the Gators missed their first six. It was the SEC basketball’s alternate universe.
Eventually, some normalcy returned. Florida began to press on defense, the Dogs got a little sloppy, took a few bad shots. After opening 7-for-7 from the floor, they went 5-for-19 the rest of the half, and by halftime the lead was down to five.
But they didn’t fizzle. They made key shots. Gaines went to the locker room for several minutes in the second half when he felt lightheaded. When he returned, he made a 3-pointer as he fell to the floor to give the Dogs a 15-point lead (59-44) with less eight minutes left.
Suddenly, even cars and low blood sugar can’t stop Georgia. Maybe the next several weeks won’t be so maddening.
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