ATHENS — All Georgia has to do to move up to 10th in the SEC standings and avoid the humiliation of finishing again in the bottom four for the conference tournament is beat No. 13 Auburn on the Tigers’ Senior Night at Neville Arena on Saturday.
Well, the Bulldogs will need Ole Miss to lose to Texas A&M, too. But, hey, a team can dream, right?
The Tigers (23-7, 12-5 SEC) have their incentives as well, even though the regular-season crown was clinched by Tennessee earlier this week. Perhaps a more reasonable goal for Georgia (16-14, 6-11) would be just play better and maybe keep it closer than it did than the last time it met Auburn two weeks in Athens.
The Tigers rolled and won 97-76, which stands as the Bulldogs’ worst home loss of the season. Suffice it to say Auburn will have the visiting team’s full respect when they tipoff at 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network).
“They’re really, really good,” Georgia coach Mike White said on a video conference call with reporters Friday. “There’s a handful of teams that has a chance to win the whole thing, get to a Final Four. They’ve got to be in that conversation.”
That would be especially true if the Tigers could play NCAA Tournament games on their home floor. They’re not invincible – Kentucky beat them there 70-59 on Feb. 17 – but Auburn hardly has been threatened in every other contest there on the Plains. It is 14-1 at home, winning those games by the average margin of 21.6 points.
Among the blowouts is a 40-point shellacking of fellow SEC second-place team South Carolina (101-61 on Feb. 14). The Tigers are favored by 15.7 points in Saturday’s contest.
The Tigers need a victory to be assured of a top-four conference finish and double-bye in next week’s SEC tournament in Nashville, Tennessee. Auburn coach Bruce Pearl is taking nothing for granted.
Noting that the Bulldogs played them close for “about 30 minutes” in the last meeting, the Tigers’ 10th-year coach said, “I would expect Georgia to come in with confidence.”
It helps that the Bulldogs won their last time out. Their 69-66 win Tuesday over Ole Miss in Athens snapped a three-game losing streak and a five-game skid at home. Georgia dominated the majority of the game against the 20-win Rebels, but allowed a five-point possession because of a flagrant foul and a 70-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer to tighten the final margin.
All the things Georgia did in that victory will need to be apparent in Saturday’s contest for the Bulldogs to have a chance. That included a plus-nine rebounding advantage and a plus-14 margin in points in the paint.
Georgia also must shoot much better from the perimeter. After establishing themselves as a solid 3-point shooting team this season, the Bulldogs are 14-of-62 beyond the arc the past two games.
Playing at Auburn always has been a tough proposition. While the overall series between these longtime rivals is tight – the Tigers lead 101-97 – Auburn boasts a 64-26 advantage on The Plains.
The Bulldogs vow to not be intimidated.
“I’m excited,” said guard Noah Thomasson, Georgia’s leading scorer in both overall (12.8 ppg) and in SEC play (13.2 ppg). “That’s what I wanted when I came to Georgia, to play in hostile environments in the SEC. You know, they call Auburn’s gym ‘The Jungle.’ It’s just about not turning the ball over, taking good shots and not letting the crowd affect the game. We can’t wait.”
The Bulldogs may be without one of their best players for the game. Senior Jabri Abdur-Rahim did not practice Friday in Athens before Georgia boarded their bus for the three-hour ride. Georgia’s No. 2 scorer, Abdur-Rahim sat out the last game with an ankle injury.
“He’s doing everything he can (to play),” White said.
It has been a trying season for the Bulldogs, who certainly expected much more when they were sitting at 14-5 (4-2 SEC) in late January. They’ve lost nine of 11 since and sit as the SEC’s 11th-place team heading into the regular-season finale.
Georgia has made a concerted effort to get younger down the stretch. While point guard Silas Demary Jr. has started every game except Senior Day on Saturday, fellow freshmen Blue Cain and Dylan James moved into the starting lineup in the last week. When the three of them started against the Rebels, it was the first time since the 2020 SEC tournament when Anthony Edwards, Toumani Camara and Sahvir Wheeler got the nod that the Bulldogs started three freshmen at once. James, a 6-foot-8 forward from Winter Haven, Florida, responded by coming up a rebound shy of a double-double.
White insists that has nothing to do with trying to convince the freshmen content and out of the transfer portal. It’s part of a continuing effort to find the winning combination on the floor. Georgia has used 11 different starting fives consisting of 11 different players, including eight different lineups in the past 11 games.
Whoever ends up on the floor for the Bulldogs on Saturday will have to play out of their minds to pull off the upset. Just keeping it close will be the first goal.
Georgia is 7-7 in one-possession contests in the final five minutes of regulation this season and 5-4 in one-possession affairs in the final 30 seconds.
“We’ll have to play, by far, our best game of the season to have some a chance,” White said.
