Georgia coach Mark Fox worried about Mercer Tuesday night.
In addition to the memory of the Bears almost beating his team last year, Fox said his players didn't seem sharp in the shootaround earlier in the day. He said they looked like they weren't handling the success of last week's win at USC, the team's first true road win this season.
But after a hit-or-miss first half, the Bulldogs found their focus, breaking open a tie game after the half to post a 72-58 victory at Stegeman Coliseum.
"To succeed in this league, you have to learn how to deal with both adversity and success well," Fox said. "We still have some work to do in that aspect."
Gerald Robinson led the Bulldogs (6-5) and all scorers with 20 points, giving him 57 points in the past three games. Connor Nolte and Vincent Williams added 11 each. After a scoreless first half in which he played just six minutes because of foul trouble, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added eight points, including five during a key stretch.
"We've turned things around a bit," Robinson said. "We've played hard, played with intensity for the entire game, not just playing 20 minutes."
With Caldwell-Pope, the team's leading scorer, out for most of the first half, Georgia's offense struggled, Bulldog big men failing to finish several makeable plays. Nolte and Robinson picked up the scoring void left by Caldwell-Pope, combining for 14 points to erase an eight-point Mercer lead. Nolte's 3-pointer from the corner tied the game at 30 at the half. The Bulldogs hit five of their first 11 3-pointers.
With Caldwell-Pope back in the game to start the second period, Georgia found its intensity on defense and its offense began to flow. Langston Hall's 3-pointer with 16:31 left marked Mercer's only points during an eight-minute span. By then, Caldwell-Pope had sparked the Bulldogs to a 13-point lead with a steal and dunk.
"They had guys who were hitting shots and we just had one of those nights," Mercer (7-5) coach Bob Hoffman said. "They beat us, but we didn't play well."
After Chris Smith sunk a 3-pointer for Mercer to close within 10, Nolte quickly answered with his third 3-pointer to restore the Bulldogs' lead to 49-36.
"We just played really good defense in the second half," Nolte said. "We came out with confidence and that was really important."
That's what Fox said he wants to see in every game. Since giving up a season-high 43 points in the second half of the 68-56 loss to Georgia Tech on Dec. 7, the Bulldogs have given up 34 points to USC in the second half and 28 to Mercer. Georgia will host Furman on Friday.
"We had a lot of players pitch in and contribute in the second half and that's definitely the most satisfying aspect of the game for us," Fox said.
Robinson picked up the offense after Nolte's 3-pointer, scoring 10 of his team's 13 points in a four-minute stretch that sealed the win.
"He made a lot of great plays in the last five minutes," Fox said. "I'm sure there were a lot of plays in the first half he wishes he could have back."
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