ATHENS — Georgia coach Mike White would like to gently remind Bulldog Nation that basketball season is well underway and – as the Bulldogs prepare for their SEC opener Wednesday at home – some pretty good things have been going on.
While their football brethren have been putting the finishing touches on a perfect season to date, the Bulldogs (10-3) have managed to record double-digit wins in a season before Jan. 1 for only the fourth time in program history. The 10th win came Dec. 28 against Rider, and it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Stegeman Coliseum was sold out for the hard-fought 78-72 victory.
Notching an 11th win against Auburn would be truly impressive. The Tigers (11-2) are rolling again under coach Bruce Pearl. They already have a conference win – a home triumph over Florida (White’s old team) one week ago.
“To finally get going in league play, it’s exciting,” said White, who is beginning his eighth SEC slate as a coach. “You come to Georgia to compete against the best of the best, and SEC men’s basketball now is arguably the best league in the country, to match a lot of other sports that have done it in this league for a long time.”
Getting past Auburn will be a tall order. As has been the case in recent years, the Tigers are a team of great size and “length” and prioritize rebounding. Offensive and defensive rebounding are areas in which Georgia has alternately struggled so far this season. The Bulldogs actually struggled on the defensive boards against a Rider team over which they had a size and athleticism advantage. The Tigers are fourth in the league in rebounding (39.1 pg), and the Bulldogs are seventh (38.4).
“If you’re not on point there, you’re going to give up offensive putbacks, you’re going to give up extra possessions,” White said. “So, a lot of strengths, a lot of weaknesses, but more of an understanding right now of what we can ride and what we can continue to improve upon to be competitive in league play.”
While Auburn has had the edge lately, the long, storied rivalry between the schools couldn’t be much more closely contested than it has been overall. Wednesday’s game is the 196th between the programs, with the Tigers owning a 99-96 advantage. The series has been tied five times in the 2000s. Auburn has won six of the past eight, including both meetings last season, to pull ahead.
As usual, players from Georgia are well represented on Auburn’s roster. Former Bulldog K.D. Johnson of Atlanta is now a junior for the Tigers and still plays the sixth-man role, averaging 9.8 points. Other Georgians include 6-11 junior Dylan Cardwell (Augusta), 6-1 guard Zep Jasper (Augusta) and 6-8 Jaylin Williams (Nahunta).
The Bulldogs continue to be led on offense by guard Kario Oquendo (14.3 ppg) and Terry Roberts (14.1). Jabri Abdur-Rahim came off the bench to nail five 3-pointers in the most-recent outing. Georgia’s 6-11 Braelen Bridges (7.6, 4.3) and 6-10 Frank Anselem (3.3, 3.3) man the posts.
Only three Bulldogs have played in every game, and six players have recorded a combined 16 DNPs because of injury or illness. So, White continues to tweak and experiment with the lineups.
“We found a little bit of offensive identity, and we’ll continue to progress toward our best version,” he said. “Like the rest of our league, it’s still a work in progress, probably us especially. Our ball security, our decisions, our assist-to-turnover ratio, our emotions, we talked about how our responses to adversities have gotten better.”
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