ATHENS — Don’t let the 66-63 final score fool you. Georgia did not play a competitive game in losing to Ole Miss at Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday.
Yes, the Bulldogs had two 3-point shots at the end that could have tied the score. But anyone who watched more than the last five minutes of the game knows Georgia was thoroughly outplayed for the other 35.
“We didn’t deserve a chance to win it, in my opinion,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said.
The Bulldogs trailed by 14 points, 55-41, at the 5:28 mark of the second half. At that time, the Rebels were shooting better than 50 percent and holding an 11-rebound advantage.
Then a funny thing happened to the Rebels on their way to the win column. They seemed to remember they are among the worst free-throw shooting teams in the SEC (61 percent). On cue, they missed six of eight attempts in a two-minute span down to the 19-second mark.
By that time, Georgia’s offense had awakened from its slumber. It scored on six consecutive possessions and got to within 65-63 on Gerald Robinson’s layup with 14.1 seconds remaining. Robinson, who was fouled on the coast-to-coast drive, could have gotten it down to one point but missed the free throw, and Ole Miss was awarded the ball via the possession arrow on a rebound tie-up.
The Rebels’ Terrance Henry missed a free throw with 9.3 seconds left, giving Georgia a chance to tie the score. The Bulldogs almost made good on it. Robinson missed an open 3-point shot from the right wing, then Nemanja Djurisic hit the rim with another one from the left as the final buzzer sounded.
“‘Almost’ doesn’t count,” said Robinson, who scored 19 points and recorded five steals. “There’s no second place in games. We lost.”
The loss came in the middle of a three-game homestand for Georgia and on the heels of its first SEC victory of the season against Tennessee. The Bulldogs (10-9, 1-4) fall to 11th in the conference, with No. 2-ranked Kentucky (19-1, 5-0) coming to town Tuesday night.
“We did not respond to success very well; that’s obvious,” Fox said. “That’s my job to get them to put the last game behind them. I’m not sure we did that.”
Ole Miss (13-6, 3-2), which was coming off a 75-68 win over No. 15 Mississippi State on Wednesday night, won despite shooting 57 percent from the free-throw line (20 of 35). The Rebels out-rebounded Georgia 43-32.
The Bulldogs shot 36 percent from the field and wasted a career-best 25-point night from freshman Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. They’re now 11-of-48 (.229) on 3-point shots in the past two games.
Georgia’s defense played one of its better games of the season against Tennessee. It played one of its worst against Ole Miss.
Georgia and Ole Miss basically traded baskets for the first 10 minutes or so. Then the Bulldogs appeared to take the rest of the half off.
After tying the score at 20-20 on a 3-point shot by Robinson at the 9:15 mark, the Bulldogs went 5:20 before they would score again, and that on another 3-pointer by Robinson.
Meanwhile, Ole Miss simply had its way on offense. After the 20-20 tie, the Rebels scored on five consecutive possessions to orchestrate a 10-0 run. Eight of the points came on point-blank baskets, the other two coming on free throws after a foul underneath the goal. That made the score 30-20 Ole Miss at the 4:26 mark of the first half.
Things got worse for Georgia. Trailing 32-23, Marcus Thornton was called for an intentional foul with the Bulldogs on offense. That resulted in two free throws and possession for Ole Miss. Nick Williams made both shots with 1:12 to go. The half ended with the Bulldogs trailing by 11, 34-23.
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