KNOXVILLE -- The damage done three days earlier to Georgia's NCAA tournament hopes was undone here Saturday.
Georgia beat Tennessee 69-63 for a road win against a team ranked in the top 25 of the RPI -- the type of win that tends to resonate with the NCAA selection committee.
After blowing a 14-point second-half lead in Wednesday's home loss to Vanderbilt, Georgia jumped to a 15-point first-half lead against Tennessee. The cushion disappeared by midway through the second half, but the Bulldogs roared back to win in the final minutes.
"I told them at halftime, ‘You're at the doorstep again. You've put yourself back on the doorstep. And sometimes you got to kick it down. So just keep kicking,'" Georgia coach Mark Fox said after the game. "And we just kept kicking and beat a good team on the road."
The victory -- Georgia's first at Thompson-Boling Arena in a decade -- lifted the Bulldogs' record to 18-8 overall and 7-5 in the SEC and addressed perhaps the biggest criticism of their NCAA tournament portfolio: a dearth of quality wins.
While Georgia hasn't lost to a team with an RPI worse than 32, it had only two victories over top-50 RPI teams before beating the Vols (16-11, 6-6 SEC).
"This helps alleviate some criticism that evidently we may or may not have been getting," Fox said. "I think it certainly helps our cause."
By most projections, beating Tennessee puts the Bulldogs in pretty good shape on the bubble if they avoid losing either of their remaining home games against South Carolina and LSU.
The Bulldogs appeared to recognize the urgency of Saturday's game, both in how well they started -- a 22-7 lead within the first 10 minutes -- and how resolutely they finished.
"Georgia started the game like they were playing for their NCAA tournament lives," Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said. "We played like we were already in."
Tennessee rallied, though, as guard Scotty Hopson piled up points en route to a game-high 32. The Vols took a 48-45 lead with 9:47 remaining, and it appeared the Bulldogs might follow the same come-from-ahead-to-lose script of the Vanderbilt game.
Instead, they answered with a 14-4 run for a 59-52 lead with 3:37 to play. Two missed free throws by Dustin Ware with 47 seconds left and a dunk by Hopson with 42 seconds remaining cut the Bulldogs' lead to 63-61. Then Ware redeemed his two misses by making four consecutive free throws as Georgia clinched the victory.
"I just stepped to the line with confidence," Ware said. "A lot of Tennessee players were saying things, just talking and trying to get in your head. But my teammates kept faith and kept telling me, ‘We know you're going to hit it.'
"I just didn't want to let my team down. We wanted to get this win, and we needed it."
The outcome was a reversal of Tennessee's 59-57 victory in Athens on Jan. 18 and was Georgia's seventh win in nine true road games this season. That is one fewer road win than in the Bulldogs' previous seven seasons combined (8-63). The Dogs were 0-11 on the road last season.
Saturday's victory, which broke a nine-game Georgia losing streak at Tennessee, was the Bulldogs' first in Thompson-Boling since Feb. 21, 2001, when Jim Harrick was in his second season as the UGA coach.
The victory came despite two Tennessee players, Hopson and Tobias Harris, combining for 50 points. Hopson's 32 came on 12-for-19 shooting, while Harris added 18. The rest of the Tennessee team mustered only 13.
Forward Jeremy Price led Georgia with 20 points. The Bulldogs outrebounded the Vols 37-28 after being beaten badly on the boards by Vanderbilt.
"To come here and win a tough game on the road in a really rough atmosphere," Price said, "it's a really big win for us."
The Bulldogs next play Thursday night at Florida, where they haven't won in nine years.
