ATHENS -- Continuing its long journey back from irrelevance, the Georgia men's basketball program has found its way onto the radar of the "bracketologists."
Or, to put it another way, back onto the bubble.
For the first time in several years, late-season projections of which teams will reach the NCAA tournament -- "Bubble Watch," Sports Illustrated calls the exercise -- must factor in Georgia.
The consensus less than a month before Selection Sunday: The Bulldogs (17-7, 6-4 SEC) are in pretty good position to receive one of the 37 at-large berths in the 68-team field if they win three of their final six regular-season games to finish 9-7 in the league. And in very good position if they win four of six to finish 10-6.
A caller to Mark Fox's radio show Monday night asked the Georgia coach to play bracketologist and project the SEC record needed to reach the tournament.
"With the strength of the Eastern Division this year, I think that 10-6 would probably put you in a real comfortable position on Selection Sunday," Fox replied. "My guess, with this division being as strong as it is, is that 9-7 would probably be pretty good also. But that's for someone else to decide."
A potentially pivotal game is Wednesday night's against Vanderbilt in Stegeman Coliseum (7 p.m. on ESPNU). The teams are tied for second place in the SEC East, but Vanderbilt is more highly regarded in the polls and in the RPI. So a win, even at home, would be an impressive addition to Georgia's NCAA credentials.
Fox began talking to his players about building a tournament resume long before the season began.
"I'll be honest: The first time I talked to them about a resume game, probably in August, I'm not sure they knew what that was," Fox said Tuesday. "They haven't been in this position before. That's not their fault. But it is their first time, so being able to manage that is certainly a challenge."
The key, he said, is "staying grounded, listening to the inside voices and not everybody on the outside. ... We have to stay on the same page, and we have to continue to just try and be the team we're capable of. ... We can't get caught up in all the wildness that comes with it. It's a great part of the college game, but we've got to be able to deal with it."
The Bulldogs last reached the NCAA tournament in 2008, when they came from far off the radar to claim an automatic-qualifier spot by winning the tornado-stricken SEC tournament in Atlanta. The last time the Dogs reached the NCAA tournament as an at-large team was 2002, and the last time they were even in the vicinity of the bubble at this point in the season was 2007, when they wound up in the NIT.
So it has been a while since Georgia fans or players concerned themselves with the variables of the bubble -- RPI and strength of schedule and "good wins" and "bad losses."
"It feels good," senior forward Jeremy Price said, to have meaningful games at this point in the season. "It's about time that we started feeling like this around this time of the year."
Three bracketologists -- Joe Lunardi of ESPN, Jerry Palm of collegerpi.com and Andy Glockner of si.com -- have Georgia making the NCAA tournament in their latest projections. All pegged the Bulldogs a No. 10 seed as of Tuesday.
Projections, though, change with actual games. And Georgia has work to do -- winning to do -- to stay on the right side of the bracketology between now and March 13, Selection Sunday.
The analysts have Georgia, which has an RPI of 41, as the fifth SEC East team in the field, behind division-leader Florida (12 RPI), Kentucky (14), Vanderbilt (15) and Tennessee (25). Alabama, which leads the weak SEC West with an 8-2 league record, has an 87 RPI and according to the analysts, shaky footing on the bubble.
RPI -- Rating Percentage Index, a tool long used by the NCAA selection committee -- is a computerized measure of a team's strength based on its winning percentage against Division I opponents, their opponents' winning percentage and their opponents' opponents' winning percentage, and there is a heavier weighting for road wins than home wins. The selection committee is believed to put as much, if not more, stock in the RPI of teams you beat than in your own RPI.
That leads to the concept of "good wins." Georgia appears to fall short in that category; the Bulldogs are 2-7 vs. teams in the RPI top 50, with the "good wins" coming over Kentucky and UAB. Last week's home loss to Xavier (No. 19 RPI) was a squandered opportunity. A win over Vanderbilt -- or a win at Tennessee on Saturday or at Florida on Feb. 24 -- would help.
Conversely, Georgia doesn't have any "bad losses." The average RPI of the seven teams that have beaten the Bulldogs is 18, and the worst is 33 (Temple).
"Hopefully we can continue to avoid the ‘ugly L'," Fox said.
An ugly L, for example, would be for Georgia to lose at home March 2 to LSU, which has an RPI of 218.
The consensus is that the bubble is soft this season, meaning not as much competition for the final at-large spots as in some years. Also, there's more room in the tournament, which expands from 65 teams to 68 this year.
The selection committee's mandate is to evaluate each potential at-large team as if it were an independent -- that is, not to consider how many teams from any particular league or division are getting bids. The SEC East hopes for a windfall.
"It wouldn't surprise me," Fox said, "if there were five teams from this division that got in."
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