Marshall Henderson of Ole Miss is considered one of the better players in the SEC. After facing him down nose-to-nose in an emotional contest at Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday, Georgia’s Kenny Gaines has to be included in that discussion.
Gaines, a sophomore guard, led the Bulldogs with 21 points and got the best of Henderson in a head-to-head defensive matchup down the stretch. He blocked a Henderson 3-pointer, blocked one of his layup attempts and drew a four-point play off the Rebels’ star guard to lead Georgia to an impressive second-half comeback and pull out a hard-fought 61-60 victory before a sellout crowd of 10,523.
When Gaines made a 3-pointer to give the Bulldogs a 60-57 lead with 46.2 seconds remaining, he turned to the senior guard and said, “I think I’ve got a little Marshall Henderson Syndrome.”
“He kind of chuckled at that,” said Gaines, who was 5-of-8 on 3-pointers.
“Give Kenny all the credit for keeping his composure and coming out in the second half and playing extremely well,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “I’m going to guess he sat (on the bench with foul trouble) for 13 or 14 minutes in the first half. For him to play that well in the second half is a real credit.”
Gaines played only seven minutes (scoring two points) in the first half because of foul trouble.
Henderson led all scorers with 24 points and drew a technical foul — just as he did in the waning seconds last year in Oxford — that resulted in a Ole Miss lead with 1:55 to play.
“He’s a determined basketball player,” Gaines said of Henderson, the SEC’s fourth-leading scorer. “He’s determined to get to his spots and get his points and get his shots off. He’s an offensive threat. That’s his job, and he does a good job of it.”
But Georgia overcame this time. Charles Mann, who finished with 17 points, made the second of two free throws for the winning margin with 1.5 seconds left. A length-of-the-court, inbounds pass went off an Ole Miss player to end the game.
The victory was the fourth in a row for the Bulldogs (14-10, 8-4 SEC) and gives them sole possession of third place in the league. They were tied with Ole Miss (16-9, 7-5) coming in.
Georgia now plays at Tennessee (15-10, 6-6) on Tuesday and at South Carolina (10-15, 3-9) on Saturday.
Led by Marcus Thornton’s 11 rebounds, the Bulldogs out-rebounded the Rebels 49-34. Thornton also had three blocks and three assists. Mann had 8 rebounds.
Thornton was whistled for hitting Henderson in the mouth with an elbow with 1:55 remaining. A similar call on Gaines last year in Oxford helped the Rebels come back from a 10-point deficit in the final seconds and eventually win in overtime. This time, Henderson’s free throws and another by Jarvis Summers on the ensuing possession gave Ole Miss a 57-55 lead with 1:52 to go.
But Nemanja Djurisic answered for Georgia with a driving, baseline layup 26 seconds later. After Ole Miss missed a 3, Gaines hit his bomb from the left wing. It came after Thornton rebounded Djurisic’s missed 3 and got the ball out to Gaines.
Derrick Millinghaus answered with a traditional three-point play, drawing Mann’s fourth foul in the lane with 33.2 to go. That set up the final play, which amounted to Mann dribbling the clock down inside the final 10 seconds, then drawing a foul on 6-foot-9 Dwight Coleby with 1.5 seconds to play. He missed the first free throw, but made the second.
“I knew I was going to make it,” said Mann, who came in a 68 percent free-throw shooter and Saturday was 12-of-16 (75 percent). “I had a lot of confidence in myself. The first one felt pretty good. I just wanted to stay composed, and I kept on believing in myself and had a lot of confidence and knocked down the second one.”
