Despite signs of improvement, the Georgia men’s basketball team regressed Wednesday.
On senior night in Stegeman Coliseum, the Bulldogs (15-15, 5-12 SEC) turned the ball over 16 times, including nine giveaways in the second half, leading to a 68-54 loss to rival Florida (19-11, 11-6 SEC).
“When you turn it over, you’re in real trouble,” head coach Tom Crean said. “The bottom line is we’d been better taking care of the ball and we’d been better defensively and we definitely took a step back and (Florida) took advantage of it.”
In its final home game, Georgia led early but self-inflicted errors eroded a 13-point lead. A two-minute stretch in the second half, where the Bulldogs turned the ball over on four consecutive possessions, proved to be the difference. The meltdown began with a Rayshaun Hammonds travel with 6:50 left. Thirty-eight seconds later, Anthony Edwards walked, leading to a second straight Florida 3-pointer and, at the time, giving the Gators their largest lead of the game.
After Edwards drew a non-shooting foul on the next possession, Hammonds threw an errant pass on the inbounds play, resulting in a Florida dunk. Sahvir Wheeler ended the stretch of mayhem with another travel, leaving the Bulldogs down nine points with 4:55 to go. During the turnover-fest, Florida went on an 8-0 run and held onto the lead for the reminder of the contest.
When all was said and done, Florida scored 26 points off of Georgia’s 16 giveaways. Hammonds ended with six turnovers and Edwards three.
“(Florida) changed their defense and when their defense gained energy, their offense could gain from the defense and make shots, which changed everything for us,” senior Jordan Harris said. “They got into that zone that they were in and packed it in. It was hard for us to score because we weren’t prepared for that. So, you know, it happens.”
Being careless with the basketball isn’t a new development for Georgia this season. The Bulldogs are last in the SEC with 14.9 turnovers per game and second-to-last in turnover margin (-1.7). Both stats rank them in the bottom 50 of all Division I teams.
Georgia will end its regular season at LSU on Saturday, still with a chance to finish the campaign with a winning record.
“It’s disappointing (to be committing this many turnovers), but we’re not a consistent team and we haven’t been all year,” Crean said. “Inconsistency has been the number one weakness of our team all year. We’ve been playing better, but the defense and making the simple passes has been a big part of that.”
The Bulldogs have shown improvement on offense. Georgia averaged 83.5 points per game in its last four contests and protected the ball better than they have for much of conference play. Over that four-game stretch, the Bulldogs were 3-1, including a 65-55 win over No. 13 Auburn.
But youth and inexperience showed again on Wednesday.
“We probably for a little stretch there started to think about our own offense, rather than thinking about how much it needed to move,” Crean said. “That’s the immaturity of this team that comes at times when we get a lead. We’ve got to grow through that. That’s part of building the program, that’s part of getting the culture right, the way we have to have it here.”
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