Georgia plays better, but comes up short again vs. Alabama

ATHENS -- Not ready for prime time.

That’s not meant as a criticism, but it was the main takeaway from Georgia’s admirable but losing effort against No. 8 Alabama on Saturday at Stegeman Coliseum.

The Bulldogs led by 14 points in the first half and were within a single possession with a minute to play. But it was the Crimson Tide who made all the important plays when they mattered – including a key 3-point shot with 46 seconds remaining -- and the SEC regular-season champions pulled away at the end for an 89-79 victory.

“Yeah, I’m not a moral victory kind of dude,” said Georgia point guard Sahvir Wheeler, who logged yet another double-double with 18 points and 10 assists. “I’m always about win or lose; you either win or lose a game. We did great things to put ourselves in position to win the game. But at the end of the day we did not win the game.”

At the end of the day, the Bulldogs finished the regular season 14-11 overall and 7-11 in SEC play. They’ll enter the SEC Tournament as the No. 10 seed. Georgia will face Missouri, the No. 7 seed, at 7 p.m. ET Thursday in Nashville and will have to win the tournament championship to play beyond next week.

Alabama (21-6, 16-2) enters as the top seed.

The difference Saturday: UGA had 20 turnovers and went 13-for-23 from the free-throw line. The Crimson Tide had 22 turnovers as well and also weren’t great on free throws (13-of-20). But Alabama managed to get its act together and went 8-of-10 from 3-point range and outscored Georgia 59-43 in the second half.

Nevertheless, the positives both now and the future far out-weighed the negatives for the Bulldogs. This was, after all, the conference champs and a team that had beaten them by 33 points in Tuscaloosa only three weeks ago.

“I’m disappointed in the loss; there ain’t no doubt about that,” third-year coach Tom Crean said. “But I’m not discouraged in our effort or our work. I saw some sustainable growth we can take into next week.”

After Georgia led by as many 14 points in the first half and trailed by as many 10 in the second, it came down to this: Johnson was at the free-throw line with 1:13 for the second of two free throws in the midst of a late 5-0 Bulldogs run. He missed the shot, Alabama got the rebound and 27 seconds later, Keon Ellis buried a 3-pointer with 46 seconds to play that made the score 85-79.

Toumani Camara missed on a driving layup on the other end, and the Bulldogs would miss three more shots as Alabama closed out the game at the free-throw line.

Bama’s bench outscored Georgia’s 33-24, thanks mainly to Jahvon Quinerly’s 18 points, all coming after halftime. He led five Tide players in double figures, including John Petty with 15 and Jaden Shackleford with 14. Bama throttled the Bulldogs on the boards, 45-32.

Georgia got 16 from Johnson, and Camara overcame foul trouble to finish with 13 points and seven rebounds. The Bulldogs were 8-of-19 from 3, but missed seven of 11 in the second half.

But the postgame vibe was closer to encouragement than dejection.

“That’s the team that won the league, so us losing by four or five, or whatever, is way better than our game last time,” Johnson said. “If we play like we closed out the game and the first half we had, if we play like that the whole game, it’d been better. … But I feel good about us going into the SEC tournament.”

Said Wheeler: “We had good spurts, good sequences in the game. … It came down to one possession with a minute left, and the dude hit a tough shot. We’ve just got to keep putting ourselves into those situations.”