The season ended Saturday for the Georgia men’s basketball team with a too-large deficit and a too-late comeback adding up to a 79-71 loss to Louisiana Tech in a second-round NIT game.
Georgia fell behind 18-2 five minutes into the game and trailed by as many as 26 points in the first half. The Bulldogs then tried to work their way back into the game in the second half, cutting Louisiana Tech’s lead to single digits with about seven minutes remaining and to four points with 19 seconds left, but the comeback proved predictably futile.
“We had a terrible start and dug such a big hole that we just couldn’t get all the way out of it,” UGA coach Mark Fox said. “We … didn’t play well enough at the start to have a chance of winning at the end.”
So a season of highs and lows — a season that saw the Bulldogs lose four of their first five non-conference games before rallying to tie Kentucky for second place in the SEC regular-season standings — ends with a 20-14 record and a distasteful final performance.
“I’m an awful loser, but I’m also, I think, smart enough to see the big picture,” Fox said in a Stegeman Coliseum corridor less than an hour after his team’s season ended. “As I told our guys, you’ve got the sting of a loss today that you feel. But as you look back, you’ll see that you finished second in this league; that you won 12 (SEC) games, which only one (Georgia) team in 80 years has done better than; that you won 20 (overall) games; that you went to the postseason; that you advanced in the postseason.
“So there are some things that I think we’ll look back on and say, ‘Hey, if we approach this right, we can get better and take the next step.’”
For now, though, Louisiana Tech takes the next step to the NIT quarterfinals. Also known as the Bulldogs, Louisiana Tech finished the regular season in a four-way tie for first place in Conference USA before losing its league tournament final to Tulsa.
Saturday’s win improved Louisiana Tech’s record to 29-7.
“Obviously, it was a very big win for our program,” coach Michael White said. “Georgia is a very good team, the second-place team in the SEC, and to come in here and beat them in their building was significant.”
His game plan worked perfectly from the start.
“We talked about it all week — to start with our pressure and try to force them to turn the ball over,” Louisiana Tech guard Alex Hamilton said.
Georgia committed six turnovers in the game’s first five minutes as the visitors built the 18-2 lead.
“We were just not dialed in,” UGA forward Brandon Morris said. “You could just tell right out of the gate that a lot of players’ heads weren’t in it.”
The combination of Georgia turnovers (13 in the first half and 19 overall) and Louisiana Tech shooting (successful on seven of its first eight attempts from 3-point range) enabled the visitors to build their largest lead of the game at 39-13 with 7:27 left in the opening half. Georgia trailed by 19 points at halftime, and Fox used his final timeout three minutes into the second half.
Georgia cut the deficit to nine points with 6:52 remaining in the game, to seven with 4:27 remaining, to six with 1:10 remaining and, finally, to four on a J.J. Frazier three-pointer with 19 seconds left. Louisiana Tech ended the game with a pair of free throws and a break-away dunk.
Backup guard Frazier was Georgia’s leading scorer with 15 points. Starting guard Charles Mann scored 13 points, but committed seven turnovers, including five in the first half.
“I just didn’t play well,” Mann said.
As soon as the game ended, UGA players began to think of what next season could hold for a team that has only one senior.
“I’m looking forward to what we’ve got coming back,” said Mann, a sophomore.
“I think we’re going to have a great team next year,” said Morris, also a sophomore. “Making it this far is a real big bonus for us. I think we’re going to be able to build off it and get better this summer and come back looking forward to accomplishing more next season.”
