ATHENS — For 20 minutes at a time, Georgia can look like one of the better teams in the SEC. But games last 40 minutes, and whether it’s the first half or the second, it’s the other 20 that has been the Bulldogs’ undoing.
On Saturday, it was the second half.
Florida outscored Georgia 48-36 after halftime for an 88-82 victory at Stegeman Coliseum. It was the sixth consecutive loss for the Bulldogs. For the Gators, it was their seventh win in their past eight and gives them yet another season sweep in the series against Georgia.
“It’s frustrating, real frustrating,” said guard Noah Thomasson, who scored a career-high 26 points for the Bulldogs. “We’re a new team. At times you can tell.”
For Georgia, the game stood as a referendum on the season. It was the 14th time in 14 home games that it led at halftime. And for the fourth time, a sellout crowd of 10,523 left the building disappointed.
None of them could have been more dispirited than the Bulldogs’ second-year coach Mike White, who was as emotional in a postgame press conference as he’s been at Georgia.
“I looked up and said to myself, ‘My gosh, this place is full, and we’ve struggled lately; I don’t want to repeat our losing streak again right here,’” White said afterward. “The fact that we’ve been losing the way we’ve been losing and to get an environment like that, it’s exciting, but I’m disappointed for our fans. I’m more disappointed for our guys.”
Now at 14-11 overall and 4-8 in league play, talk of a possible postseason has been silenced. The Bulldogs play Vanderbilt in Nashville on Wednesday (8:30 p.m., SEC Network).
Thomasson led four Georgia players in double figures, including Russel Tchewa with 15 and Justin Hill with 14. The Bulldogs shot 50% for the game but just 37.5% after halftime.
Florida had five players in double figures. They included freshman Thomas Haugh, who scored 17 after coming in with a scoring average of 1.2 per game in SEC games. Walter Clayton led the way with 21, and the Gators outrebounded Georgia 39-31, 15-7 on the offensive boards.
“We’ve got to guard a lot better,” White said. “We’ve got to make simpler decisions with the basketball. We did some stuff today that you could say is out of character, but when you’re saying that as often as we’re saying it, unfortunately that is our character right now.
The difference in the two halves was stark. Georgia went to its locker room disappointed to lead by only six points after a first half of offensive fireworks. Thomasson was lighting it up, with three 3-pointers, and Tchewa was unstoppable in the post, going 5-for-5. The teams adjourned with the Bulldogs leading 46-40.
But after falling behind by 11 points in the game’s first 6½ minutes, the Gators stayed within striking distance the majority of the half. It took only 1:20 of the second half for Florida to tie the score at 50-50 on a 3-pointer by Will Richard. Before you knew it, the Gators were ahead by eight.
“We challenged our team pretty good at halftime,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “… It was a little bit of asking our guys what we want our identity to be. Do we want to be a team really good offensively but look like a team that doesn’t have much interest in guarding? Or do we want to be a complete team and compete late into the season.”
As White would say later, “Florida’s an NCAA Tournament team.”
Georgia helped a lot. After committing only four turnovers in the first half, the Bulldogs would have 10 miscues in the second. Tchewa accounted for five of them. Worse, Georgia gave up several easy baskets in transition and committed some bone-headed fouls to boot.
In between came a UGA scoring drought of epic proportions. The Bulldogs when 10:12 of the second half without a field goal. Remarkably, when Blue Cain finally broke the streak with a 3-pointer at the 19:17 mark, the Bulldogs still led 63-60.
One earlier exchange in the first half ended up haunting the Bulldogs the rest of the way. Silas Demary and Tchewa missed four consecutive free throws on back-to-back possessions. Those two empty possessions allowed the Gators to keep Georgia in sight.
Ironically, White thought the raucous crowd may have distracted his players at times. He complained of seeing players jogging back on defense after scoring on the offensive end, gesturing to the crowd and looking into the stands.
It’s something he aims to address when the team returns to practice Monday.
“We’re not good enough to do that. Maybe some teams are, but we’re not. So, on Monday, we’re going to continue to work on sprinting back and getting into a defensive stance and stuff like that.”
White, who came to Georgia from Florida, found himself defending his work these past two seasons in Athens. He was adamant that the good times are on the way for Georgia basketball.
“Absolutely, we’re going to get it done here,” he said. “We’re going to be prepared on Wednesday, and we’re going to have a great practice on Monday. I wish we could practice in an hour.”
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