At this point, don’t you just know the Georgia Bulldogs would like to have a do-over on November?
As it is, the Bulldogs (15-11, 9-5 SEC) won Saturday for the fifth time in February. They got 27 points from Kenny Gaines and dispatched South Carolina in dominant fashion on the road, 73-56.
It was Georgia’s third road victory in SEC play this season, assures that it will win at least half of its regular-season SEC games and matches the win total of all of last season. More important, the victory keeps the Bulldogs in sole possession of third place in the SEC. With four games left in the regular season, that makes the prospect of a first-round, double-bye in the SEC tournament a realistic possibility, not to mention a postseason bid.
The double-byes go to the top four seeds in the SEC.
“We’re not ready quite yet to talk about that,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “We’re still taking it one game at a time, but everybody knows seeding in the tournament is important.”
Making the Bulldogs’ accomplishments to this point more impressive is the fact that it’s happening after losing a sophomore — Kentavious Caldwell-Pope — to the NBA draft lottery. That, Fox said, was more of an issue in November than it is now.
The Bulldogs, with a No. 91 RPI ranking as of Saturday, lost to Georgia Tech (154), Davidson (160) and Temple (169) the first month of the season. Overall, they have four wins over higher-ranked teams and four over lower-ranked opponents.
“We not only lost our best player, we lost the best player in the league,” Fox said. “So it took us some time to get used to not having him. You wish you could have some of those back, but we put ourselves in that position, and we can’t have them back. So we’re trying to make the most of where we are.”
Gaines is helping a lot. The sophomore guard did his best impression of Caldwell-Pope on Saturday, recording a career-high in scoring and making 5 of 9 3-point attempts. Gaines scored nine consecutive points for the Bulldogs when they fell behind by seven midway through the first half and seven of nine when South Carolina briefly tried to make a run at getting back in the game midway through the second.
“I just felt in my rhythm,” said Gaines, who has led the Bulldogs in scoring the past three games. “I was just trying to not force any shots and knock them down when they came to me.”
Gaines wasn’t a lone wolf. Junior forward Marcus Thornton recorded his third double-double of the season, with 12 points and 12 rebounds, and Brandon Morris added 12 points.
“There’s no other feeling like it, man,” Morris said. “A road win is the best feeling ever.”
It didn’t start out looking like it would be that kind of day for Georgia. The Bulldogs fell behind by seven in the first half and had to claw their way to a 34-34 score at halftime.
“I felt real good at halftime,” South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. “I felt like we were in a good place.”
Then Georgia used a 16-1 run to open the second half and seize control of the game. Five Bulldogs scored during the spurt, which resulted in a 50-35 advantage with 11:44 to play. Nemanja Djurisic capped the run with a 3-pointer 30 seconds after his baseline drive, adding his name to a list of scorers that included Gaines, Thornton, Morris and Juwan Parker.
Georgia continued the onslaught and led by as many as 21 points. South Carolina didn’t make its first field goal of the second half until the 10:52 mark.
Now the Bulldogs must reset before another big game at 9 p.m. Tuesday against Missouri. The Bulldogs served notice Jan. 8 when they beat the Tigers at their place, 70-64 in overtime, that they were going to be a factor in league play.
“Well, we’ve continued to improve,” Fox said. “We weren’t very good before we sliced the turkey. But since Thanksgiving we’ve been making progress. So I’m proud of our team for continuing to get better. Now we’ve got to stay on that same path and go scratch out the next one if we can.”
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