Georgia’s home finale ends with a thud vs. Florida

And it didn’t have to go this way.

From the looks of it, Georgia actually played harder and more inspired than it has in weeks. Even after falling behind by as many as 12 in the second half, the Bulldogs got back to within two points with 7:19 to play and six with 43 seconds remaining. They just couldn’t get shots to fall in those meaningful moments.

“Sometimes you feel like your guys deserve a little success,” said Georgia first-year-coach Mike White. “They just wouldn’t go in for us. ... We shoot it better than that and we need to, of course.”

The Bulldogs’ most reliable scorers struggled to get the ball to go down. Guard Kario Oquendo scored a team-high 20 points but went 0-for-7 from 3-point range and missed five of his 15 foul shots. Center Braelen Bridges, a nearly 60% shooter on the season coming off a 5-for-5 game, made just 3-of-11 on this night.

“Different nights show you different things,” Oquendo said. “Like, last time I went 3-for-4 from 3, this game I went ‘0-fer.’ You can say people are tired, but we’ve still got to play hard every single game.”

Meanwhile, the Gators (15-15, 8-9) saw 53.7% of their shots go down. Will Richard, a sophomore from Fairburn, was particularly effective. He scored a game-high 24 points and was 5-of-8 from behind the arc. It represented season highs on both counts for the first-year transfer from Belmont.

Myreon Jones, a 6-foot-3 guard who played for White at Florida last year, added 14 points and 12 rebounds. White brought Jones to Florida from Penn State before last season with the Gators.

White insisted losing to Florida -- twice -- in his first season after leaving did not sting anymore than any other opponent.

“No, not at all,” White said. “In fact, there’s few players I root for in the league other than the players that I coach and it was a lot of those guys on that bench. There’s a lot of people on that sideline I have strong relationships, of course, and I was happy to see a few of them play well.”

Star center Colin Castleton, who played two seasons at Florida under White, is out for the season with a broken right hand.

Guard Justin Hill, who poured in 16 points for the Bulldogs, made a pair of free throws at the 7:19 mark of the second half and wiped out nearly all of what had been a 12-point deficit. But it took only 17 seconds for Richard to answer with one of his five treys from the wing to push the lead back to five.

Georgia would stay close for the next three minutes. Then, trailing by seven with less than four minutes to play, Hill missed back-to-back 3-pointers, rebounding his own miss in between. That was the first two of five consecutive missed shots by the Bulldogs.

“I had an open shot, missed, it came back to me somehow, felt confident enough to shoot again, it just didn’t go in,” Hill said. “But I still feel like they were pretty good shots.”

Georgia wouldn’t score again until Oquendo made a free throw with 1:30 left. Seventh-year senior Jailyn Ingram came off the bench and nailed a 3-pointer for UGA that got it within six points with 43 seconds to go. But the Bulldogs wouldn’t score again.

Credit: Tony Walsh/UGAAA

Credit: Tony Walsh/UGAAA

The loss -- coupled with Mississippi State’s win over South Carolina in Starkville an hour or so later -- closed the door on Georgia finishing among the top 10 seeds for next week’s tournament.

Now the Bulldogs can focus only on beating South Carolina, which has just three SEC wins, in Columbia on Saturday (noon, SECN).

“Another opportunity,” White said. “We’re trying to close out the season the right way, just like South Carolina’s trying to close out the season. Florida came in here trying to break through. We’ll be trying to do the same thing.”

Said Oquendo: “Just keep fighting, keep fighting for wins and stay alive. Once we get out of South Carolina, it’s win or go home.”