They’re not there. Not yet.
Mark Fox spoke about how the Georgia basketball program has some depth and is on stable ground now, and he was correct. He talked about his players’ work ethic and resolve and their ability to overcome injuries to win 21 games and reach the NCAA tournament, and he was right about that, too.
But Georgia is not where it needs to be yet. The Bulldogs played with great effort in its NCAA Tournament opener Friday against Michigan State, they just didn’t often play well. They committed 10 turnovers in the first half. They shot poorly. They lacked flow on offense and consistency on defense. They went on some nice runs early and late, but not nearly often enough in between to beat a program like Michigan State, where tournament berths are a March staple, not a precious gift.
Georgia lost 70-63.
“We lost to a better team,” Fox said.
Not extraordinarily better. But it was still easy to tell the program that has been to 18 consecutive tournaments, including six Final Fours and one national championship, from the one that hadn’t played a tourney game since 2011 and still hasn’t won one since 2002 (under Jim Harrick, before his house of cards came down, leaving probation and a grease stain).
Fox has done an admirable job building the Georgia program. Some fans, mostly those who lack historical perspective or any thought deeper than the average Tweet, disagree with that. The man has put together three 20-win seasons and two NCAA appearances in the past five seasons. It’s fine to want more as long as you don’t think those accomplishments have been the norm in Athens.
It’s better than it was in 2009, when Fox took over, and better than it was in 2011, Georgia’s previous tournament appearance. The Bulldogs lost to Washington, then lost Travis Leslie and Trey Thompkins as early departures to the NBA, then were 14-20 in the SEC the next two seasons.
In the past two seasons, these Dogs won 41 games and were 23-13 in the SEC. They will lose seniors Marcus Thornton and Nemanja Djurisic, but return a number of core players, including starting guards Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann. The bottom won’t fall out this time.
But can we assume Georgia will form into a solid postseason contender until it proves to be … a solid postseason contender?
“The tradition of this program is to have mental toughness, and we showed that all season,” said Gaines, who struggled on defense with a sprained left foot and his conditioning from so much missed practice time in the past two weeks.
“I just wish we could’ve played our best basketball. We had a lot of injuries. It’s unfortunate the way the dice rolled this season.”
Georgia will wonder about its upside if not for all the ailments. (Only Mann and Djurisic were healthy enough to play every game.) But great programs overcome injuries, and obviously Georgia isn’t great yet. Regular-season losses to Georgia Tech, Auburn and South Carolina led to being a 10th seed and going against Michigan State (which is 11-4 since midseason, with two of those losses in overtime).
The inconsistencies continued Friday in Charlotte, the site of their last tournament defeat. They led for nearly the first 10 minutes of the game. But they bent rims (shoot 28 percent in the first half) and suffered from an excess of thumbs (10 turnovers) and trailed by 35-22 at intermission.
Comeback in the second half: They pulled to within two at 39-37. Fallback: They made two of their next 12 shots and soon trailed by double-digits again. They looked dead at 64-52 with 1:16 remaining. Then somehow fought back to make it a three-point game with 21 seconds left. But a foul, a missed layup, another foul, another missed layup and they were done.
“I think emotions got to us throughout the game,” Djurisic said.
“When you’re playing a team like that, there’s only a limited margin for error, and that caught up to us,” Thornton said.
This Georgia team had a high ceiling, but the injuries and erratic play caused too many leaks.
Fox tried not to spend too much time focused on the what-might-have-beens after the game.
“We never become the offensive team that I thought we could be because we were always missing a different part,” he said. “We’ll just have to be proud of how they responded.”
And then: “That’s why a rearview mirror is smaller than a windshield.”
Looking ahead: Progress has been made, but more progress is needed.
Fox soon will resume recruiting. Landing a player like Wheeler’s Jaylen Brown, considered by most one of the top two players in the nation and certainly the top one in the state, would be a giant leap forward. But when coveted players are offered by Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas or some other basketball factory, they usually go to Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas or some other basketball factory.
Georgia may never be in that class, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t significant room for improvement. Fox has made things a little better every year, but one-and-done can’t be the ceiling.
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